The amusement which this absurd and thoroughly Jeffersonian nomenclature is bound to cause ought not to detract from the really important features of the Ordinance.

In each of the districts into which the country was divided the settlers might be authorized by Congress, for the purpose of establishing a temporary government, to adopt the constitution and laws of any one of the original States.

When any such area should have twenty thousand free inhabitants it might receive authority from Congress to establish a permanent constitution and government and should be entitled to a representative in Congress with the right of debating but not of voting.

And finally, when the inhabitants of any one of these districts should equal in number those of the least populous of the thirteen original States, their delegates should be admitted into Congress on an equal footing.
Jefferson's ordinance, though adopted, was never put into operation.
Various explanations have been offered for this failure to give it a fair trial.

It has been said that Jefferson himself was to blame.