After ten years of hotly contested debates centering on state western land claims in the Continental Congress and United States in Congress Assembled (USCA), the time was right for the approval of an ordinance for governing the Northwest Territory. The treasury was utterly empty, the United States had defaulted on its loan payments to France opting to pay Holland or risk impressments of its ships.
|
On April 14, 1785, the USCA had debated the expanding the Ordinance of 1784 and after much discussion over Thomas Jefferson’s survey method, William Grayson made a motion, seconded by James Monroe, to change seven miles square to six miles square and the current US Survey system was born. Richard Henry Lee, then USCA President, wrote to his friend and colleague Samuel Adams:
I hope we shall shortly finish our plan for disposing of the western Lands to discharge the oppressive public debt created by the war & I think that if this source of revenue be rightly managed, that these republics may soon be discharged from that state of oppression and distress that an indebted people must invariably feel. [23]
The States had relinquish their rights to a "test tract" of land and the USCA's Western Land Ordinance of 1785 was passed on May 20, 1785.
 |
| Exhibited is the Pennsylvania Packett and Daily Advertiser, Monday, May 30, 1785, full printing of the Western Land Ordinance dated May 20, 1785 and signed in type by Richard Henry Lee as President of the United States in Congress Assembled and Charles Thomson as Secretary of the United States in Congress Assembled. |
The Western Land Ordinance put the earlier 1784 Land Ordinance into operation by providing a mechanism for selling and settling the land. The federal surveyors divided the land into carefully planned individual square townships. Each side of the township square was to be six miles in length containing thirty-six square miles of territory. The township was then divided into one-square mile sections, with each section receiving its own number and encompassing 640 acres. Section sixteen was to be set aside for a public school and sections eight, eleven, twenty-six, and twenty-nine were to provide veterans of the American Revolution with land as payment for their service during the war thus greatly reducing the war debt. The government would then sell the remaining sections at public auction at the minimum bid of 640 dollars per section or one dollar for an acre of land in each section.
The Federal Government under the Western Land Ordinance of 1785 lacked the resources to manage the newly surveyed Northwest Territorial lands because Native Americans refused to relinquish a large percentage of the plotted land and most of the territory remained too dangerous for settlement. This situation required either troops to eject the Native Americans or capital to purchase their land "fairly," insuring the peaceful sale and settlement. Additionally, the small amount of federal land that was not in dispute by the Native Americans was enthusiastically being occupied by western settlers who had no faith in or respect for the USCA operation as a federal authority. The settlers just claimed the land as squatters and the USCA was unable to muster the capital for magistrates let alone troops to enforce the $1.00 per acre fee required for a clear federal land title. With the States no longer in control of the lands and no federal magistrates or troops to enforce the laws, a tide of western squatters flowed into the Northwest Territory. Tract sales were meager and the plan of revenue flowing from the Northwest Territorial land sales became another liability.
By 1787 the USCA was in the right frame of mind to consider plans for bringing the government lands into market because the Ohio Company was willing to purchase millions of acres for private development. Additionally, earlier in the month Delegate James Monroe’s committee on the western government proposed the replacement of Jefferson’s 1784 eleven states’ plan with a system that would result in no less than three or more than five states.[36]
Earlier that year, the Ohio Company replaced Parsons with the Reverend Manasseh Cutler, who aligned himself with William Duer,[37] secretary of the U.S. Treasury Board. Pressures on the U.S. Treasury were dire and Duer and his associates formed a steadfast group of New York speculators determined for the settlement of the Northwest Territory. It was the economic strain added to the influence of Duer and Massachusetts Delegate Nathan Dane [38] that persuaded President Arthur St. Clair and key delegates to permit Dr. Cutler [39] to work directly with the committee assigned the task of drafting the Northwest Ordinance.
