whatever, shall be valid, or 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 said inhabitants or settlers shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts contracted, or to be contracted, and to bear a proportional share of the burdens of the government, to be apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common rule and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other States.

The Governor, Judges, Legislative Council, Secretary, and such other officers as Congress shall at any time think proper to appoint in such district, shall take an oath or affirmation of fidelity; the Governor before the President of Congress, and all other officers before the Governor, prescribed on the 27th day of January, 1785, to the Secretary of War, mutatis mutandis.

Whensoever any of the said States shall have of free inhabitants as many as are equal in number to the one-thirteenth part of the citizens of the original States, to be computed from the last enumeration, such State shall be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United States on an equal footing with the said original States, provided the consent of so many States in Congress is first obtained as may at that time be competent to such admission.

Resolved, That the resolutions of the 23d of April, 1784, be, and the same are hereby aunulled and repealed.

Such was the Ordinance for the government of the Western Territory, when it was ordered to a third reading on the 10th of May, 1787. It had then made no further progress in the development of those great principles for which it has since been distinguished as one of the greatest monu

ments of civil jurisprudence. It made no provision for the equal distribution of estates. It said nothing of ex

tending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty; nothing of the rights of conscience, knowledge, or education. It did not contain the articles of compact which were to remain unaltered forever unless by common

consent.

We now come to the time when these great principles were first brought forward.

On the 9th of July, 1787, ordinances were again referred. The committee now consisted of Mr. Carrington of Virginia, Mr. Dane of Massachusetts, Mr. R. H. Lee of Virginia, Mr. Kean of South Carolina, and Mr. Smith of New York. Mr. Carrington, Mr. Lee, and Mr. Kean, the new members, were a majority.

This Committee did not merely revise the Ordinance, they prepared and reported the great BILL OF RIGHTS for the territory north west of the Ohio.

The question is here presented, why was Mr. Carrington, a new member of the committee, placed at the head of it, to the exclusion of Mr. Dane and Mr. Smith, who had served previously? In the absence of positive evidence, there appears to be but one answer to this question, the opinions of all the members were known in Congress. In the course of debate new views had been presented which must have been received with general approbation. A majority of the committee were the advocates of these views, and the member by whom they were presented to the House, was selected as the chairman. There is nothing improbable or out of the usual course in this. Indeed the prompt action of the committee and of the Congress goes far to confirm it.

On the 11th of July (two days after the reference), Mr. Carrington reported the ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio. This ordinance was read a second time on the 12th, (and

amended as stated below,) and on the 13th it was read a third time, and passed by the unanimous vote of the eight States present in the Congress.

On the passage the Yeas and Nays (being required by Mr. Yates,) were as follows:

Ayes-Massachusetts, Mr. Holten, Mr. Dane ; New York, Mr. Smith, Mr. Harney, Mr. Yates; New Jersey, Mr. Clark, Mr. Schureman; Delaware, Mr. Kearney; Mr. Mitchell; Virginia, Mr. Grayson, Mr. R. H. Lee, Mr. Carrington; North Carolina, Mr. Blount, Mr. Hawkins; South Carolina, Mr. Kean, Mr. Huger; Georgia, Mr. Few, Mr. Pierce.

Nays-None.

Absent-New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland.

It appears then that, instead of having "this ordinance under deliberation and revision for three years and six months," in FIVE DAYS it was passed through all the forms of legislation-the reference, the action of the committee, the report, the three several readings, the discussion and amendment by Congress, and the final passage.

On the 12th of July (as above stated), Mr. Dane offered the following amendment, which was adopted as the sixth of the articles of the compact:

"Article the sixth. 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 claimed in any of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid."

This had in part been presented by Mr. Jefferson, in 1784, and again by Mr. King, in 1785. The assertion that this clause, "as it now exists in the ordinance," was

"proposed and carried by Mr. King, when neither Jefferson nor Dane was present," is singularly incorrect. In the proposition submitted by Mr. King in 1785 (which was never afterwards called up in Congress) there was no provision for reclaiming fugitives; and without such a provision it could not have been carried at all: besides, the clause, as it now exists in the ordinance," was proposed by Mr. Dane on the 12th of July, 1787, and carried by the unanimous vote of Congress when Mr. King was not present.

Mr. King was a member of the Convention for framing the federal Constitution. He was present and voted in the Convention on the 12th of July, 1787. The whole of that day was occupied in settling the proportion of representation and direct taxation, which was then determined as it now stands in the Constitution, viz., "by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons.

The Congress and the Convention were both in session at the same time in Philadelphia; there was of course free intercourse and interchange of opinion between the members of the two bodies. To this may be attributed the adoption on the same day, of the clause in the Ordinance and the clause in the Constitution.*

The accompanying copy of the Ordinance shows the

* An additional reason for the agreement of the Southern States to this restriction of slavery, may be found in the fact that the institution would not be likely to flourish to any considerable extent in that climate. They therefore gave up little and gained what was far more important to them, a recognition, in the article itself, of their right to capture their fugitive slaves in that territory-a right they had not before possessed. This all occurred prior to the adoption of the present Constitution, and seems to have been a compromise of sectional interests.

amendments made in Congress, on the 12th of July to Mr. Carrington's report of the 11th. All that was struck out is printed in italic, what was inserted is in SMALL CAPITALS. The reader, on comparing this with the plans previously reported by Mr. Jefferson, and by Mr. Johnson, will see that most of the principles on which its wisdom and fame rest, were first presented by Mr. Carrington.

Washington, August 20th, 1847.

AN ORDINANCE

P. F.

For the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the river Ohio.

Be it ordained by the United States in Congress assembled, That the said Territory, for the purposes of temporary government, be one district; subject, however to be divided into two districts, as circumstances may in the opinion of Congress make it expedient.

Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That the estates both of resident and non-resident proprietors in the said territory dying intestate, shall descend to and be distributed among their children and the descendants of a deceased child in equal parts; the descendants of a deceased child or grandchild to take the share of their deceased parent in equal parts among them; and where there shall be no children or descendants, then in equal parts to the next of kin in equal degree; and among collaterals, the children of a deceased brother or sister of the intestate shall have in equal parts among them their deceased parents' share; AND

THERE SHALL IN NO CASE BE A DISTINCTION BETWEEN KIN

DRED OF THE WHOLE AND HALF BLOOD; saving in all cases to the widow of the intestate her third part of the real estate for life, and [where there shall be no children of the intestate] one-third part of the personal estate; and this law relative to descent and dower shall remain in full force until altered by the legislature of the district. And until the