USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume Three > Part 5
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
they were still residents of Virginia, holders of land warrants which entitled them to location in the Virginia Military reservation between the Little Miami and the Scioto rivers. There never was any sentiment for slavery in that part of the Territory which now constitutes Ohio.
The Virginians and Kentuckians who migrated to the new land were attracted as much by the slavery prohibition as by the rich prospects. The men who composed this Legislature were not only opposed to the admission of slavery on moral grounds, but they believed that it would be detrimental to the progress and prosperity of the Territory. They thought that it would lower free labor; that it would create a life unfriendly to simplicity and industry, and establish a condition from which many of them sought to escape in the selection of their new home. Some of them- Edward Tiffin and Thomas Worthington being notable examples-manumitted their slaves before removing to the Northwest Territory. David Meade Massie in his "Life of Nathaniel Massie," writing on this subject, says, "In examining Nathaniel Massie's correspondence, containing several hundred letters written by Virginians and Kentuckians concerning their lands in the Northwest Territory, only two were found objecting to the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 on the subject of slavery, and these were both written by one man."
In the western portion of the Territory there was a decided slavery sentiment, and this was manifested in repeated attempts to perpetuate it by petitioning Congress to modify the sixth article-the anti-slavery
51
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
article-of the Ordinance. This article, which was the most glorious provision of the Ordinance, declared that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in said territory, otherwise than in punish- ment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." At the time of the passage of the Ordi- nance, and for many years before, slaves were held in what, upon a division of the Territory, became known as Indiana Territory; being all that country east of the Mississippi River to the western boundary line of Ohio. The old French inhabitants at Port Vin- cennes, in what is now Indiana, and at and about Kaskaskia and Cahokia in what is now Illinois, received the prohibition of slavery as an infringement of their rights and a menace to their property. When they settled here they had been permitted to hold slaves by the King of France, and this permission was continued under the Government of Great Britain. Hence, as stated, the Ordinance found slavery existing at the places named. And, as a matter of fact, slavery was not interfered with under the Territorial govern- ment, although, as we shall see, persistent efforts were made to legalize it. Bartholomew Tardiveau from Danville, June 30, 1789, (St. Clair Papers, II, 117,) wrote Governor St. Clair particularly setting forth the views of the "ancient inhabitants" on the anti- slavery article, and on the impending ruin to them by its operation. He claimed that it was an ex post facto law, inasmuch as slavery existed in the Illinois country at the time of the passage of the Ordinance; that its operation "would deprive a considerable
52
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
number of citizens of their property acquired and enjoyed long before they were under the dominion of the United States."
Although Governor St. Clair did not do as requested in this letter, that is, apply to Congress for the modi- fication of the article, he agreed with Tardiveau in the interpretation claimed. The Governor gave his opinion that the article prohibiting slavery was not retro- active; that it was intended to prevent future importa- tion of slaves into the Northwest Territory, and not to set free those in slavery at the time of its passage, because such slavery was authorized and recognized by French and English laws when the United States took possession and assumed jurisdiction. There was absolutely no foundation nor justification for this construction, and St. Clair himself receded from it in later years. The construction was never admitted by any other authority of the government. St. Clair's biographer, William Henry Smith, defends the Govern- or's position, but it is only at the expense of a distortion of the English language used in the Ordinance.
The next movement agitating this question took the form of a petition to Congress (American State Papers. Public Lands, I, 61.) signed by John Edgar, William Morrison, William St. Clair, and John Dumou- lin, "for and on behalf of the inhabitants of St. Clair and Randolph counties, " and it is dated at Kaskaskia, January 12, 1796. Itis as follows: "To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, the humble petition of the inhabitants of the counties of St. Clair and Randolph, in the Illinois country, respectfully showeth :
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
"That the sixth article of compact contained in the ordinance of Congress of 1787, for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio, which declares 'That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory otherwise than in punishment of crimes,' is, as your petitioners humbly conceive, not only contrary to the promise and assur- ances made them, on behalf of the State of Virginia, by the then Colonel, afterwards Brigadier-General George Rogers Clark, on his taking possession of this country in the name of the said State, whose troops he then commanded, but also contrary to an express fundimental principle in all free countries, 'That no ex post facto laws should ever be made.'
"Your petitioners then were, and now are, possessed of a number of slaves, which the article above recited seems to deprive them of (perhaps inadvertently), without their consent or concurrence. It may be said, as it is the better opinion, that all such as were slaves at the date of that ordinance are to continue so during their lives; but then it is also said that the issue of such slaves, born after that period, are absolutely free. Your petitioners, however, humbly contend that such after-born issue are as much slaves as those born before, because the owners of their parents have, and, as your petitioners humbly conceive, always had as fixed and incontrovertible a right to, and interest in, the future issue and increase of such slaves as they have to the slaves themselves. That, notwithstanding the articles in the said ordinance are said to be 'Articles of compact between the original States and the people and States of the said Territory,' it is, however, a
54
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
truth that they were made ex parte by the original states only; for sure your petitioners are that, if the people then in the Territory had been called upon to make such compact, they never would have consented to enter into one that would deprive them of their most valuable property.
