Mr. Chase, late Chief Justice of the United States, in the introduction to his "Statutes of Ohio," said: "Never, probably, in the history of the world, did a measure of legislation so accurately fulfil, and yet so mightily exceed, the anticipations of the legislators. The Ordinance has well been described as having been a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night in the settlement and government of the Northwestern States."

It may seem strange that, after the lapse of nearly a century, the origin and history of so important a document should still be matters of doubt, and hence of discussion. The statement is ventured with some confidence that in the whole range of topics in our national history there is none which has been more obscure, or the subject of more conflicting and erroneous statements than the one just named. No one of the general histories of the United States or of the special histories of the Western States gives any information on the subject. Mr. G. T. Curtis in his elaborate "History of the Constitution of the United States," knowing it to be the source of some of the provisions of the Constitution, has omitted to give any historical account of the Ordinance.*

Mr. Webster, in the speech which has been quoted, ascribed the authorship of the Ordinance solely to Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, and this has been the commonly received opinion on the subject since that time. Mr. Benton of Missouri, and Mr. Hayne, promptly challenged the accuracy of the statement upon the spot. "Before I proceed," said Mr. Benton, "to the main object of this reply, I must be permitted to clear away some ornamental work, and to remove some rubbish which the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Webster] has

*In his second volume, p. 344, is a note referring the reader, for an account of the Ordinance, to the appendix; but nothing on the subject appears in the appendix. His publishers subsequently issued a printed slip, containing a note from Mr. Curtis, dated March 20, 1858, which will be found inserted in some copies, stating the reason why this matter was omitted. After the foot-note on p. 344 had been printed, the author's attention was called to a letter written by Mr. Dane to Rufus King, which he regarded as settling the question of authorship, and hence he had cancelled the matter he had prepared. A brief extract from this letter is given, but without an intimation as to where the entire letter can be found. Mr. Dane's letter was printed by Charles King, the son of Rufus King, in the " New York Daily Tribbune" of February 28, 1855, page 6. It is an important letter, and will be quoted and considered in the progress of this discussion.

placed in the way, either to decorate his own march or to embarrass mine. He has brought before us a certain Nathan Dane, of Beverly, Massachusetts, and loaded him with such an exuberance of blushing honors as no modern name has been known to merit or to claim. So much glory was caused by a single act, and that act the supposed authorship of the Ordinance of 1787, and especially the clause in it which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude. So much encomium and such grateful consequences it seems a pity to spoil, but spoilt it must be; for Mr. Dane was no more the author of that Ordinance, sir, than you or I, who about that time were mewling and puking in our nurses' arms. That Ordinance, and especially the non-slavery clause, was not the work of Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, but of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia."

Later in the same debate Mr. Benton said: "I have already given the proof of the fact that the South is entitled to the honor of originating the clause against slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The state of the votes also upon the adoption shows that she is entitled to the honor of passing it."

Mr. Hayne commented on the subject in a similar strain. Mr. Charles King of New York, President of Columbia College, in 1855, published a paper on the Northwestern Territory, in which he claimed for his father, Rufus King, the credit of being the author of the antislavery clause in the Ordinance. Mr. Rufus King did, two years before the Ordinance was passed, propose such a clause as a supplementary provision to another ordinance; but, as we shall presently see, nothing ever came of it. He moved its committal, and never called it up for consideration. Mr. King was not a member of the Congress which passed the Ordinance of 1787, but was a member of the Convention for the formation of the Constitution in session at the same time at Philadelphia.

Hon. Edward Coles, Governor of Illinois from 1822 to 1826, read a paper before the Pennsylvania Historical Society in June, 1856, and printed by the Society, entitled "History of the Ordinance of 1787." His object was chiefly to controvert Mr. Webster's statement as to its authorship, and to claim the honor for Mr. Jefferson.