The Committee consisted of only Virginia Delegate Edward Carrington [40] and Massachusetts Delegate Nathan Dane because committee members James Madison and Rufus King were in Philadelphia at the Philadelphia Convention. In the afternoon, the USCA appointed three new members, former President Richard Henry Lee, John Kean, [41] and Melancton Smith [42] to replace the three absent delegates.
The new delegates outnumbered the old delegates who had been working on the measure for over a year. Additionally, Carrington was elected as the Chairman and they with Ohio Company Agent Cutler took up James Monroe’s plan. This committee did not merely revise the ordinances of 1784 and 1785; they began to draft an entirely new plan for the territory northwest of the Ohio government.
The committee, animated by the presence of Lee, went to its work in good earnest. Dane, who had been actively employed on the colonial government for more than a year, and for about ten months, had served on the committee which had the subject in charge, acted the part of scribe. Like Smith and Lee, he had opposed a federal convention for the reform of the constitution. The three agreed very well together, though Dane secretly harbored the wish of finding in the West an ally for " eastern politics." They were pressed for time, and found it necessary finally to adopt the best system they could get. At first they took up the plan reported by Monroe; but new ideas were started; and they worked with so much industry that on the eleventh of July their report of an ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States north-west of the river Ohio was read for its first time in congress.[43]
Cutler added an educational provision which was revised by the committee and became part of Article III. Other revisions were made after input from the President. Dr. Cutler, satisfied with the changes, did not remain in New York for the vote in Congress and left for Philadelphia that evening.
The ordinance required seven votes to pass and the States were divided four South and five North. The reading by Chairman Nathan Dane on the 11th did not include the provision abolishing slavery. The Chairman who has been credited, along with Cutler, with the primary drafting of the ordinance thought it best to leave the anti-slavery language out. He and other anti-slavery delegates believed this would enable the southern delegations to focus more clearly on the favorable attributes of the ordinance. On July 12th, the ordinance was read again by Dane but this time the anti-slavery provision was added.
In a strange twist of events on July 12th, as the all-important Northwest Ordinance bill was being debated on the floor, President St. Clair decided to take a three-day leave of Congress along with what surely would have been a yes vote from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Eight states remained, evenly divided and neither the President nor the Ohio Company was present to effectuate the required seven state passage of the ordinance. On July 13th to Dane’s surprise, the ordinance passed unanimously.[44]
 |
[NORTHWEST
ORDINANCE] – Exhibited here is the full printing of “An ordinance for the government
of the territory of the United States, north west of the river Ohio". The
American Museum, or Repository of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces, &c.
prose and poetical. For August, 1787. Volume II., Number II. Philadelphia:
Mathew Carey, 1787., This is the first US Magazine printing of the ordinance appearing in print only two weeks after it was enacted.
The "Northwest Ordinance", based on an area originally laid out in 1784 by USCA Delegate Thomas Jefferson in his "Report of Government for Western Lands", concerned the land north of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi (now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin). It was one of the most significant achievements of the United States in Congress Assembled.
In its six "Articles of Compact", largely written by Rufus King and Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, the ordinance contained provisions for the advancement of education through land grants, the maintenance of civil liberties and the exclusion of slavery. It provided a legal mechanism for citizens to formulate the state of Ohio in 1803 thus accelerating the westward expansion of the United States. The ordinance, in fact established the laws for the admission of all US states since 1787.
Also in this August 1787 "the American Museum" are published "Resolutions of congress for the establishment of a new money of account for the united States."; "An ordinance for the establishment of the mint of the united States of America; and for regulating the value and alloy of coin"; and a number of letters by scientist and politician Hugh Williamson (1735-1819) as "Sylvius", an ".effective analysis of the domestic economy, the federal debt, the problems of paper currency, the necessity for industrial development, and the need for an excise tax" - Loan Courtesy of Klos Yavneh Academy
Collection.
