Early Laws
The Clarke Historical Library houses some of the earliest laws to govern the lives of American citizens in the Northwest Territory.
Arthur St. Clair as governor of the new Northwest Territory, helped write the first American law to govern Michigan. Published as Laws of the Territory of the United States North-west of the Ohio in 1796, and better known as the "Maxwell Code" after the printer who published them, this volume was not only Michigan's earliest American law, the book was the first published in the Old Northwest Territory.
Soon the vast Northwest Territory was subdivided. The section that would eventually become the State of Michigan began to draft its own laws. On July 24, 1805, the first Supreme Court for the Michigan Territory was created. From July through October 1805, a series of statutes, eventually known as the Woodward Code, after Judge Augustus Woodward, were created and published.
Complaints about the Woodward Code began to mount soon after its inception. Lewis Cass, the second Governor of the Michigan Territory, set about revising the law. In 1816 the "Cass Code" was published in Detroit.