The obscurity which has hung over the subject has arisen chiefly from the fact that in the old Continental Congress the proceedings were held in secret session, and no report of its debates was preserved. Its secret journal was printed some years later; but it was kept in so meagre and careless a manner that it is impossible from it to follow the business of the sessions. It was, moreover, regarded as a breach of confidence to speak of outside, or to write about, the business of Congress. Mr. Webster, relying on the secret journal, fell into many errors. If he had information from other sources, that, in many instances, was also erroneous. It was impossible to find in print at that time the facts on which an accurate statement of the matter could be made. Mr. Dane was then living in his seventyeighth year, and died five years later. His pastor and biographer, the Rev. Christopher T. Thayer, has given in the sketch of his life, in Stone's History of Beverly, no further information on the subject than is contained in Mr. Webster's statement. Mr. Thayer, two years ago, informed the writer that he never heard Mr. Dane speak of the Ordinance, and was not aware that he had written upon it. Since that time three letters of Mr. Dane, treating the subject of the Ordinance, have come to the writer's notice: 1. The letter to Rufus King, dated July 16, 1787, already noticed. 2. A letter to Daniel Webster, dated March 26, 1830 (after Mr. Webster had made his second speech in reply to Hayne), which is printed in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings, 1867-69, p. 475. 3. A letter to J. H. Farnham, Secretary of the Indiana Historical Society, dated May 12, 1831, and printed in the "New York Tribune" of June 18, 1875. In all these letters Mr. Dane claims to be the author of the Ordinance, the same claim he makes in his "Abridgment and Digest of American Law," Vol. VII. p. 389. That he was the member of the committee who wrote the draft of the Ordinance which was submitted to and passed by Congress, there can be no question. A clerk of the committee, under instructions, might have performed this duty. Whether he was the author of the instrument, in the higher sense of furnishing its fundamental ideas, the occasion, the personal influence, the political motives, and the strategy which were needed to carry the measure through, and what services were

rendered by other persons, are legitimate subjects of historical investigation, to which we will direct our inquiries.

Several ordinances for the government of the Northwestern Territory were before Congress from 1784 to 1787, and the first authentic information concerning them appeared in a paper prepared by Mr. Peter Force of Washington, and printed in the "National Intelligencer" of August 26, 1847. Mr. Force, when searching for materials for his "American Archives," found a parcel of manuscripts containing the original, reports relating to these several ordinances, with the changes and amendments attached, their precise condition at different dates, and memoranda of the disposition made of them. His paper embodied a statement of these facts. Governor Coles, writing nine years later, was not even aware of the existence of Mr. Force's paper, and hence his statements and his conclusions were strangely inaccurate. Mr. Force's statement, valuable as it is, falls far short of being a complete account of the Ordinance. It, however, developed the fact, for the first time, that, instead of being under consideration for three years and six months, as Governor Coles and some other writers have asserted, it was, in the brief space of four successive days, drafted de novo, reported to Congress, took its first, second, and third reading, and was enacted by the unanimous vote of all the States present. Mr. Force was amazed at this sudden action, and confesses his inability to explain it. It is the good fortune of the writer to have in his possession original and contemporary manuscripts, and other authentic evidence, which will show how this sudden action was brought about, and who was the person that inspired and controlled this action.

It will be necessary, as a preparation for the new evidence to be presented, that a brief sketch be given of the several plans or ordinances for the government of the Northwestern Territory which were brought forward and considered by Congress prior to the real Ordinance, which was passed July 13, 1787.

On the 1st of March, 1784, a committee consisting of Mr. Jefferson of Virginia, Mr. Chase of Maryland, and Mr. Howell of Rhode Island, reported an ordinance for the temporary government of the territory, which should continue in force only until any of the ten States, whose boundaries were described,

should have a population of twenty thousand free inhabitants. It further provided that any of the States may be admitted into the Union when their number of free inhabitants is as many as any one of the least numerous of the thirteen original States; and that the several States should bear the following names: Sylvania, Michigania, Cheronesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Wash ngton, Polypotamia, and Pelesipia. It proposed, also, five "articles of compact," which were quite unlike the six articles in the Ordinance of 1787. The fifth article was as follows: "That after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty."

The report was recommitted, and on the 22d of March a second report was made, substantially the same as the first, except that the fanciful names of the new States were stricken out. On the 19th of April, on motion of Mr. Spaight of North Carolina, seconded by Mr. Read of South Carolina, a vote was taken whether the fifth article of compact should stand. The vote was six States in the affirmative and three in the negative. In the old Congress the method of voting was quite different from that of the present Congress. All business was voted upon by States, and the affirmative vote of seven States, a majority of the original thirteen, was necessary to carry any measure. No State could vote unless it had at least two delegates present. In that case, both must vote in the affirmative, or the vote of the State was lost. If three delegates were present, two affirmative votes could carry the vote of the State. It seldom happened that as many as ten of the original thirteen States were represented at one time. Six States only voting for Mr. Jefferson's antislavery clause, it was lost. The ordinance, without any slavery restriction, passed April 23, 1784; and was, chiefly from the absence of such a restriction, a dead letter. No settlement of the territory was made under it.

The defeat of Mr. Jefferson's antislavery clause was regarded at the time as a great calamity: but Northern men soon saw that it was a most fortunate circumstance; for if slavery had been allowed to get a foothold in the territory for