"Your petitioners humbly hope they will not be thought presumptuous in venturing to disapprove of the article concerning slavery in toto, as contrary not only to the interest, but almost to the existence of the country they inhabit, where laborers cannot be pro- cured to assist in cultivating the grounds under one dollar per day, exclusive of washing, lodging and board- ing; and where every kind of tradesmen are paid from a dollar and a half to two dollars per day; neither is there, at these exorbitant prices, a sufficiency of hands to be got for the exigencies of the inhabitants, who, attached to their native soil have rather chose to encounter these and many other difficulties than, by avoiding them, remove to the Spanish dominions, where slavery is permitted, and consequently, the price of labor is much lower.
"Your petitioners do not wish to increase the number of slaves already in the dominions of the United States; all they hope for or desire is, that they may be per- mitted to introduce from any of the United States such persons, and such only, as by the laws of such States are slaves therein. This request, your petitioners humbly hope, will not be objected to as unreasonable, even by the greatest opposers of slavery, seeing they do not pray for the introduction of any foreign slaves into the Territory."
GOVERNOR RETURN J. MEIGS, JR. From a painting by John Henry Witt in the Capitol at Columbus.
Born at Middletown, Connecticut, in. 1765; came to Ohio, with his father Return J. Meigs in 1788; was Judge of the Supreme Court, 1803-04; in 1807, appointed Judge of the United States District Court of Michigan Terri- tory; elected to the United States Senate and served from January 6, 1809, to May 1, 1810, when he resigned to accept the Governorship of Ohio; this he resigned to be Post Master-General in President Monroe's Cabinet; he died at Marietta, March 29, 1825.
54
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
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as81 fostdafsM , sftohsM ts prove of my slavery in tot. trary not or, bur almost to the xsittende of the In where laborers canmet be pro- ulvating the groundi ander one of washing, lodging and board- kind of tradesmen are paid from a dull and a bit wa swo dollars per day; neither is doors, ax these sortitant prices, a sufficiency of hands to be yot for the wilgencies of the inhabitants, who, attached to their native soil have rather chose to encounter there and many other difficulties than, by avoiding them, remove to the Spanish dominions, where slavery is permitted, and consequently, the price of Labor is much Lover.
"Your petitioners do not wish to increase the number of laves already in the dominions of the United States; all they hope for or desite is, that they may be per- milind to introduce from any of the United States such persona, and such only, as by the laws of such States are slave therein. This request, your petitioners bambly hope, will not be objected to as unreasonable, cren by the greatest opposers of slavery, seeing they do not pray for the introduction of any foreign slaves into the Territory.
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55
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
After an argument from a legal standpoint justifying the claims set forth, the document concludes :
"Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that the sixth article of compact in the ordinance of 1787 may either be repealed or altered, so as to give permission to introduce slaves into the said Territory from any of the original States, or otherwise; that a law may be made permitting the introduction of such slaves as servants for life, and that it may be enacted for what period the children of such servants shall serve the masters of their parents."
This petition, in a report communicated to the House of Representatives, May 12, 1796, was summarily refused, and even the power of the petitioners to repre- sent the inhabitants of St. Clair and Randolph counties directly questioned.
A second petition, also from these same counties, now in the Territory of Indiana, was presented to Congress January 23, 1801, but modified so that it asked that their slaves should be held as such during their lives only, and that their issue born in the Territory were to be declared free-the males at thirty-one and the females at twenty- eight years of age. When this petition was presented, it was laid on the table, and no further action taken.
It will take us out of the boundaries of Ohio to follow to the end this movement to perpetuate slavery in the Northwest Territory; but it is well to do it, even for no other reason than to demonstrate where the slavery sentiment existed in the Territory. It was not in the Ohio country, but in the Indiana and Illinois regions, the former was in opposition, the latter in advocacy of the suspension of the famous Sixth Article.
