Mr. Coles has been private secretary to Mr. Jefferson, and then to Mr.
Madison, and afterwards Governor of Illinois. The following extract of
a letter from him to Mr. Sumner, dated Schooley's Mountain, New Jersey,
August 18, 1852, raises the question of the authorship of the Ordinance
of Freedom.
"Not having the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with you, I
shall ask the favor of Senator Cooper to present you this, and to
make me known to you, and thus explain the obligation you have
placed me under, as the friend of Mr. Jefferson, to correct an
error you lately made in the Senate, by which you take from him,
and give to another, one of the noblest and most consistent acts of
his life.
"In your speech in the Senate, on the occasion of the death of
Mr. Rantoul, you spoke of Nathan Dane as the "_Author_" of the
Ordinance for the government of the Territory northwest of the
Ohio. With my recollection,--for I have no book or person to
refer to at this summer retreat,--I could not have been more
surprised, if you had designated as the author of the Declaration
of Independence one of the members who added his name to it after
it had been adopted by Congress."
SENATE CHAMBER, August 23, 1852.
Dear Sir,--I have been honored by your letter of August 18th, in
which you kindly criticise an allusion by me in the Senate to
Nathan Dane, as the author of the Ordinance of 1787. You award this
high honor to Mr. Jefferson.
Believe me, I would not take from this great patriot one of his
many titles to regard. Among these, I cannot forget the early,
though unsuccessful effort, to which you refer, for the prohibition
of Slavery in the Territories of the United States. But, while
according to him just homage on this account, I cannot forget the
crowning labors of another.
I submit to you, as beyond question, that the Ordinance of 1787, as
finally adopted, was from the pen of Nathan Dane. In his great work
on American Law, published in 1824, while Mr. Jefferson was yet
alive, I find the following claim of authorship: "This ordinance
(_formed by the author of this work_) was framed mainly from the
laws of Massachusetts."[98]
In the celebrated debate of 1830, on Foot's Resolution, Mr.
Webster, in his first speech, referred to the Ordinance as "drawn
by Nathan Dane."[99] Afterwards, in his remarkable reply to Mr.
Hayne, he vindicated at length this claim of authorship. While
admitting the earlier efforts for the prohibition of Slavery
in the Territories, he says: "It is no derogation from the
credit, whatever that may be, of drawing the Ordinance, that its
principles had before been prepared and discussed in the form of
resolutions. If one should reason in that way, what would become
of the distinguished honor of the author of the Declaration of
Independence? There is not a sentiment in that paper which had not
been voted and resolved in the Assemblies, and other popular bodies
in the country, over and over again."[100]
Such, as it seems to me, is the true state of the question. To
Jefferson belongs the honor of the first effort to prohibit Slavery
in the Territories: to Dane belongs the honor of finally embodying
this Prohibition in the Ordinance drawn by his hand in 1787.
[98] Abridgment and Digest of American Law, Vol. VII. ch. 223, art.
1, § 3.
[99] Works, Vol. III. p. 263.
[100] Ibid., p. 283.
As this question has already been presented to the Senate in a
classical debate memorable in the history of the country, it seems
to me hardly advisable, at this late stage of the session, to
undertake its revival. If you should continue to think that I have
made an error, I shall be happy to correct it in any practicable
way.
* * * * *
Allow me to express my sincere respect for your character, with
which from childhood I have been familiar, and my gratitude for the
steadfast support you have ever given to the principles of Freedom
advocated by Jefferson.