legislative council, and a house of representatives. The legislative
council shall consist of five members to continue in office five
years, unless sooner removed by Congress, any three of whom may be a
quorum; and the members of the council shall be nominated and
appointed in the following manner, to wit: As soon as representatives
shall be elected, the governor shall appoint a time and place for them
to meet together, and when met they shall nominate ten persons,
residents in the district, and each possessed of a freehold in five
hundred acres of land, and return their names to Congress, five of
whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as aforesaid; and
whenever a vacancy shall happen in the council by death or removal
from office, the house of representatives shall nominate two persons,
qualified as aforesaid, for each vacancy, and return their names to
Congress, one of whom Congress shall appoint and commission for the
residue of the term. And every five years, four months at least before
the expiration of the time of service of the members of the council,
the said house shall nominate ten persons, qualified as aforesaid, and
return their names to Congress, five of whom Congress shall appoint
and commission to serve as members of the council five years, unless
sooner removed. And the governor, legislative council, and house of
representatives shall have authority to make laws, in all cases, for
the good government of the district, not repugnant to the principles
and articles in this ordinance established and declared. And all bills
having passed by a majority in the house and by a majority in the
council, shall be referred to the governor for his assent; but no bill
or legislative act whatever, shall be of any force without his assent.
The governor shall have power to convene, prorogue and dissolve the
general assembly when, in his opinion, it shall be expedient.
The governor, judges, legislative council, secretary, and such other
officers as Congress shall appoint in the district shall take an oath
or affirmation of fidelity, and of office; the governor before the
President of Congress, and all other officers before the governor. As
soon as legislature shall be formed in the district, the council and
house assembled in one room, shall have authority, by joint ballot, to
elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat in Congress, with
a right of debating, but not of voting, during this temporary
government.
And for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious
liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws, and
constitutions, are erected; to fix and establish those principles as
the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments, which forever
hereafter shall be formed in said Territory; to provide, also, for the
establishment of States, and permanent government therein, and for
their admission to a share in the Federal councils on an equal footing
with the original States, at as early periods as may be consistent
with general interest.
_It is hereby ordained and declared by the authority aforesaid_, That
the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact
between the original States and the people and States in the said
Territory, and forever remain unalterable unless by common consent, to
wit:
“ARTICLE 1. No person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly
manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or
religious sentiments in the said Territory.
“ARTICLE 2. The inhabitants of said Territory shall always be entitled
to the benefits of the writ of _habeas corpus_ and of trial by jury;
of a proportionate representation of the people in the legislature,
and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law.
All persons shall be bailable except for capital offences, where the
proof shall be evident or the presumption great. All fines shall be
moderate, and no unusual or cruel punishment shall be inflicted. No
man shall be deprived of his liberty or property but by the judgment
of his peers, or the law of the land; and should the public exigencies
make it necessary, for the common preservation, to take away any
person’s property, or to demand his particular service, full
compensation shall be made for the same; and in the just preservation
of rights and property it is understood and declared that no law ought
ever be made, or have force in the said Territory, that shall in any
manner whatever interfere with or effect private contracts or
engagements, bona fide, and without fraud, previously formed.
“ARTICLE 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good
government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of
education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall
always lie observed towards the Indians; their lands and property
shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their
property, rights and liberty they shall never be invaded or disturbed,
unless in just and lawful wars, authorized by Congress; but laws
founded in justice and humanity, shall, from time to time, be made for
preventing wrong being done to them, and for preserving peace and
friendship with them.
“ARTICLE 4. The said Territory, and the States which may be formed
therein, shall forever remain a part of this confederacy of the United
States of America, subject to the articles of confederation, and to
such alterations therein as shall be constitutionally made, and to all
the acts and ordinances of the United States in Congress assembled,
conformable thereto. The inhabitants and settlers in said Territory
shall be subject to pay a part of the Federal debts, contracted or to
be contracted, and a proportional part of the expenses of government,
to be apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common
rule and measure by which the apportionments thereof shall be made on
the other States; and the taxes for paying their proportion shall be
laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of
the district or districts, or new States, as in the original States,
within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress
assembled. The legislatures of those districts or new States shall
never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United
States in Congress assembled, nor with any regulation Congress may
find necessary for securing the title to such soil to bona fide
purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on lands, the property of the
United States; and in no case shall non-resident proprietors be taxed
higher than residents. The navigable waters leading into the
Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the
same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the
inhabitants of the said Territory as to the citizens of the United
States, and those of any other States that may be admitted into the
confederacy, without any tax, import or duty therefor.
