The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was an act enacted by the Confederation's Congress to provide for the settlement and political incorporation of the territory of the North-West of the River Ohio (that the U.S. acquired after the American Revolutionary War) in a peaceful and orderly way.
The ordinance established a division of the Northwest Territory into not less than three and nor more than five States, and that each state was to be governed by a governor, secretary, and three judges appointed by Congress until it attained a population of 5,000 adult free males, at which time it would become a territory and could form its own representative legislature.
