USA > Ohio > Washington County > Marietta > The ninety-fifth anniversary of the settlement of Ohio, at Marietta. Historical address > Part 2
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This view of the ordinance as a measure of finance may have been correct; but of the people for whom it was to become a law, and of its purport, it is incorrect and mistaken. The ordinance of '87 was the result of long and careful thought guided by that deep understanding of the value of human free- dom and personal prerogative which had thus far characterized every popular effort of the American people. It was one step in the progress of popular government, and stands in the line with the protest at Spires, the compact on the Mayflower, the resistance of the colonies, the Declaration of Independ-
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ence, and the Proclamation of Freedom. The work of
engrafting it upon the civil system of the young common- wealths which were to be enrolled under the flag of the American Union, fell into the hands of men who were not speculators, or mercenaries, or criminals, or voluptuaries,
· but who were a sincere, honest, thoughtful and cultivated body who went forth to their work of founding a state from the pulpits and town-meetings and colleges and battle-fields of the most earnest and defiant corner of the earth known at that day. The growth of the ordinance to perfection was
slow. In 1784, Jefferson, as I have already said, having on
March 1st of that year, in connection with his associates,
Monroe, Arthur Lee, and Hardy, given a deed by which they ceded "to the United States all claim to the territory northwest of the Ohio," presented, as chairman of a commit-
ordinance he provided that "after the year 1800 of the tee a plan for the government of this territory. In his
Christian era there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude " in any of the new states carved out of this acquis- ition of 'empire to the Republic. This provision he hedged about with all possible constitutional protection which could
bind congress. This section of the ordinance, however, was
lost. The votes of South Carolina, Maryland and Virginia were against it ; North Carolina was divided ; the four east- ern States, New York and Pennsylvania were for it. The defeat was a source of great mortification and distress to Jefferson. He never forgot it. He denounced bitterly those
who voted against the proposition of freedom, and in 1786, in referring to it, he said, "the friends of human nature will in the end prevail ; heaven will not always be silent." And they did prevail. This ordinance, "shorn of its proscription of slavery," was adopted, it is true ; but it remained in force
but three years, and died when the great ordinance of 'S7
became a law. In 1785, Timothy Pickering, whose career in
the Continental army, in Cabinet, in House, and in Senate, stands among the foremost of his time for ability, integrity and courage, induced Rufus King, then in Congress, to
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propose once more the exclusion of slavery from the terri- tories. Mr. King's resolution, offered March 16th, 1785, went to the Committee of the Whole and was never heard of afterwards. On April 26th, 1787, a committee consisting of Mr. Johnson of Connecticut, Mr. Pinckney of South Caro- lina, Mr. Smith of New York, Mr. Dane of Massachusetts, and Mr. Henry of Maryland, reported an ordinance which was never voted on and which contained none of the sanctity of contracts, none of the sacredness of private property, none of the provisions for education, religion and morality, none of the principles of freedom to be found in the ordi- nance as it now stands in all its immortal glory. Meanwhile the Ohio Company had been organized, in Boston. In Janu- ary, 1786, Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper issued a call for a meeting of organization and the Association commenced its work. The proposition to purchase 1,500,000 acres of land at one dollar an acre was in those days of bankruptcy . and poverty, startling. That it should not have been entirely successful is not surprising. But half the sum proposed was raised and Congress from time to time passed acts relieving the embarrassed Company, which secured in the end nearly a million acres of land in three patents issued to Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, Robert Oliver, and Griffin Greene in trust for the Ohio Company.