ARTICLE 5. There shall be formed in the said Territory not less than
three nor more than five States; and the boundaries of the Stales as
soon as Virginia shall alter her act of cession and consent to the
same, shall become fixed and established as follows, to wit: The
western State in the said Territory shall be bounded by the
Mississippi, the Ohio and Wabash Rivers; a direct line drawn from the
Wabash and Port Vincent’s due north to the territorial line between
the United States and Canada; and by the said territorial line to the
Lake of the Woods and Mississippi. The middle State shall be bounded
by the said direct line, the Wabash from Port Vincent’s to the Ohio,
by the Ohio, by a direct line drawn due north from the mouth of the
Great Miami to the said territorial line, and by the said territorial
line. The eastern State shall be bounded by the last mentioned direct
line, the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the said territorial line; provided,
however, and it is further understood and declared, that the
boundaries of these three States shall be subject so far to be altered
that, if Congress should hereafter find it expedient, they shall have
authority to form one or two States in that part of the Territory
which lies north of an east and west line, drawn through the southerly
bend or extreme of lake Michigan. And whenever any of the said States
shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall
be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United States,
on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects
whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and
State government; provided the constitution and government so to be
formed shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles
contained in these articles; and so far as it can be consistent with
the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be
allowed at an earlier period and when there may be a less number of
free inhabitants in the State than sixty thousand.
“ARTICLE 6. 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 services as aforesaid.”
The authorship of this grand charter of rights, vouchsafed to a people
who to-day number many millions and are living happily under its benign
influence, bears the marks of wisdom the most profound, of statesmanship
of the highest order, of foresight akin to inspiration. The question
then very naturally arises for eager solution, “Who was the author?” or
if more than one, “Who were the authors?” The question has never been,
probably never will be, fully and definitely answered to the
satisfaction of every inquirer. The claims of Thomas Jefferson, of
Nathan Dane, of Dr. Manasseh Cutler have in turn been ably supported by
various writers. The truth no doubt is that all these gentlemen,
together with Colonel Carrington and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, and
Arthur St. Clair, the President of Congress, were concerned in its
preparation. More importance is attached to the authorship of Articles
III and VI, especially of the latter, than to any other portion of the
instrument. Religious liberty, the provision for the spread of
education, the manner in which the Indians should be treated, and the
inhibition of slavery, are its distinguishing features. To whom are we
chiefly indebted for their place in the Ordinance?
Jefferson has a strong claim upon our gratitude, for it was he who
drafted the anti-slavery clause in the inoperative ordinance of 1784,
from which the anti-slavery clause (Article VI) of the Ordinance of
1787, no doubt, was copied. The similarity in the phraseology of the two
clauses is too striking to admit of a doubt of this, as any one who will
carefully read and compare the two will readily perceive. To Jefferson,
then, we owe much, but it must be remembered that he was not a member of
the last Congress of the old confederation, but was at that time our
minister to France. Nathan Dane was the committee’s secretary, and no
doubt the original draft is in his handwriting. He had prepared and
reported an ordinance in May previous which was not passed, and which
contained none of the grand principles that characterized the ordinance
under question. If he were the author of any part of the latter, it was
an unessential part, as he afterwards, in a letter to Mr. Rufus King
published in Spencer’s History of the United States, clearly shows that
he had no adequate conception of the grand features of the Ordinance.
Moreover he declined to offer the anti-slavery clause as a part of the
Ordinance at its first reading because he believed it could not pass,
and only presented it the day before the final adoption of the
Ordinance, after having learned the feeling of Congress toward the
slavery question.
It is undoubtedly true that to no one man are the people who have
enjoyed and to-day enjoy the benefits of the Ordinance, so much indebted
as to Dr. Manasseh Cutler. It was he who directed the battle in its
favor; it was he who secured the appointment of his friends, Carrington
and Lee, on the committee; who urged the necessity of the adoption of
the Ordinance before the land purchase could be made; who insisted, as
representative of the company which was most immediately concerned in
the nature of the laws that should form the government of the Territory,
upon the anti-slavery clause, and, to win the southern members to its
support, favored the addition of the proviso for the rendition of
fugitive slaves; and without doubt it was he who urged the insertion of
what relates to religion, morality and education. At this time
anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia was popular with the leading men of
that State, and with the protection to the property rights in the slave
which the proviso afforded, the Virginia members of the committee were
readily won to the support of the anti-slavery clause. What, therefore,
Dr. Cutler accomplished in behalf of the Ordinance was of the greatest
importance. He obtained the appointment of a new committee favorable to
such a measure as he was solicitous to have adopted; urged the insertion
of many of the grand principles it contained; won such friendly interest
for it from opposing elements as to insure for it certain victory, and
was instrumental in securing its passage.