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
The persistent efforts to preserve slavery was resumed at a convention held at Vincennes, December 20, 1802, which was presided over by William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Territory of Indiana. This convention was in session seven days when they agreed on a memorial to Congress asking the suspension of the Sixth Article for ten years. When the memorial, with a letter from Governor Harrison, was presented to the House of Representatives, it was referred to a special committee of which the eccentric John Randolph of Roanoke was chairman. This memorial was kicked like a football from one congress to another for three years. Mr. Randolph, on March 2, 1803 reported adversely, and in his report this Virginian slaveholder, answering the petitioners' claim of the necessity for slaves in the Territory, said: "That the rapid popula- tion of the State of Ohio sufficiently evinces, in the opinion of your committee, that the labor of slaves is not necessary to promote the growth and settlement of colonies in that region. That this labor, demon- strably the dearest of any, can only be employed to advantage in the cultivation of products more valuable than any known to that quarter of the United States; that the committee deem it highly dangerous and inexpedient to impair a provision wisely calculated to promote the happiness and prosperity of the north- western country, and to give strength and security to that extensive frontier. In the salutary operation of this sagacious and benevolent restraint, it is believed that the inhabitants of Indiana will, at no very distant day, find ample remuneration for a temporary privation of labor and of emigration."
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
In December, 1803, the memorial was referred to another special committee, headed by Cæsar Rodney, of Delaware-afterwards Attorney General of the United States-and on the 17th of February, 1804, he made a report favoring the suspension of the anti- slavery clause of the Ordinance. The report gave no reason for its conclusion, but as a wholesale proposition recommended that the prayer of the memorialists be granted. The recommendation of the report is as follows :- "That taking into their consideration the facts stated in the said memorial and petition, they are induced to believe that a qualified suspension, for a limited time, of the Sixth article of compact between the original States and the people and the States west of the River Ohio, might be productive of benefit and advantage to the said Territory."
On December 18, 1805, for the third time the memo- rial was referred to a select committee of which James Garnet of Virginia was chairman, and this committee, following the example of its predecessor, recommended on the 14th of February, 1806, the allowance of slavery in the Indiana Territory for a period of ten years. It was referred to the Committee of the Whole House.
These reports were all ignored by the House of Representatives; disappointed, the petitioners presented their memorial to the Senate, and its consideration was referred to a special committee composed of Senators Franklin of North Carolina, Kitchell of New Jersey and Tiffin of Ohio. They reported adversely, November 13, 1807, and thus ended the struggle before Congress to perpetuate slavery in the Territory North- west of the Ohio River. And here it may be observed
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
that Edward Tiffin, who, as Speaker of the House of Representatives of the First General Assembly, aided in administering the initial rebuke to slavery extension in the Territory, also assisted, as United States Senator from Ohio, in giving it its death stroke.
No single event of this period and of this Territorial Assembly had so far-reaching and beneficial effect on the future welfare of the new West as the selection of William Henry Harrison as the first delegate to Con- gress from the Territory. On the joint ballot of the two Houses, October 3, 1799, Mr. Harrison received twelve votes, and Arthur St. Clair, Jr., son of the Gov- ernor, ten votes. His competitor was a Federalist while Harrison was a Republican.
The new delegate was born at Berkeley, Virginia, February 9, 1773, and was educated at Hampden- Sidney College in that State. He was the youngest son of Benjamin Harrison, Governor of Virginia, who was a member of the Continental Congress, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Destined for medicine, he abandoned his studies for that profession, and entered the army as an ensign in the First Infantry in 1791, then not nineteen years of age. He repaired to the Northwest Territory, and joined his regiment then stationed at Fort Washington shortly after the defeat of the gallant but ill-starred St. Clair. He acted as aide to General Wayne in the whole of the following campaigns, and his bravery and gallant conduct were such that he was repeatedly mentioned by his commander in terms of the highest praise. After the Greenville Treaty he was placed in command of Fort Washington-the most important
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
post on the western frontier. On June 1, 1798, he resigned his commission, and was immediately appointed by President John Adams, Secretary of the Northwest Territory under Governor St. Clair, to succeed Win- throp Sargent. On his election as delegate, he resigned the Secretaryship, to take his seat in the Sixth Con- gress, which commenced December 2, 1799.
Mr. Harrison was the leader of a firm public sentiment which objected to the prevailing methods of disposing of the government lands; claiming that they were in the interest of the wealthy classes. The laws of Congress at this time were very unfavorable to the rapid settlement of the Territory. At first they pro- vided only for the sale in tracts of two million acres each, then of one million acres. Under the first, the Ohio Company purchased the lands on the Muskingum, and under the second John Cleves Symmes and asso- ciates purchased between the Miamis. Afterwards the law was changed providing for the sale in tracts of not less than four thousand acres. This was likewise obnoxious to the people. It placed them beyond the pale of dealing with the Government, which they were, by their privations and heroism making greater year by year. It was an arrangement presenting the most aristocratic features, and was calculated to build up a wealthy land monopoly in a new and fertile country. At a period when money was scarce and when com- mercial facilities had not been extended to the region west of the mountains, few individuals could purchase a single tract of four thousand acres. The very men who had the best claim to the land, and who were most entitled to the protection and favor of the Government,
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
the pioneer who won the country by toil and peril, the farmer who was clearing the soil, the bone and muscle of this new citizenship, were doomed under this system to buy at second hand their land from speculative companies and real estate monopolists. This was a frightful condition for a new and virgin country.