In securing the contract for 1,500,000 acres of land in the North-west, which was provided for by act of Congress July 27th, 1787, and in the passage of the ordinance for the terri- on the 13th of the same month, the controlling mind was evidently that of Manasseh Cutler. He had two objects in view ; 1st, the settlement of the new territories of the United States, for the benefit of those men in the Eastern States who had been impoverished by the war of the Revolution ; and 2d, the foundation of new states there on the best system of government known to the states already in the confeder- ation. He was a careful and able student of public affairs. His scholarship at Yale College was high. His mind grasped the processes required and the facts revealed by scientific
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investigation, and the problems involved in political and theological discussion with equal facility and power. He exerted a commanding influence wherever he went. Com- mencing life on the high seas, he educated himself for the bar and practiced for a short time in the courts of Massachu- setts. Turning his attention then to the study of divinity, he took charge of a pulpit in Hamilton, Massachusetts, and enrolled his name with that long list of New England clergy- men who in that early period exerted a most powerful influ- ence in the colonies, who called around themselves the cultivated men of the times, took part in all momentous endeavors, and who sent into every walk in life sons whom they had educated in the colleges out of their narrow incomes, and who performed most valuable service as merchants, jurists, physicians, statesmen, divines. As chaplain in the Continental Army, as member of the American Academy of Sciences, as negotiator for the purchase of this great territory, as adviser, pioneer, law giver, for these opening states, he has left an example which will always be admired, an influence which will always be felt. His pulpit was but twenty miles from Boston. Is it not reasonable to suppose that he listened to the high debate on the great issues of the hour by Samuel Adams, John Quincy and John Adams ; to the masterly argument of James Otis on the Writs of Assistance ; to the voice of the people heard in those defiant town meetings whose resolves forshadowed the Declaration of Independence, and reached the ear of its immortal author ? He had ridden on horseback from his home in Hamilton to meet the retreat- ing British soldiery as they fled from Lexington and Concord before the fire of "the embattled farmers." He heard the guns at Bunker Hill, mourned for Warren as for a friend, carried comfort and encouragement into the patriot army during the trials of the war. Ile was surrounded by great men, who always turned to him for advice and counsel. Timothy Pickering, the noble Roman of the war, was his neighbor. General Glover was one of his early companions. Elbridge Gerry, the young and fearless patriot, was the legal
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adviser of his people. The home of Nathan Dane was with- in a few miles of his own. Samuel Osgood, Chairman of the Board of Treasury of the United States, with whom he made the contract for the purchase of these lands, was a citi- zen of the county of Essex, in which this distinguished group resided, and where Cutler had his home. Is it sur- prising that when Rufus Putnam organized his association for the settlement of Ohio, he should have sought the aid and advice of Cutler, whose energy and capacity were well known through all the eastern colonies ? Is it surprising that when he had enlisted in the work the burden should have fallen on his shoulders ? At his touch the enterprise was filled with new life. The attention of Congress was at once arrested and turned to this important measure of multiplying the states in the confederacy as it was developing into a republic. The ordinance which Jefferson and King had failed to carry, and which was imcomplete enough as it came from their hands, took shape at once and commended itself to Congress. With his contract in one hand and his ordinance in the other, he appealed to every sentiment of patriotism, interest and humanity as each presented itself among the legislators with whom he was forced to deal. In his proposition there was an extension of country, an absorption of colonial securities, opportunities for speculation, the increase of free territory on the value of which the ablest statesman, north and south, agreed ; and he applied each one of these motives as necessi- . ty required. Of his ability to fulfill his contract no man had a doubt. Nor could any member of Congress be sur- prised at the demand he would make, that the fundamental law of the territory should conform to the highest and most humane law of the land. The ordinance which satisfied him and his associates secures religious freedom to all ; prohibits legislative interference with private contracts, secures the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus, trial by jury, and of common law in judicial proceedings, forbids the infliction of cruel and unnecessary punishment ; declares that as religion, morality and knowledge are necessary to good government
