Comprising land ceded to the United States after the Revolutionary War, the Northwest Territory included present-day Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. In 1787 Congress enacted a plan to organize and govern this large area. The following year its first permanent settlement was established in Marietta, Ohio. On February 19, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson approved Ohio's constitution, and in March 1803, Ohio became the first state carved from the territory and the seventeenth admitted to the Union. Due to a legislative oversight, Ohio's constitution was formally ratified by Congress 150 years later, on August 7, 1953.