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VI.

July.

to take an oath of fidelity as well as of office. Jeffer- CHAP. son, in his ordinance for the sale of lands, had taken care for the equal descent of real estate, as well as 1787. other property, to children of both sexes. This was adopted and expressed in the forms of the laws of Massachusetts. The rule of Jefferson was followed in requiring no property qualification for an elector; but was not extended, as Jefferson had done, to the officers to be elected.

The committee then proceeded to establish articles of compact, not to be repealed except by the consent of the original states and the people and states in the territory. Among these, as in Massachusetts and Virginia, were freedom of religious worship and of religious sentiments; and various articles from the usual bills of rights of the states.

The next clause bears in every word the impress of the mind of Richard Henry Lee. "No law ought ever to be made in said territory that shall in any manner whatever interfere with or conflict with pri vate contracts or engagements, bona fide and without fraud previously formed." "This regulation related particularly to the abuse of paper money.'

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tion: "a proposition that I have
not heard mentioned." Compare
Lee to Washington, in Sparks's
Letters to Washington, iv. 174.
More than forty-two years later
Dane claimed for himself "orig-
inality" in regard to the clause
against impairing contracts [Mas-
sachusetts Historical Society Pro-
ceedings, 1867 to 1869, p. 479],
but contemporary evidence points
to R. H. Lee as one with whom
he must at least divide the hon-

or.

CHAP.

VI.

July.

The third article recognised, like the constitution of Massachusetts, and like the letter of Rufus Put1787. nam of 1783,' that religion, morality, and knowledge are necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, and declared that schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

The utmost good faith was enjoined toward the Indians; their lands and property, their rights and liberty, were ordered to be protected by laws founded in justice and humanity; so that peace and friendship with them might ever be preserved.

The new states, by compact which neither party alone could change, became, and were forever to remain, a part of the United States of America. The waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between them, according to the successful motion of Grayson and King, were made common highways and forever free. The whole territory was divided into three states only, the popu lation required for the admission of any one of them to the union was fixed at sixty thousand; but both these clauses were subject to the future judgment of congress. The prayer of the Ohio company had been but this: "The settlers shall be under the immediate government of congress in such mode and for such time as congress shall judge proper;" the ordinance contained no allusion to slavery; and in that form it received its first reading and was or dered to be printed.

Grayson, then presiding officer of congress, had always opposed slavery. Two years before he had

1 The proposals presented by Cutler are in the handwriting of Parsons.

VI.

July.

wished success to the attempt of King for its restric- CHAP. tion; and everything points to him' as the immediate cause of the tranquil spirit of disinterested states. 1787. manship which took possession of every southern man in the assembly. Of the members of Virginia, Richard Henry Lee had stood against Jefferson on this very question; but now he acted with Grayson, and from the states of which no man had yielded before, every one chose the part which was to bring on their memory the benedictions of all coming ages. Obeying an intimation from the south, Nathan Dane copied from Jefferson the prohibition of involuntary servitude in the territory, and quieted alarm by adding from the report of King a clause for the delivering up of the fugitive slave. This at the second. reading of the ordinance he moved as a sixth article of compact, and on the thirteenth day of July, 1787, the great statute forbidding slavery to cross the river Ohio was passed by the vote of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware,

'William Grayson voted for King's motion of reference, by which the prohibition of slavery was to be immediate; he expressed the hope that congress would be liberal enough to adopt King's motion; he gave, more than any other man in congress, efficient attention to the territorial questions; in 1785 he framed and carried through congress an ordinance for the sale of western lands; his influence as president of congress was great; his record as against slavery is clearer than that of any other southern man who was present in 1787. The assent of Virginia being requisite to the validity of the ordinance, he entreated

Monroe to obtain that consent.
The consent was not obtained.
Though in shattered health, he
then became a member of the next
Virginia legislature, and was con-
spicuous in obtaining the assent of
Virginia. Add to this in the de-
bate on excluding slavery from
the territory of Arkansas, Hugh
Nelson, of Virginia, was quoted
as having ascribed the measure to
Grayson. Mr. Austin Scott fell
upon, and was so good as to point
out to me, this passage in Annals
of Congress for February, 1819,
column 1225. Thus far no direct
report of Nelson's speech has been
found.

CHAP. New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts, all the VI. states that were then present in congress. Pennsyl 1787. vania and three states of New England were absent; July.

Maryland only of the South. Of the eighteen members of congress who answered to their names, every one said "aye" excepting Abraham Yates, the younger, of New York, who insisted on leaving to all future ages a record of his want of judgment, right feeling, and common sense.

Thomas Jefferson first summoned congress to prohibit slavery in all the territory of the United States; Rufus King lifted up the measure when it lay almost lifeless on the ground, and suggested the immediate instead of the prospective prohibition; a congress composed of five southern states to one from New England, and two from the middle states, headed by William Grayson, supported by Richard Henry Lee, and using Nathan Dane as scribe, carried the measure to the goal in the amended form in which King had caused it to be referred to a committee; and, as Jefferson had proposed, placed it under the sanction of an irrevocable compact.'

The ordinance being passed, the terms of a sale between the United States and Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargent, as agents of the Ohio company, were rapidly brought to a close, substantially on the basis of the report of Carrington."

The occupation of the purchased lands began immediately, and proceeded with the order, courage, and

1 See vol. i., pages 417-419. See also Nathan Dane to Rufus King, in N. Y. Tribune of 28 Feb., 1855, or below, pages 430, 431.

2 Compare Carrington's report with its amended form in Journals of Congress, iv. Appendix 17.

VI.

July.

regularity of men accustomed to the discipline of CHAP. soldiers. "No colony in America," said Washington in his joy, "was ever settled under such favorable 1787. auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum. Information, property, and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community." Before a year had passed by, free labor kept its sleepless watch on the Ohio.

But this was not enough. Virginia had retained the right to a very large tract north-west of the Ohio; and should she consent that her own sons should be forbidden to cross the river with their slaves to her own lands?

It was necessary for her to give her consent before the ordinance could be secure; and Grayson earnestly entreated Monroe to gain that consent before the year should go out. out. But Monroe was not equal to the task, and nothing was accomplished.

At the next election of the assembly of Virginia, Grayson, who was not a candidate in the preceding or the following year, was chosen a delegate; and then a powerful committee, on which were Carring ton, Monroe, Edmund Randolph, and Grayson, successfully brought forward the bill by which Virginia confirmed the ordinance for the colonization of all the territory then in the possession of the United States by freemen alone.

The white men of that day everywhere held themselves bound to respect and protect the black men in 1 1 Sparks, ix. 385.

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