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and the happiness of mankind, schools and means of instruc- tion shall ever be encouraged ; provides that the territories shall remain forever a part of the United States ; makes the navigable waters free forever to all citizens of the United States ; provides for a division of the territory into States, and their admission into the Union with republican govern- ments ; and declares that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the territory. Many of the pro- visions were drafted from the constitution of Massachusetts of 1780. That the views contained in this ordinance occu- pied the mind of Cutler at that time there can be no doubt. He was engaged in establishing a republican government over a vast extent of territory which he felt would one day, not very remote, form a most important and influential por- tion of the United States. He was not to be satisfied with compromises ; and he knew moreover from the propositions made in the past, in regard to the ordinance, that compro- mises were not necessary to success. He had also ascertained the personal interest in Congress with regard to the occupa- tion of the lands along the fertile valleys of Ohio, and he estimated the strength of his cause accordingly. Everything connected with the enterprise he was engaged in roused all his powers, his skill, his wisdom, his adroitness, his faith in republican government ; and he summoned them all in his work. In the task of framing and presenting this ordinance to Congress he had a most important and powerful ally on the committee to whom the matter was referred. Nathan Dane represented his district in Congress, was his neighbor and friend in Essex county, Massachusetts, and had been all his life under the same social and civil influences as had op- erated to mould his own views and develop his own character. A calm, conservative, dispassionate, able and accomplished lawyer, Nathan Dane had not given his mind to the construc- tion of governmental policies or to the reforming of abuses. He had large experience in the Legislature of Massachusetts and afterwards a short time in the Continental Congress. While Cutler was engaged in rousing the people to resist
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all acts of oppression and "rushing to the fray " at the sound of the first gun, and exhorting his flock from the pulpit, and surveying the heavens and exploring the earth to discover the laws of nature, considering the unoccupied lands of the West as a home for the swarms which were obliged to leave the eastern hive, and exercising his diplomacy in purchasing those lands and his wisdom in advising the emigrants, and his love of adventure by a solitary journey through the wil- derness to the home of their adoption, Dane was a scholar of high reputation at Harvard College, a diligent student of law in the quiet and cultivated town of Salem, a lawyer in the elegant repose of Beverly, a good legislator, a learned ex- pounder of the law, possessed of "great good sense and a sound judgment, faithful to all his duties," and enjoying universal confidence in his “ industry, discretion and integri- ty." Cutler was fortunate in having such an advocate on the floor of Congress-and Dane was fortunate in having such a cause and such a client. A proposition which in the hands of Jefferson and King had failed as an apparent abstraction, became a vital issue when presented as one of the indispen- sable terms of a contract between a large-minded practical philanthropist, and the government of a rising republic, called upon to decide the question of freedom at the very threshold of its existence. Dr. Cutler presented himself at the doors of Congress with the terms of purchase in one hand and the terms of settlement in the other, and both were accepted. An unsuccessful measure which on two pre- vious occasions Dane had acquiesced in as a member of the committees reporting it to Congress, became suddenly under Cutler's force a national necessity. And when the measure was adopted and passed into the great body of American law, Cutler won eternal gratitude and immortal honor as the founder of free institutions in the North-west Territory, and Dane secured the high distinction of having brought the measure to a successful consummation. Upon the great cluster of states whose proud and prosperous career was opened by these two statesmen there rest obligations to their
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memory which should never be forgotten. And I feel confi- dent that you who enjoy the blessings they secured as your inheritance from a most worthy ancestry, will allow me to congratulate myself and my fellow citizens, that for our own state of Mssachusetts, for our own county of Essex, for the district which I formerly had the honor to represent in Con- gress, Manasseh Cutler and Nathan Dane, whose deeds are our deeds and whose ashes repose in the soil we love so well, have established a noble and imperishable record in the his- tory of our country, and of mankind.
