It was impolitic to recognize the appeal at that time, but it seems to have been generally understood that sooner or later Vermont would come in as a full-fledged State.
It might have been a revolutionary suggestion by Maryland, when the cession of western lands was under discussion, that Congress should have sole power to fix the western boundaries of the States, but her further proposal was not even regarded as radical, that Congress should "lay out the land beyond the boundaries so ascertained into separate and independent states." It seems to have been taken as a matter of course in the procedure of Congress and was accepted by the States.

But the idea was one thing; its carrying out was quite another.

Here was a great extent of western territory which would be valuable only as it could be sold to prospective settlers.

One of the first things these settlers would demand was protection--protection against the Indians, possibly also against the British and the Spanish, and protection in their ordinary civil life.

The former was a detail of military organization and was in due time provided by the establishment of military forts and garrisons; the latter was the problem which Jefferson's committee was attempting to solve.
The Ordinance of 1784 disregarded the natural physical features of the western country and, by degrees of latitude and meridians of longitude, arbitrarily divided the public domain into rectangular districts, to the first of which the following names were applied: Sylvania, Michigania, Cherronesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, Pelisipia.