The Northwest Ordinance: Essays on its Formulation, Provisions, and Legacy

Slavery and Bondage in the “Empire of Liberty”

IV Slavery and Bondage in the "Empire of Liberty" PAUL FINKELMAN Department of History University Center at Binghamton, SUNY Binghamton, New York THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NORTHWEST Ordinance and slavery is paradoxical. 1 The Ordinance appeared to prohibit human bondage in its famous Arti, cle VI, which declared: That 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 by anyone of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid. Despite this provision, slavery was a vigorous institu, tion in the western portions of the Territory. From 1788 until 1807 residents frequently petitioned Congress to allow some form of slaveholding. Territorial governors, such as Arthur St. Clair and William Henry Harrison were frankly opposed to any strict implementation of Article VI. In the absence of Congressional action, territorial legislatures in Indiana and Illinois adopted slave codes based on the laws of Virginia. Statehood 61 62 NORTHWEST ORDINANCE changed little for bondsmen and bondswomen living in some parts of the region. Slaves were held in Indiana through the 1830s and the institution did not disappear from Illinois until 1848. At the bicentennial of the Ordinance it is clear that Article VI failed to end slavery immediately in the Northwest. On the other hand, it is also apparent that in the long run the Ordinance helped put slavery on the road to ultimate extinction in the area north of the Ohio River. For antebellum northerners the significance of the Ordinance was less ambiguous. A young Salmon P. Chase writing as if the Ordinance were a sacred text, called it "a pillar ofcloud by day, and offire by night, in the settlement of the northwestern states." This "last gift of the congress of the old confederation to the country" contained "the true theory of American lib, erty." Alluding to the many protections for slavery in the Constitution, Chase proudly noted that the Ordi, nance affirmed the "genuine principles of freedom, un' adulterated by that compromise with circumstances, the effects of which are visible in the constitution and history of the union." To an aging Edward Coles, the antislavery former governor of Illinois, Article VI ap, peared "marvelous" and showed "the profound wisdom of those who framed such an efficacious measure for our country." Coles contrasted the sectional tension follow, ing the Kansas,Nebraska Act to an earlier period when "the Territories subject to it [the Ordinance] were quiet, happy, and prosperous." Coles believed that if Ameri, can politicians had followed the pattern set by the Ordinance the turmoil of the 1850s might have been avoided. Abraham Lincoln agreed. In his attacks on popular sovereignty, Lincoln pointed to the history of the Ordinance. Comparing the slave state of Kentucky to the free states of the Northwest, Lincoln asked "What made the difference? Was it climate? No!. .. Was it soil? No!" He declared it was the Ordinance which kept slavery out of the Northwest. For men like Chase, Coles, and Lincoln the Ordinance was PAUL FINKELMAN 63 responsible for the creation of the free states along the Ohio River.2 I. An Ambiguous Article How do we balance the nineteenth,century rever, ence for the Ordinance in general, and Article VI in particular, with a twentieth,century understanding of how limited the Article was? A careful examination of the adoption of the Ordinance suggests that Article VI was haphazardly drafted and barely debated. The inten, tions of its framers were ambiguous at best. At the time of its passage the Ordinance did not threaten slavery in the South, and may even have strengthened it there. Nor did the Ordinance immediately or directly affect slavery in the territory north of the Ohio River. Slavery continued for decades in the region. Thus in the nine, teenth,century usage of the term, the Ordinance was not abolitionist and barely "antislavery." It is unlikely that all those who voted for the Ordi, nance thought Article VI was antislavery. The con, gressmen from the Deep South who voted for the Ordi, nance were not consciously undermining slavery. On the contrary, the slaveholders who voted for the Ordi, nance may have believed that Article VI actually strengthened slavery. In 1784...