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It is hardly a misfortune that the map was not encumbered with the names suggested by Jefferson for the new States, Cherronesus, Metropotamia, Assenisippia, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia; but another clause was voted down which would have prohibited slavery in the Territories after 1800.

With such examples in mind, we may see that the names of the proposed ten states, from which the failure of Jefferson's ordinance has delivered us, illustrated the prevalent taste of the time rather than any idiosyncrasy of the man. The proposed names were Sylvania, Michigania, Chersonesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia.

Rivers and mountains appeared where nature had made no such provision, while the names, quaint and uncouth, with which Jefferson proposed to burden states yet in embryo sprawled in large letters across the yellow plain. "Assenispia Polypotamia Chersonesus Michigania," read Rand. "Barbarous! I could name them better out of Ossian!" He traced with his finger the lower Ohio.

And Thomas Jefferson theorized in his study over the toy states of Metropotamia and Polypotamia brought his ...trees and houses out And planted cities all about. But it remained for George Washington, the Virginia planter, to catch, in something of its actual grandeur, the vision of a Republic stretching towards the setting sun, bound and unified by paths of inland commerce.

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.