CHAPTER I

PRE-ORDINANCE SUMMARY

While much of the history of the American colonies has been ably presented in other school history texts, and it is not the province of this book to rehearse it, there is reason for a brief summary which will place in the mind of the reader the background for the events of which this book treats.

It is not easy to value or even to understand the forces which were at work in America unless we consider what _types of people_ were involved. While most of the colonies were settled by Englishmen, this did not mean that they were always congenial. The Puritans of New England, radical in their beliefs and zealous in their doctrines, had little in common, even while they were in England, with their fellow countrymen who settled Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. In between these discordant groups were the Dutch of New York, the Swedes of Delaware, the Catholics of Maryland, and the Quakers and Germans of Pennsylvania.

Beyond these national and social differences were the trends brought about by their environments in this new land. The rocky and discouraging soils of the northern colonies, even the climate itself, tended to widen the gulf between these people and the pleasure-loving folk of the South, with its broad fertile acres and mild climate. It was inevitable that the New Englanders should turn to manufacture and trade, while the South should remain agrarian, and equally inevitable that this should result in jealousy and rivalry.

But a still more vital force was at work to encourage distrust and dislike. People of that day took their religious beliefs very seriously. Even those who fled from a state church could not escape the idea of state and religion being inexorably related.

Although the Puritans of Massachusetts had fled England to gain “religious freedom,” they might better have said to gain freedom for their own sort of religion, for they were as intolerant of other religious beliefs as had been the Church of England of theirs. Indeed, Connecticut and Rhode Island were split off from the Massachusetts colony because of religious disputes. The southern colonies, still clinging to the state church of the mother country, were anathema to New England and New England to them. With the Quakers in Pennsylvania, and the Catholics in Maryland—and all zealous for their own religious contentions—the tendency was even further from, rather than toward, the building of a common nation.

And so, with diverse nationalities, religious and economic and moral distinctions; with widely varying charters from the king and jealousies between rival groups of European “owners,” we may well wonder that the colonies got along together at all.

For a century and a half the population increased, and with it the discordant feeling between at least many of the colonies. They had only one thing in common—an increasing distrust of and rebellious spirit toward the mother country and the king. This could result in the joining of forces against a common and more powerful enemy. And so it did finally. But in all this there had been no proposal for a new nation, or, more particularly, for a new theory and plan of government. True enough, there had been a convention called at Albany in 1754 for united effort against the Indians, but the colonies were not strongly in favor of it, and the king would not tolerate the union.

As lands along the coast became more occupied and therefore higher priced, and the political uncertainties more acute, the more adventurous colonists, perhaps irked by the restraint of individual freedom which any government imposes, struck out for the wilderness westward.

[Illustration: MARQUETTE

_Drawn by Howard Petrey, Superior, Wisconsin_]

Also, because we are trying here to study what was in the minds of men, _why_ they did this or that, it must be remembered that the world was still looking for the Northwest Passage to Cathay. As late as the outbreak of the Revolution, and even later, England was subsidizing efforts to locate this short route to the fabled East. Thus the same urge which had led Columbus to the discovery of America played a part in the development of colonial plans.

From the seventeenth century onward, French missionaries and fur traders had extended their explorations and their scattered posts, effecting alliances with the Indians, and inciting violent resistance to English and colonial approach. As late as 1749 Celoron led a considerable expedition down the Ohio River, up the Great Miami and to the Lakes, tacking notices on trees and planting leaden plates claiming possession in the name of the king of France. This had an ominous meaning, in that the French had done almost nothing in settling Ohio, whereas it was in this very direction that English settlement pressed.

During this period, which culminated in the French and Indian War, the colonies did not cooperate, although, as has already been said, the need for united effort was first publicly urged at the Albany convention. After the French and Indian war was over, and the title to the Northwest had been ceded to England, she herself became suspicious of westward American settlement, and forbade it, even to the extent of giving to the province of Quebec the lands she had previously given to the American colonies.

