Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

As America continues to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,

today marks an anniversary of a significant step toward fulfilling those self-evident truths that are proclaimed in that founding

document. The Northwest Ordinance, also known as an ordinance for the government of the

territory of the United States Northwest of the River, Ohio, was signed on July 13, 1787.

It's one of four organic laws that serve as the foundational laws for our nation.

The others include the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the first

constitution that America had, and the current U.S. Constitution.

Now, the Northwest Ordinance was first passed under the Articles of Confederation, and it stipulated

that the settlement and eventual statehood of the federal territory beyond the original 13 states,

which is now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota,

was to be free territory. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence,

was instrumental in Virginia gifting this land to the union on the condition that it be without slavery.

Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance reads as follows, quote,

There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.

Now, it's an extraordinary thing that the first major law governing the expansion of the U.S.

in the very same year that the U.S. Constitution was written prohibited slavery.

The preamble stated that these new territories should extend, and I quote here, the fundamental

principles of civil and religious liberty. Two years later, the law was reaffirmed by the first

Congress of the United States under the new constitution, ensuring that it would remain good

standing law. Now, the Northwest Ordinance does not absolve our nation from its original

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