|
It has been charged that both Arthur St. Clair and Dr. Cutler left New York to cover-up their back room dealings of the President’s appointment to the governorship. St. Clair’s biographer writes:
On the day of the ordinance’s passage, Chairman Dane, transmits a copy to Rufus King with this letter shedding more light on the negotiations on the land purchase:
On the 13th of July he [President Arthur St. Clair] did not preside. He had gone the day before to New Jersey to visit a friend, and he did not return until two days after the passage of the Ordinance. Only eight States out of thirteen voted for that instrument: Pennsylvania was one of the five not represented. When St. Clair returned to New York, he was accompanied by General Irvine, one of his colleagues. In a letter of the latter, written 19th July, and addressed to Colonel Richard Butler, he refers to the Ordinance which had passed two days before his return, and adds: "Who the officers of that government will be I have not heard, nor inquired."
If the name of General St. Clair had been canvassed, or, if he had had any understanding with the New England people, as is alleged, it would have been known to a friend as intimate as General Irvine. But, furthermore, we have his own testimony, which is of the best, to sustain us. In a letter to the Hon. William B. Giles, he says that the office of Governor was, in a great measure, forced upon him by his friends, who thought there would be in it means to compensate for his sacrifices to his country, and provide for his large family. But it proved otherwise. He had "neither the taste nor genius for speculation in land; nor did he consider it consistent with the office." He declared the accepting of the Governorship the most imprudent act of his life, for he was then in possession of a lucrative office, and his influence at home was very considerable. But he had the "laudable ambition of becoming the father of a country, and laying the foundation for the happiness of millions then unborn."[45]
We have been much engaged in business for ten or twelve days past for a part of which we have had eight States. There appears to be a disposition to do business, and the arrival of R. H. Lee is of considerable importance. I think his character serves, at least in some degree, to check the effects of the feeble habits and lax modes of thinking in some of his Countrymen. We have been employed about several objects; the principal ones of which have been the Government enclosed and the Ohio purchase.The former you will see is completed and the latter will be probably completed tomorrow. We tried one day to patch up M; Systems of W. Government; Started new Ideas and committed the whole to Carrington, Dane, R. H. Lee, Smith, & Kean; we met several times and at last agreed on some principles at least Lee, Smith & myself. We found ourselves rather pressed, the Ohio Company appeared to purchase a large tract of the federal lands, about 6 or 7 million of acres; and we wanted to abolish the old system and get a better one for the Government of the Country; and we finally found it necessary to adopt the best system we could get.All agreed finally to the enclosed except A. Yates; he appeared in this Case, as in most other not to understand the subject at all. I think the number of free Inhabitants 60,000, which are requisite for the admission of a new State into the Confederacy is too small, but having divided the whole territory into three States, this number appeared to me to be less important, each State in the Common Course of things must become important soon after it shall have that number of Inhabitants. The eastern State of the three will probably be the first, and more important than the rest; and, will no doubt be settled chiefly by Eastern people, and there is, I think, full an equal chance of it adopting Eastern politics. When I drew the ordinance which passed (in a few words excepted) as I originally formed it, I had no idea the States would agree to the sixth Article prohibiting Slavery; as only Massa. of the Eastern States was present; and therefore omitted it in the draft; but finding the House favorably disposed on this subject, after we had completed the other parts I moved the article; which was agreed to without opposition.
The passage of the Northwest Ordinance under Arthur St. Clair's Presidency was rightfully praised, in the 19th Century, by U.S. Senator Daniel Webster:
We are accustomed to praise lawgivers of antiquity ... but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced the effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787.[48]
The world was now put on notice that the land north and west of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi would be settled and utilized for the creation of "… not less than three nor more than five territories." Additionally, this plan for governing the Northwest Territory included freedom of religion, right to trial by jury, the banishment of slavery, and public education as asserted rights granted to the people in the territory. This ordinance was and still remains one of the most important laws ever enacted by the government of the United States.
