It provided for an indissoluble Union, a Union which should grow until it could relentlessly crush nullification and secession; for the States founded under it were the creatures of the Nation, and were by the compact declared forever inseparable from it.
New Method of Creating Colonies.
In one respect the ordinance marked a new departure of the most radical kind.

The adoption of the policy therein outlined has worked a complete revolution in the way of looking at new communities formed by colonization from the parent country.

Yet the very completeness of this revolution to a certain extent veils from us its importance.

We cannot realize the greatness of the change because of the fact that the change was so great; for we cannot now put ourselves in the mental attitude which regarded the old course as natural.

The Ordinance of 1787 decreed that the new States should stand in every respect on an equal footing with the old; and yet should be individually bound together with them.
This was something entirely new in the history of colonization.