Title: Minnesota State Boundaries | MNopedia
Headings: Minnesota State Boundaries
Minnesota State Boundaries
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Content: They insisted that this was the only possible demarcation. Wisconsin, they said, had to include all of the remaining land in the old Northwest Territory. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 had stated that no more than five states should be formed out of the territory. Congress, however, proposed to limit Wisconsin to its present western boundary. The line follows a straight course due south from a specified point on the St. Louis River to the St. Croix River. It then runs along the center of the St. Croix and the Mississippi. Delegates at Wisconsin's constitutional conventions contested this boundary. Generally, the people who lived in the St. Paul–Stillwater area did not want to belong to the state of Wisconsin. They preferred a new state to the northwest of Wisconsin. As a result, they tried to get Wisconsin's northwest boundary placed well east of the St. Croix.