Specifically, this ordinance was an exceptional piece of legislation because Article Five permitted the people North and West of the Ohio River to settle their land, form their own territorial government, and take their place as a full-fledged state, equal to the original 13. The Northwest Ordinance's Article Five became the principle that enabled the United States rapid westward expansion, which ended with the inclusion of Alaska and Hawaii as our 49th and 50th states. This ordinance also guaranteed that inhabitants of the Territory would have the same rights and privileges that citizens of the original 13 States enjoyed.
Equally important, Article Six provided that slavery and involuntary servitude were outlawed in the Northwest Territory.
There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service, as aforesaid. [50]
Article Six was the first federal law that finally gave some merit to "... all men are created equal...” written 11 years earlier in the Declaration of Independence. In 1865, when Abraham Lincoln succeeded in passing through Congress the 13th Amendment that finally abolishing United States slavery, he changed only one word in Article Six, “territory” became “states.”
 |
Slave Emancipation Signed - Manuscript emancipation signed with the mark of David Enlow, dated September 20, 1810, Harrison County, Indiana Territory. Manuscript is 12 ½” x 7 ½” on laid rag-content paper which is toned with tiny holes framed and in fine condition. In part Enlow's emancipation of Sara reads:
… a my right, title, and interest in and to the said Negro woman Sarah … in consequence of her voluntarily bound herself to serve me and during the term of four years commencing from the first day of January in the year Eighteen hundred and Seven…
The Northwest Ordinance required Enlow to free Sarah and also forbade involuntary servitude. Whether's Sarah agreeing to "voluntarily bound herself to serve me and during the term of four years" as a condition of her freedom was legally enforceable is a matter of debate.
|
Theism was also openly expressed in the legislation as Article Three of the Ordinance stated:
Religion, Morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, Schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged.[51]
This measure essentially legislated that religion and morality were indispensable to good government but it was not carried out by the federal government because the United States confederation was financially insolvent in 1788 and faded away in 1789. A second constitution emerged from Philadelphia that laid the legal foundation that Jefferson would refer to as "thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”[52] Several western state governments adopted similar legislation to Article Three and provided financial assistance to the churches up and until the early 19th Century.
On October 5, 1787 the USCA turned west and elected a territorial Governor and Secretary:
Congress proceeded to the election of a governor for the western territory pursuant to the Ordinance of the 13th of July last and the ballots being taken the honorable Arthur St Clair was elected. Congress proceeded to the election of a secretary pursuant to the said Ordinance and the ballots being taken Mr. Winthrop Sargent was elected.[67]
On October 21st, the USCA approved the sale of over one million acres to the Ohio Company. Governor St. Clair was now responsible for governing, settling and subdividing the territory of what are now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota whose lands, at that time, comprised more than one half the geographic area of the United States of America.
Arthur St. Clair would serve his country as governor for 13 years amidst controversy and the disgrace of losing more men in a battle against Native Americans than George Custer lost at Little Big Horn. By 1801, St. Clair would be the last federalist to wield any real power at the turn of the 19th Century. In his arrogance, he would challenge Republican President Thomas Jefferson on Ohio Statehood. It was Delegate Jefferson, whose committee in 1784 wrote the original ordinance for the vast territory proposing a mechanism for new States. President Jefferson would disregard Governor St. Clair's protest letters and heartedly back fellow Virginian Thomas Worthington who championed Ohio Statehood. In a sad end to St. Clair’s service, President Jefferson dismissed the Governor with this letter written by his from Secretary of State, James Madison:
The President observing, in an address lately delivered by you to the convention held at Chillicothe, an intemperance and indecorum of language toward the Legislature of the United States, and a disorganizing spirit and tendency of very evil example, and grossly violating the rules of conduct enjoined by your public station, determine that your commission of Governor of the Northwestern Territory shall cease on the receipt of this notification.[69]
On February 19, 1803, the Republican United States Congress approved Ohio's constitution and admitted Ohio as the 17th state. Thomas Worthington was hailed as the hero of the Ohio Constitutional Convention and usurped forever the moniker: "The Father of Ohio's Statehood" its founder. Arthur St. Clair returned to his farm in Western Pennsylvania and resided there for 15 years with his wife Phoebe as a private citizen.