The injustice and bad policy of this system struck Mr. Harrison very forcibly. His observation as a pioneer satisfied him that it was adverse to the interests of both the Government and the settlers. Soon after he had taken his seat, he offered a resolution for the appointment of a committee with instructions to inquire into and report on the existing mode of selling public lands. He was himself appointed chairman of the com- mittee. After investigation, he presented a report, accompanied by a bill, the principle object of which was to reduce the size of the tracts of public land offered for sale, to such a smaller number of acres as would place them within the reach of actual settlers.
This forceful report was the joint production of Mr. Harrison and the distinguished Albert Gallatin, who was afterwards Secretary of the Treasury in the cabinets of Jefferson and Monroe. The bill triumph- antly passed the House, and also the Senate after some amendments. The result was that the public lands, instead of being offered in large tracts only, of which four thousand acres was the smallest size, were now to be sold in alternate sections and half-sections-the former to contain six hundred and forty, and the latter three hundred and twenty acres each. The terms of payment were made easy to the purchasers-one-fourth cash, and the balance in one, two, three and four years.
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OF AN AMERICAN STATE
Land offices were opened at Cincinnati, Chillicothe, Marietta and Steubenville, and at certain periods there were to be public sales for three weeks, and private sales at all other times. Prior to this legislation, the only places land could be bought were at the Treasury Office in Philadelphia, or at the public sales at Pitts- burgh or Cincinnati. The expense and inconvenience of this arrangement to the settlers was one of their severest hardships.
The result of this legislation soon became apparent in the Territory. Thousands of hardy and industrious farmers of the Eastern states, and many of the poorer planters of the South availed themselves of the fair field now open for enterprise and emigration. This act of William Henry Harrison, if he had not performed other deeds of valor and heroism, would have stamped him as the leading statesman of the early West; for to this, more than to any other cause, save the conquest of the Indian tribes, was due the rapid settlement and prosperity of the Northwest Territory.
An attempt to introduce the lottery into the Terri- tory forms one of the most interesting and remarkable incidents of early legislation. This institution was in great favor during the eighteenth, and the first part of the nineteenth centuries. Until it had reached the phase of an immoral and speculative craze, it had the support of an honest public sentiment. It was a favorite method of raising money for public purposes such as building courthouses, canals and public roads. The Continental Congress tried it in 1777. It pre- vailed very extensively in Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
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THE RISE AND PROGRESS
It was natural that this eastern scheme should appear in the new country, and that there should be a public sentiment to sustain it. Judge Burnet introduced a bill which passed the Council authorizing a lottery, but it was rejected by the House of Representatives. The Journal of the House also shows that there was a petition presented to that body by several of the citi- zens of Chillicothe praying "for leave to make a lottery to raise three thousand dollars for the purpose of erecting a Presbyterian church in that town." Both of these attempts failed; as far as the Territorial government was concerned, the lottery was interdicted in the initial movement. Illustrative of the opinion, in the days of early statehood, on this subject, a con- tinuation of its history is instructive. The legislation of the new state was decidedly favorable to this popular
form of gambling. In 1807 (Chase's Statutes I, 559,) an act was passed prohibiting any private lottery with- out a special act of the Legislature. From thence on, it was not uncommon for the General Assembly to authorize lotteries by special acts. These were for various purposes; for instance: to raise moneys for improving Cuyahoga and Muskingum Rivers; to secure the banks of the Scioto at Chillicothe; for a bridge over the Muskingum, and to authorize the drawing of a lottery for the benefit of the Ohio University at Athens. This last act was never carried out by the authorities of the University, and it became a dead letter.
Sometimes lotteries were permitted for the relief of private citizens, as in the case of Elisha Barrett (Ohio Laws XXVI, 52,) of Fairfield, who was authorized to raise three thousand dollars in this manner to be
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SCHEME!
1 PRIZE OF $8,000
8,000
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4 do.
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$32,004
UNA BLANKS.
ORDERS from any part of the United States, enclosing the cash, add post paid, will receive prompt attention, if address- ed to either of the Commis lopers, 11 Lancaster or to such a- gents as they have or may appoin!
LANCASTER
1828
BY AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OF OHIO
Ohio State Lott
FIRST CLASS,
Nº52
Jacob TINDER the superintendence Claypool, John Creed, and Maccracken, Commissioners, apto inky by
the Court of Common Pleas of Fairfield County.
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THIS ticket will entitle its holder to such prize as may @ L to its number, if demanded within twelve months after Aberdraw- ing: Subject to a deduction of fifteen per cent Payalne
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Larol clarhave
FACSIMILE OF OHIO STATE LOTTERY TICKET Authorized by the laws of Ohio under its first consti-
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