The history of the efforts for the exclusion of Slavery from the Northwest
Territory is thus related by Mr. Webster, in the speeches above
referred to.
"An attempt has been made to transfer from the North to the South
the honor of this exclusion of Slavery from the Northwestern
Territory. The Journal, without argument or comment, refutes such
attempts. The cession by Virginia was made in March, 1784. On
the 19th of April following, a committee, consisting of Messrs.
Jefferson, Chase, and Howell, reported a plan for a temporary
government of the Territory, in which was this article: 'That,
after the year 1800, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in punishment
of crimes, whereof the party shall have been convicted.' Mr
Spaight, of North Carolina, moved to strike out this paragraph.
The question was put, according to the form then practised,
'Shall these words stand as a part of the plan?' New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania, seven States, voted in the affirmative; Maryland,
Virginia, and South Carolina, in the negative. North Carolina was
divided. As the consent of nine States was necessary, the words
could not stand, and were struck out accordingly. Mr. Jefferson
voted for the clause, but was overruled by his colleagues.
"In March of the next year (1785), Mr. King, of Massachusetts,
seconded by Mr. Ellery, of Rhode Island, proposed the formerly
rejected article, with this addition: 'And that this regulation
shall be an article of compact, and remain a fundamental principle
of the constitutions between the thirteen original States and each
of the States described in the resolve.' On this clause, which
provided the adequate and thorough security, the eight Northern
States at that time voted affirmatively, and the four Southern
States negatively.[101] The votes of nine States were not yet
obtained, and thus the provision was again rejected by the Southern
States. The perseverance of the North held out, and two years
afterwards the object was attained," by the passage, on the 13th of
July, 1787, with only one dissenting voice, of the "Ordinance for
the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of
the River Ohio."
"We are accustomed, Sir, to praise the lawgivers of Antiquity; we
help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt
whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has
produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character
than the Ordinance of 1787. That instrument was drawn by Nathan
Dane, then and now a citizen of Massachusetts. It was adopted,
as I think I have understood, without the slightest alteration;
and certainly it has happened to few men to be the authors of
a political measure of more large and enduring consequence.
It fixed forever the character of the population in the vast
regions northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary
servitude. It impressed on the soil itself, while it was yet a
wilderness, an incapacity to sustain any other than freemen. It
laid the interdict against personal servitude in original compact,
not only deeper than all local law, but deeper, also, than all
local constitutions."
[101] More precisely, the seven Northern States, together with
Maryland, affirmatively,--and four of the Southern States,
namely, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia,
negatively,--Delaware being unrepresented.
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