2 Chron 2
2 Cor 12
Psalm 97; Psalm 98
Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance
On July 13, 1787, Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance, structuring settlement of the Northwest Territory and creating a policy for the addition of new states to the nation. The members of Congress knew that if their new confederation were to survive intact, it had to resolve the states’ competing claims to western territory.
In 1781, Virginia began by ceding its extensive land claims to Congress, a move that made other states more comfortable in doing the same. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson first proposed a method of incorporating these western territories into the United States. His plan effectively turned the territories into colonies of the existing states. Ten new northwestern territories would select the constitution of an existing state and then wait until its population reached 20,000 to join the confederation as a full member. Congress, however, feared that the new states—10 in the Northwest as well as Kentucky, Tennessee and Vermont—would quickly gain enough power to outvote the old ones and never passed the measure.
Three years later, the Northwest Ordinance proposed that three to five new states be created from the Northwest Territory. Instead of adopting the legal constructs of an existing state, each territory would have an appointed governor and council. When the population reached 5,000, the residents could elect their own assembly, although the governor would retain absolute veto power. When 60,000 settlers resided in a territory, they could draft a constitution and petition for full statehood. The ordinance provided for civil liberties and public education within the new territories, but did not allow slavery. Pro-slavery Southerners were willing to go along with this because they hoped that the new states would be populated by white settlers from the South. They believed that although these Southerners would have no enslaved workers of their own, they would not join the growing abolition movement of the North.
Psalm 97 is similar to Psalm 96 because its message is, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”
The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof [Psa 97:1].
This is not a hymn of Christ's first coming to earth but of His second coming to earth.
Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him, all ye gods [Psa 97:7].
“Gods” should be translated angels—compare Heb 1:6—“And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.”
Psalm 98 is the second stanza of the new song of worship.
O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvelous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory [Psa 98:1].
Jay