Judge Ephraim Cutler, in 1849, received a letter from his brother,
Temple Cutler, in which he says: “Hon. Daniel Webster is now convinced
that the man who suggested some of its articles was our father,” and in
the same year Judge Cutler wrote as follows:
I visited my father at Washington during the last session he attended
Congress (1804).... We were in conversation relative to the political
concerns of Ohio, the ruling parties, and the effects of the
constitution (of Ohio) in the promotion of the general interest; when
he observed that he was informed that I had prepared that portion of
the Ohio constitution which contained the ‘part of the ordinance of
July, 1787, which prohibited slavery. He wished to know if it was a
fact. On my assuring that it was, he observed that he thought it a
singular coincidence, as he himself had prepared that part of the
ordinance while he was in New York negotiating the purchase of the
lands for the Ohio Company. I had not seen the journal he kept while
he was in New York at that time....[13]
Arthur St. Clair’s connection with the Ordinance must have been, from
the nature of the position he occupied as well as from the character of
the man, of very considerable importance. There is good reason for
believing him to be the author of the clause relating to the treatment
of the Indians. No other member of the House had a better acquaintance
with the Indian character, or better appreciated what was by right due
to the red man, and it is therefore more than likely that the
preparation of this clause was entrusted to him, though there exists no
positive proof of the fact.
General St. Clair’s history as Governor of the Northwest Territory will
be reserved for future publication in this Magazine.
WILLIAM W. WILLIAMS.
GEO. WASHINGTON’S FIRST EXPERIENCE AS SURVEYOR.
Washington’s early education was in the direction to fit him in an
especial manner for the practical work of the surveyor. After having
exhausted the possibilities of the elementary school, which he had
before attended, he was taken into the family of his brother Lawrence,
that he might have the benefit of a better one than existed in that
neighborhood. It seems to have been intended that he should attain a
thorough and practical business education—such as should fit him for all
the duties of an extensive colonial land owner and planter. Perhaps the
possibility of his becoming a magistrate or burgess was also present, as
the place that awaited him in the society of Virginia was such as to
warrant so modest an ambition. There are now in existence several of his
school books, into one of which are copied, with infinite pains, forms
for contracts, land conveyances, leases, mortgages, etc. In another are
preserved the field-notes and calculations of surveys, which he made as
a matter of practice—kept and proved with the same exactness that would
have been expected had the result been intended to form the basis of
practical transactions. Not the least advantage of Washington’s sojourn
with his brother, was the fact that it introduced him, at once, into the
highest and, at the same time, the best society of the colony. Lawrence
had become one of the most honored and prominent men in Virginia. His
wealth, his social position and that of the Fairfax family, his sterling
character and unquestioned ability, had united to advance him, and he
was a member of the House of Burgesses, as well as adjutant-general of
his district, with the rank and pay of a major.
But a few miles below Mount Vernon, as Lawrence Washington had called
his estate, and upon the same wooded ridge that bordered the Potomac,
was Belvoir the seat of the Fairfax family. Occupying the ample and
elegant appointed house, was the Hon. William Fairfax, father-in-law of
Lawrence Washington—a gentleman who had attained social, political and
military prominence in England, and in the East and West Indies. He had
come to Virginia to take charge of the enormous estate of his cousin,
Lord Fairfax, which, according to the original grant from the crown, was
“for all the lands between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers.” This
grant had been very liberally construed to include a large part of the
land drained by affluents of these streams, embracing a considerable
portion of the Shenandoah valley. In the midst of this princely domain,
the Fairfaxes lived in the style of English gentry. Their house was
always open to guests of the right class and to no others. The monotony
of life was occasionally broken by the arrival in the Potomac of an
English war vessel, when its officers were certain to be found at the
Fairfax and Washington tables, telling their stories of service in
distant seas, of battle, travel, and all the various experiences that a
naval life involves. Washington was made a sharer, on terms nearly
approaching equality, in much of this social intercourse; he felt the
refining and broadening influence of contact with accomplished and
experienced men of the world, and, not least important, he heard the
tales and jests of the seafaring visitors, and hearing, was enthralled.