The rugged and fearless individualists who were most likely to settle the West were the least inclined to conform to stabilized government, especially if that government were objectionable in any of its phases. And, removed beyond the Alleghany Mountains, they would be beyond hope of subjection. Those who had already migrated to the West asked nothing from the colonies except help in defense against the Indians—and of this received very little. They were free men—perhaps the freest of any considerable group of individuals in ages of history. Ahead of them lay a wide continent, blessed with God’s bounties, and, as law and restraint caught up with them, all that was necessary was to move farther westward to seemingly endless lands and natural resources—and freedom.

[Illustration: ROBERT CAVALIER DE LA SALLE

_Drawn by Marie Kellogg, Superior, Wisconsin_]

In 1776 Virginia, in the fervor of her revolt, did give indication of the trend of her people’s feelings through her “Bill of Rights,” and this undoubtedly expressed the long restrained but culminating American idea. When revolt mounted to the utterance of the Declaration of Independence, that great document set forth in fervid terms the general principles of the rights of man. But there was nothing discernible in it as to what specific form or type of government should make those principles effective.

The Articles of Confederation, which immediately followed, were but the forced cooperation of the colonies for defensive purposes.

The soldiers, realizing fully that they probably never would be paid in sound money, with their own meager fortunes ruined by their years of struggle, and disgusted with the politics, the compromises, and ineffectiveness of the Continental Congress, turned to the idea of western lands. At least, their almost worthless pay certificates could be used in buying land from the government which had issued such money. In these far-off wildernesses they would find the freedom they craved and escape from the seeming ineffectiveness of government under the Articles of Confederation.

Congress had actually voted at the very beginning of the war, and long before the nation owned a square foot of these lands, to give western lands as bounties for military service. The separate colonies, especially Virginia, had given such bounties for service in the earlier wars against Indians and French. Washington had made a trip to the Ohio country in 1770 to select such bounty lands, and had been so impressed that he chose some 40,000 acres of his own. As hero of the troops, and the greatest single factor in preventing their mutinies, it seems certain that his enthusiasm for these lands heightened that of the soldiers.

Washington, too, saw that a western frontier peopled by veterans whose earnestness of purpose and abilities could not be questioned, would form the safest bulwark against attack by the Indians, or by the British—who if they gave up title at all, would do so unwillingly and with tongues in their cheeks. But, as yet, there was no determination, or even clearly defined suggestion as to the form of government which would apply to the United States. The Articles of Confederation were unwieldy, undependable, and, if anything, were working against the idea of representative government.

In 1783, while the troops were in camp awaiting the signing of the Treaty of Paris, and on the verge of being discharged to go to—they knew not what—with no money, and with the rebuilding of their worlds yet before them, they expressed in writing their hopes and aspirations for their own and America’s future.

This humble document, recorded by Timothy Pickering as scribe, and signed by 283 leaders of the men, set forth not only their desire for lands in the West, but for certain principles of government as fundamental to their hopes, ambitions and plans. This plan became known to history variously as the Pickering Plan, the Newburgh Petition, and the Army Plan.

Essentially, it was the innermost determination of ordinary Americans who had proved their sincerity of purpose. It was probably the first crystallized expression from the men who had fought to establish the new nation as to what its tenets of government should be. A study of this document will disclose a striking similarity to the Ordinance of 1787, when we get to that point in our history.

We must now go back to another phase of the nation’s development, which was altogether human, and which is with us today. This was the element of hope for riches and private profit. In those days it was specifically called “land hunger.”

All of the earliest westward colonization schemes for America were what we might call “land grabbing schemes” of various merits. To discourage this tendency many plans were evolved for the development of the West. From about 1750 one plan followed another in rapid succession. Each was an improvement over the one preceding it. One is particularly significant—that of Peletiah Webster who proposed the surveying into townships of the lands adjoining the colonies—now states—on the west, and their sale _in small lots only_, and _one range at a time to the westward_. This would have established a strong and well-settled frontier, without large speculative holdings, and would have conserved for orderly growth the great untold areas of the West.

[Illustration: GEORGE ROGERS CLARK WADING SWAMPS WITH TROOPS

_Drawn by Merle June Dehls, Vincennes, Ind._]

After the Revolutionary War was over, the United States had only in effect a quitclaim deed from England to the lands north and west of the Ohio.

But the colonies now asserted their individual claims more vociferously than ever. There were now 13 states, in effect different and independent nations, each with a desire for expansion westward. Virginia had, of her own volition, sent George Rogers Clark into the West during the Revolution to drive the British from what were ostensibly her lands in the Illinois country. Clark had done a superb job—and claims are made that he not only acquired these lands by conquest for Virginia, but destroyed the budding Indian conspiracy that the British under Henry Hamilton were fomenting, and which, by attack from the rear, would have destroyed the entire American cause.

Connecticut and Massachusetts refurbished their charter claims and New York, through its treaty with the Iroquois Indians, made indeterminate but extensive demands to the territory.

And, lastly, there were the undeniable rights of the Indians to be acquired by purchase or by conquest.

Under pressure of states whose colonial charter boundaries had been more restricted, principally Maryland, the states with wide-flung claims were urged to cede all their western lands to the nation at large. The contention was that these lands had been won from the British by common effort and should therefore be common property. Here, at last, was a definite indication that development was to be toward one nation, rather than an alliance of 13 smaller independent governments. How strong this point really was is not certain, however, for one of the great objectives was to lessen the common debt, and thus relieve each of the states of its obligations.

However, the unified nation movement was gaining strength. Intermingling of men in the army, common purposes in defense, and now, property held in common were breaking down the old animosities.

[Illustration: GEORGE ROGERS CLARK

_Drawn by Sam Delaney, Marietta, Ohio_]

New York took the lead in ceding her claims in 1780. Virginia, richest, most populous and with best substantiated claims, followed in 1784. This was immediately followed by the Ordinance of 1784, the first plan to be evolved for the West, that made _any_ reference to the principles of government. This ordinance, although passed by Congress, never became effective because it made no provisions for acquisition or ownership of land, and, in fact, there still remained the necessity of Massachusetts and Connecticut cessions and the acquisition of title from the Indians. Massachusetts and Connecticut finally ceded their rights, but there still were no clearly indicative signs of what American principles of government were to become, beyond a broader right of franchise.

Later, Congress passed the Ordinance of 1785—commonly called the “Land Ordinance.” This did provide for the survey and sale of lands. It contained some of the proposals of wise old Peletiah Webster, made years before, for township surveys, sale by succeeding western ranges, and in plots small enough to prevent large speculation. But it said nothing about laws to go with the land, and it, too, became largely ineffective in its purpose.

And so was enacted the Ordinance of 1787 with all its portent for government built primarily for man, rather than man for government.

As the ordinance was passed by the Continental Congress sitting in New York, the Constitutional Convention was sitting in session at Philadelphia. Two months later the United States Constitution was adopted by that convention and submitted to the states for ratification. In that great document as submitted to the states there were no provisions for these rights of men.

But the people of the United States were not at all indefinite as to their wishes and interests. Only by assurance that the bill of rights would be included was it possible to obtain ratification of the Constitution.

The Ordinance of 1787 was now in effect. America had started westward under a law of highest hope and modern ideals.

[Illustration: INDIAN TREATY

_Drawn by William R. Willison, Marietta, Ohio_]

Most of the humanitarian provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 became part of the United States Constitution in the first amendments made four years later—1791—and one of the greatest found its way into our organic law 78 years afterward, when slavery was abolished by the thirteenth amendment.

This is not, however, the whole story of the Ordinance of 1787 and “How this Nation?” As Abraham Lincoln later said,

“The Ordinance of 1787 was constantly looked to whenever a new Territory was to become a State. Congress always traced their course by that Ordinance.”

Every state constitution subsequently adopted as the nation marched across the continent to the Pacific Ocean reflected the influence of that great ordinance. Thus, the concepts of Americans, which perhaps were planted with the first colonists but which bore fruit in the Ordinance of 1787, determined the most cherished fundamentals of this nation today.