Ninety-five years have passed away since these events, which I have briefly laid before you, occurrel, and the first step was taken in the work of occupying the North-west Ter- ritory. The covered wagon on whose canvas top Manasseh Cutler had inscribed "To Marietta on the Ohio," and in which he sent forward the seed, whose imperial harvest now lies before us, had stood for days at the roadside in Hamilton for inspection by the curious for miles around, and had traversed the long and weary way hither with its sacred freight. The dark waters of the Muskingum, concealed from view by the heavy overhanging forests, had been divided by the keel of the Mayflower, and the germ of the colony had been planted on its banks. Cutler had made his solitary journey to bless and encourage the enterprise and had returned to his home in Hamilton. The experiment of organizing a state here had fairly begun. At that day this settlement on the Muskingum formed a part only of the wide spread and scattered colonial organization out of which was to spring the American Republic. It was an era of promises whose fulfillment has occupied the profoundest thought of the gen- erations which have followed; and the promise made here was one of the most interesting and important of that time. We have considered the confidence and faith of those who made it; let us consider the marvelous fulfillment which now lies before us. It is not easy to believe that within the life time of those who " by reason of strength " have reached an age far beyond that allotted to man, the triumphs of this
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continent have been achieved. But so it is. In fact the march of civilization commenced here in all its majestic force, after Ohio was admitted into the Union. Three quar- ters of a century cover nearly the entire time during which this rapid growth has taken place. And during that time progress has been so rapid that the imagination can hardly comprehend it. Emerging from the Revolutionary war with but little more than three millions of people, this nation, which had slowly developed during the century and three quarters of provincial and colonial life, started forth and took a foremost position in that growth in art and literature and the science of government and all the economies for which this century is distinguished. In fifty years the American authors have filled the libraries of the world with American literature and science. American inventors have filled all markets with the products of their ingenuity and skill. In education we have established more seminaries of learning in proportion to our population than any other nation on earth, except perhaps Germany. In civil life we have disappointed none but our enemies. The predictions of the learned that our system of suffrage would be a failure, and the charges of political leaders in other other lands that we are involved in general corruption, political, social and moral, have come to naught. . Neither the blandishments of peace nor the trials of war have checked our career or cooled our courage and energy. We can turn to the judiciary which was promised us in the beginning, to the executive and legislative branches of the government provided by the fathers, to the social order which they labored for, to the working of a civil machinery whose moving force is the pop- ular will and whose guide is popular wisdom, and challenge all history, ancient and modern, to furnish a more striking example of national success. Not in a boastful spirit, but with a sense of justice, the American citizen can present this picture of his country, and remind the civilized world that the struggle for improvement is still going on, that every question bearing upon social and civil elevation is submitted
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to the most careful and active investigation, that thus far we have taken no step backward, and that what to the American mind is the goal to-day will be the starting point to-morrow.
In national growth we can point to this State of Ohio, less than a century old, for an illustration of that progress in prosperity and power, which is unknown elsewhere. Ohio has now a population of 3,198,062-larger than that of the en- tire country at the close of the Revolutionary war. Within her limits are 247,187 farms valued at $1,127,497,353. The value of her live stock is $103,707,730. She has 736,478 horses, 767,045 cows, 1,049,917 other cattle, and 4,902,486 sheep. Her products in 1880 were 25,000,000 pounds of wool, 111,877,124 bushels of corn, 46,014,869 bushels of wheat, 28,664,504 bushels of oats, and 67,634,263 pounds of butter. The number of manufacturing establishments in the State is 20,669 with a capital of $188,939,614 ; employing 183,- 609 persons, to whom $62,103,800 are paid in wages, and the materials of whose manufacture amount to $215,334,258 an- nually. The products of these establishments amount to $348,- 298,390 per annum. Ohio has in operation 6,663 miles of rail- road. Her people are educated in 16,473 schools, and thirty- six colleges, besides numerous technical institutions of various grades. The total value of the school property of the State is $21,643,515 ; and the amount received for sup- porting the schools is $11,085,315, of which $6,874,020 are re- ceived from State, city, and other public funds, and $4,361,- 298 from all other sources. For the popular instruction there are published 774 periodicals, 56 daily newspapers, and 584 weekly. The assessed valuation of the State is $1,534,- 360,508. of which $1,093,077,705 is real estate and $440,- 682,803 personal property. Of the 397,495 persons employed in agriculture, 356,312 are natives of the United States ; and of the 994,475 persons employed in all occupations 806,730 were born in the United States. There are 134 iron and steel establishments with capital of $25,141,394.81 ; boot and shoe factories with capital of $1,154,200 ; 156 manufactories of agricultural implements with capital of $16,111,576.
