Special Message

Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives:

By an act of Congress passed on the 26th of May, 1790, it was declared that the inhabitants of the territory of the United States south of the river Ohio should enjoy all the privileges, benefits, and advantages set forth in the ordinance of Congress for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, and that the government of the said territory south of the Ohio should be similar to that which was then exercised in the territory northwest of the Ohio, except so far as was otherwise provided in the conditions expressed in an act of Congress passed the 2d of April, 1790, entitled "An act to accept a cession of the claims of the State of North Carolina to a certain district of western territory."

Among the privileges, benefits, and advantages thus secured to the inhabitants of the territory south of the river Ohio appear to be the right of' forming a permanent constitution and State government, and of admission as a State, by its Delegates, into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever, when it should have therein 60,000 free inhabitants; provided the constitution and government so to be formed should be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in the articles of the said ordinance.

As proofs of the several requisites to entitle the territory south of the river Ohio to be admitted as a State into the Union, Governor Blount has transmitted a return of the enumeration of its inhabitants and a printed copy of the constitution and form of government on which they have agreed, which, with his letters accompanying the same, are herewith laid before Congress.

GO. WASHINGTON.