At the age of fourteen he became infatuated with the idea of entering
the British navy. His age was suitable, the profession was an excellent
one for a young gentleman desiring to push his fortunes, a frigate at
that time lay in the river, Lawrence Washington and Mr. Fairfax
approved, and nothing seemed necessary to carrying the plan into effect
but the consent of the lad’s mother. Even this difficulty yielded to
argument. George’s clothes were packed, and he was ready to go aboard,
when the mother’s heart failed her, and she withdrew her consent, thus
saving Washington to his country. It is more likely, considering his
training and disposition, that, had the boy sailed upon that cruise, he
would have directed a vessel or fleet against the revolting colonies;
called them rebels, not patriots; served the king, not the people. Back
to school he went, no doubt chagrined and crestfallen, and remained for
nearly two years. At the end of that time his teacher discharged him as
finished, as, no doubt he was, so far as the capacity of that master was
concerned. These two years were passed in the study of the higher
mathematics, his intention being to fit himself for any business or
professional emergency, civil or military.
After leaving school, Washington was much more frequently at Belvoir
than before. Lord Fairfax, the owner of the estate, was now an inmate of
the house, having come to inspect his possessions, and determined to
make Virginia his home. He was much impressed by the fertility and
beauty of the country, and also, gossip had it, having never recovered
from a wound to his heart and pride, inflicted in his youth by a fickle
beauty, who preferred a ducal cornet to his more modest rank after the
wedding dress was made, was glad to escape from England to the freedom
and retirement of Virginia. Lord Fairfax was not far from sixty years of
age, tall, erect, and vigorous in figure; kind-hearted, generous but
eccentric, and not a man to take every comer into his friendship and
confidence. He at once showed a marked liking for the tall, handsome,
reserved and dignified young man, whom he so often met at Belvoir. No
one longer regarded Washington as a boy, though he was but fifteen years
of age. Lord Fairfax was a devoted sportsman, and set up his hunters and
hounds at Belvoir, as he had been accustomed in England. Had anything
been necessary to confirm his friendship for Washington, it was only to
find, as his lordship did, that the latter was as hard and intrepid a
rider as he, and would follow a fox over the dangerous and difficult
hunting grounds of Virginia with as little faltering or fatigue.
So this oddly assorted couple became close friends and constant
companions, in the hunt and elsewhere. The old nobleman, _litterateur_,
and man of the world, treated the sturdy young man as a social and
intellectual equal, and, from the fullness of experience, unconsciously
added, day by day, to his slender knowledge of the world; while the
latter, probably quite as unconsciously, in a measure repaid the debt,
as his knowledge of the country and of colonial life enabled him to do.
One important effect of his intimacy was that it resulted in securing to
Washington his first opportunity for testing his new-found freedom, by
undertaking an independent enterprise. This happened incidentally, yet
was the starting-point of the young man’s fortunes.
As has been said, Lord Fairfax’s estate in Virginia extended beyond the
Blue Ridge, and to a considerable distance up the eastern slope of the
Alleghanies. West of the former range no survey had ever been made, and
reports had come that the country was filling up with lawless squatters,
who invariably selected the best lands for settlement, and were in
danger of gaining such a foothold that to oust them would be a matter of
no little difficulty. Lord Fairfax desired a survey of this wild and
uncivilized territory to be made. It was a service requiring not only
skill as a surveyor, but ability to endure great fatigue, courage to
face danger, determination and ingenuity to meet and overcome
difficulties—yet all these qualities he deemed combined in Washington,
who had barely reached the age of sixteen years. The committing of so
important a trust to one so young seems almost inconceivable, and this
fact is one of the best indications of what the youth must have been,
not only in bone and muscle, but in brain, self-reliance and maturity,
at an age when most boys are thinking more of their balls and kites than
of the serious duties of life.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON ON A SURVEYING EXPEDITION.]
Washington eagerly accepted the proposal of Lord Fairfax, and
immediately set about his preparations for departure, which occupied but
a few days. In company with George William Fairfax, a young man of
twenty-two years, son of William Fairfax, he set out in the saddle,
during the month of March, 1748. Mr. John S. C. Abbott, in his ‘Life of
Washington,’ describes the experience of the young men in a manner
characteristically picturesque. He says: