The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which provided for government of the largely unsettled frontier area north of the Ohio River and for an orderly, three-stage transition of the territories from control by national government to full and equal statehood, joins the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution to form a trinity of founding-era documents that charted the course of a new nation. The Northwest Ordinance aroused conflict in Indiana and more broadly among U.S. citizens over slavery and sectionalism, states' rights, representative government, western expansion, and individual freedom. The Indiana Territory was created in 1800, and its first governor was William Henry Harrison. Many of Harrison's fellow settlers resented their lack of a voice in government and pushed hard for transition to the second, semi-representative stage as promised in the ordinance. The force of numbers pushed Harrison to agree to movement to the second stage. The pattern of conflict was repeated in moving to the third stage although the conflict was more intense and enduring. A population census in 1815 counted 63,897 Hoosiers, more than enough to meet the requirements of the Northwest Ordinance for statehood. In 1816, 43 men wrote a constitution for Indiana, and on December 11, 1816, President James Madison approved statehood. The Indiana constitution of 1816 ended the controversy over slavery by making Indiana a free state. (SM)