chapter 2._

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NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF USA: A. D. 1787. The great Ordinance for its government. Perpetual Exclusion of Slavery.

"Congress at intervals discussed the future of this great domain, but for a while little progress was made except to establish that Congress could divide the territory as might seem best. Nathan Dane came forward with a motion for a committee to plan some temporary scheme of government. A committee on this point reported (May 10, 1786) that the number of States should be from two to five, to be admitted as States according to Jefferson's proposition, but the question of slavery in them was left open. Nothing definite was done till a committee—Johnson of Connecticut, Pinckney of South Carolina, Smith of New York, Dane of Massachusetts, and Henry of Maryland—reported on April 26, 1787, 'An ordinance for the government of the Western territory,' and after various amendments it was fairly transcribed for a third reading, May 10th. Further consideration was now delayed until July. It was at this point that Manasseh Cutler appeared in New York, commissioned to buy land for the Ohio Company in the region whose future was to be determined by this ordinance, and it was very likely, in part, by his influence that those features of the perfected ordinance as passed five days later, and which has given it its general fame, were introduced. On July 9th the bill was referred to a new committee, of which a majority were Southern men, Carrington of Virginia taking the chairmanship from Johnson; Dane and Smith were retained, but Richard Henry Lee and Kean of South Carolina supplanted Pinckney and Henry. This change was made to secure the Southern support; on the other hand, acquiescence in the wishes of Northern purchasers of lands was essential in any business outcome of the movement. 'Up to this time,' says Poole, 'there were no articles of compact in the bill, no anti-slavery clause, nothing about liberty of conscience or of the press, the right of habeas corpus, or of trial by jury, or the equal distribution of estates. The clause that, "religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged," was not there.' These omissions were the New England ideas, which had long before this been engrafted on the Constitution of Massachusetts. This new committee reported the bill, embodying all these provisions except the anti-slavery clause, on the 11th, and the next day this and other amendments were made. On the 13th, but one voice was raised against the bill on its final passage, and that came from Yates of New York. Poole intimates that it was the promise of the governorship of the territory under the ordinance which induced St. Clair, then President of Congress, to lend it his countenance. The promise, if such it was, was fulfilled, and St. Clair became the first governor."

_J. Winsor and E. Channing, Territorial Acquisitions and Divisions (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 7, appendix)._

ALSO IN: _B. A. Hinsdale, The Old Northwest,