Arthur St. Clair portrait   Save
Ohio Governors Collection
Description: Portrait of Arthur St. Clair (1736[?]-1818). St. Clair served as governor of the Northwest Territory from 1788 to 1802 . As Ohio moved towards statehood, St. Clair actively opposed Ohio's admittance to the United States. He hoped that what is now Ohio would not become a single state but rather two states. Thomas Worthington, Nathaniel Massie, Michael Baldwin, and several others urged President Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, to make Ohio a state. Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican-controlled United States Congress responded by issuing the Enabling Act of 1802. This act called on the people of Ohio to form a constitutional convention and to fulfill the other requirements of the Northwest Ordinance to become a state. St. Clair denounced the Enabling Act. Jefferson responded by removing St. Clair as governor. Ohio became the seventeenth state of the United States on February 19, 1803. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AV105_1_1
Subjects: Ohio--Governors--Portraits; Ohio History--State and Local Government
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)