St. Clair’s biographer wrote that in August, 1818:
… the venerable patriot, in his eighty- fourth year, undertook to go to Youngstown, three miles distant, for flour and other necessaries. He bade good-bye to his Louisa and started off with his pony and wagon, in good spirits. The authorities had changed the Stage road so that it passed along the Loyalhauna Creek, several miles north of the St. Clair residence, and the route to Youngstown was rough and dangerous. Pony and wagon moved safely along until within a mile of the village, when a wheel falling into a rut, the wagon was upset, and the aged General thrown with great force upon the rocky road. In the course of the day he was discovered lying where he had fallen, insensible, and the pony standing quietly at a short distance, awaiting the command of his old master — faithful to the last. He was carried tenderly back to the house, but neither medical skill nor the tender care of loved ones could restore him, and, on the thirty-first, Death came with his blessed message of peace forevermore.
Historic.us
 |
Stan Klos lecturing at the Republican National Convention's PoliticalFest 2000 Rebels With A Vision Exhibit in Philadelphia's Convention Hall
|
Primary Source exhibits are available for display in your community. The costs range from $1,000 to $25,000 depending on length of time on loan and the rarity of artifacts chosen.
Historic.us
Dr. Naomi Yavneh Klos hosting the Louisiana Primary Source Exhibit at the State Capitol Building for the 2012 Bicentennial Celebration.
Capitals of the United States and Colonies of America
Philadelphia
|
Sept. 5, 1774 to Oct. 24, 1774
| |
Philadelphia
|
May 10, 1775 to Dec. 12, 1776
| |
Baltimore
|
Dec. 20, 1776 to Feb. 27, 1777
| |
Philadelphia
|
March 4, 1777 to Sept. 18, 1777
| |
Lancaster
|
September 27, 1777
| |
York
|
Sept. 30, 1777 to June 27, 1778
| |
Philadelphia
|
July 2, 1778 to June 21, 1783
| |
Princeton
|
June 30, 1783 to Nov. 4, 1783
| |
Annapolis
|
Nov. 26, 1783 to Aug. 19, 1784
| |
Trenton
|
Nov. 1, 1784 to Dec. 24, 1784
| |
New York City
|
Jan. 11, 1785 to Nov. 13, 1788
| |
New York City
|
Nov. 1788 to March 3,1789
| |
New York City
|
March 3,1789 to August 12, 1790
| |
Philadelphia
|
December 6,1790 to May 14, 1800
| |
Washington DC
|
November 17,1800 to Present
|
Book a primary source exhibit and a professional speaker for your next event by contacting Historic.us today. Our Clients include many Fortune 500 companies, associations, non-profits, colleges, universities, national conventions, pr and advertising agencies. As the leading exhibitor of primary sources, many of our clients have benefited from our historic displays that are designed to entertain and educate your target audience. Contact us to learn how you can join our "roster" of satisfied clientele today!
Historic.us
A Non-profit Corporation
727-771-1776 | Exhibit Inquiries
202-239-1774 | Office
202-239-0037 | Fax
Dr. Naomi and Stanley Yavneh Klos, Principals
A Non-profit Corporation
Primary Source Exhibits
2000 Louisiana Avenue | Venue 15696
New Orleans, Louisiana, 70115
727-771-1776 | Exhibit Inquiries
202-239-1774 | Office
Dr. Naomi and Stanley Yavneh Klos, Principals
Naomi@Historic.us
Stan@Historic.us
Primary Source exhibits are available for display in your community. The costs range from $1,000 to $35,000 depending on length of time on loan and the rarity of artifacts chosen.
Website: www.Historic.us
Middle and High School Curriculum Supplement
For More Information Click Here
 |
U.S. Dollar Presidential Coin Mr. Klos vs Secretary Paulson - Click Here
|
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.