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It were vain to attempt even a recital of the distinguished services performed by the sons of Ohio in all the walks of public life. She has been represented honorably and ably in every branch of civil service and to her the armies of the United States are indebted for most illustrious leaders. In the cabinet, in the halls of legislation, on the judiciary she has achieved the highest distinction known in the land. And to her of all the States has it been given to count among her great men an example of diligence and high purpose as a statesman, of patriotism as a citizen, of that fortune which attends constant devotion to a good cause, and of the immortal power which a martyr's crown can give to the precepts of the martyr's life. Fortunate the state that rears such a son; fortunate the state that holds his sacred ashes ; fortunate, thrice fortunate, the state to whom his life and great record are an inheritance!
To those who laid the foundation of this prosperity and distinction we cannot be too grateful. Transplanted from a noble soil they found here their great opportunity. How well they used that opportunity history has recorded ; and we hail it as a most grateful and pious duty to pay our tribute to their sacred memory and to transmit their work untarn- ished to the generations of men who come after us.
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EXERCISES AT THE CITY HALL.
IN conformity with arrangements made by the officers and committees of the Pioneer Association, the annual meeting was held in the ' Council Room of the Marietta City Hall, at 9 o'clock A. M.
The President, Col. E. S. McIntosh, being unable to attend the meeting, the chair was occupied by Douglas Putnam, Vice President. After electing officers for the ensuing year, (a list of which will appear elsewhere in these minutes) sundry matters of business were considered and acted upon, and at 10 o'clock the association adjourned to the City Hall, where a large audience had already assembled.
The exercises of the forenoon were, 1st, singing "The Star Spangled Banner," by the audience, led by a select choir; 2d, prayer by Rev. Dr. Hawks, pastor of the (pioneer) Congregational Church; 3d, singing by the choir; 4th, address of Hon. George B. Loring, as printed on the preceding pages.
At noon the audience was dismissed for an hour, and the members of the association, with their invited guests, retired to the Fire Company's Hall, where an excellent dinner had been prepared and was satisfactorily served to the one hundred persons seated at the tables.
AFTERNOON MEETING.
The exercises of the afternoon were opened with vocal music, after which the President introduced the Governor of Ohio. He was greeted with much applause, and spoke as follows :
REMARKS OF GOVERNOR CHARLES FOSTER.
Mr. President : When I accepted the invitation to be present on this occasion, the celebration of the ninety-fifth anniver- sary of the first -settlement of the Northwestern Territory, there was no intimation that I would be called upon for a speech.
I expected to listen to Dr. Loring, as I have with great pleasure, and to enjoy, for a few hours, communion with the worthy descendants of the brave, energetic, and God-fearing emigrants who landed here ninety-five years ago to-day.
Since my arrival I have been told that I am expected to occupy a short time in a talk about the State of Ohio.
First permit me to deliver a message to you from Senator Sherman, as I promised to do when I parted with him at Cambridge on yesterday.
He declined your invitation to be present to-day, for the
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reason that he supposed his business would call him in another direction. Had he known that he would be in Ohio at this time he would have accepted the invitation with great pleasure.
To be the Governor of the State of Ohio is justly esteemed a mark of great distinction, and I have always regarded holding the position as a very high honor ; but I have, after listening to Dr. Loring, concluded that I have not placed as high an estimate on the position as his eulogium upon the State would justify. I may therefore say that I have never before felt as proud of the distinction of being Governor of the State of Ohio as I have since listening to him.
The institutions and ideas brought here in 1788 have per- meated the country until it can be said that in this great Northwest, having now a population of nearly four times that of the whole country when the settlement here was begun, there is the grandest civilization the world has ever seen.
There is in it in common with most of our wonderful country, more of comfort, more intelligence and more happi- ness than was ever known any where else under any other. government. Here such a condition of political equality ex- ists as is found no where else. Every man is a freeman and the equal before the law of any other man. Here every man can, by practicing economy and industry, secure for himself and family all the comforts of life, can own his home, and indeed enjoy to some extent the luxuries of life. No where do these blessed conditions obtain to a greater extent than here, in the State of Ohio.
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