ascertained as far as the communications between Lake Erie and the Wabash, and between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, and a complete and perfect map made of the country at least as far west as the Miamis, which run into the Ohio and Lake Erie. And he pointed out the Miami village as the place for a very important post for the union. The expense attending such an undertaking could not be great; the advantages would be unbounded. "Nature," he said, "has made such a display of her bounty in those regions that the more the country is explored the more it will rise in estimation. The spirit of emigration is great; people have got impatient; and, though you cannot stop the road, it is yet in your power to mark the way. A little while and you will not be able to do either." * In the same week in which the legislature of New York reversed its position on national policy, Washington renewed his admonitions to Lee on planting the western territory. "The mission of congress will now be to fix a medium price on these lands and to point out the most advantageous mode of seating them, so that law and good government may be administered, and the union strengthened and supported. Progressive seating is the only means by which this can be effected;" and, resisting the politicians who might wish to balance northern states by southern, he insisted that to mark out but one new state would better advance the public welfare than to mark out ten. † On the eleventh of March William Grayson took his seat for the first time as a member of congress. He had been educated in England at Oxford, and had resided at the Temple in London. His short career furnishes only glimpses of his character. In 1776 he had been an aide-de-camp to Washington, with whom he kept up affectionate relations; in 1777 he commanded a Virginia regiment and gained honors at Monmouth. His private life appears to have been faultless; his public acts show independence, courage, and a humane and noble nature. In the state legislature of the previous winter he was chairman of the committee to which Washington's re * Washington to R. H. Lee, 14 December 1784. Sparks, ix., 80, 81. port on the negotiations with Maryland had been referred.* The first evidence of his arrival in New York is a letter of the tenth of March 1785, to his former chief, announcing that Jefferson's ordinance for disposing of western lands, which had had its first reading in May 1784, had been brought once more before congress. Not Washington alone had reminded congress of its duties to the West. Informed by Gerry of the course of public business, Timothy Pickering, from Philadelphia, addressed most earnest letters to Rufus King. He complained that no reservation of land was made for the support of ministers of the gospel, nor even for schools and academies, and he further wrote: "Congress once made this important declaration, 'that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'; and these truths were held to be self-evident. To suffer the continuance of slaves till they can gradually be emancipated, in states already overrun with them, may be pardonable because unavoidable without hazarding greater evils; but to introduce them into countries where none now exist can never be forgiven. For God's sake, then, let one more effort be made to prevent so terrible a calamity! The fundamental constitutions for those states are yet liable to alterations, and this is probably the only time when the evil can certainly be prevented." Nor would Pickering harbor the thought of delay in the exclusion of slavery. "It will be infinitely easier," he said, "to prevent the evil at first than to eradicate it or check it in any future time." + The sixteenth of March was fixed for the discussion of the affairs of the West. The report that was before congress was Jefferson's scheme for "locating and disposing of land in the western territory;" and it was readily referred to a committee of one from each state, Grayson being the member from Virginia and King from Massachusetts. King, seconded by Ellery of Rhode Island, proposed that a part of the rejected antislavery clause in Jefferson's ordinance for the government of *Journals Virginia House of Delegates, 99. Pickering to King, 8 March 1785. Pickering's Pickering, i., 509, 510. the western territory should be referred to a committee;* all that related to the western territory of the three southern states was omitted; and so, too, was the clause postponing the prohibition of slavery. On the question for committing this proposition, the four New England states, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, voted unanimously in the affirmative; Maryland by a majority, McHenry going with the South, John Henry and William Hindman with the North. For Virginia, Grayson voted aye, but was overpowered by Hardy and Richard Henry Lee. The two Carolinas were unanimous for the negative. Houston of Georgia answered no, but being on that day the sole representative of Georgia, his vote was not counted. So the vote stood eight states against three; eighteen members against eight; and the motion was forthwith committed to King, Howell, and Ellery. + On the sixth of April, King from his committee reported his resolution, which is entirely in his own handwriting, and which consists of two clauses: it allowed slavery in the Northwest until the first day of the year 1801, but no longer; and it "provided that always, upon the escape of any person into any of the states described in the resolve of congress of the twentythird day of April 1784, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the thirteen original states, such fugitive might be lawfully reclaimed and carried back to the person claiming his labor or service, this resolve notwithstanding." | * The original motion of Rufus King for the reference, in his handwriting, is preserved in Papers of Old Congress, vol. xxxi. Journals of Congress, iv., 481, 482. It is indorsed in the handwriting of Charles Thomson: "Motion for preventing slavery in new states, 16 March 1785. Referred to Mr. King, Mr. Howell, Mr. Ellery." #It is to be found in Papers of Old Congress, xxxi., 329, and is indorsed in the handwriting of Rufus King: "Report on Mr. King's motion for the exclusion of slavery in the new states." And it is further indorsed in the handwriting of Charles Thomson: "Mr. King, Mr. Howell, Mr. Ellery. Entered 6 April 1785, read. Thursday, April 14, assigned for consideration." The printed copy of this report of King is to be found in Papers of Old Congress, xxxi., 331, and is indorsed in the handwriting of Charles Thomson: "To prevent slavery in the new states. Included in substance in the ordinance for a temporary government passed the 13 July 1787." King reserved his resolution to be brought forward as a separate measure, after the land ordinance should be passed. "I expect," wrote Grayson to Madison, "seven states may be found liberal enough to adopt it;"* but there is no evidence that it was ever again called up in that congress. On the twelfth of April† the committee for framing an ordinance for the disposal of the western lands made their report. It was written by Grayson, ‡ who formed it out of a conflict of opinions, and took the chief part in conducting it through the house. As an inducement for neighborhoods of the same religious sentiments to confederate for the purpose of purchasing and settling together, it was a land law for a people going forth to take possession of a seemingly endless domain. Its division was to be into townships, with a perpetual reservation of one mile square in every township for the support of religion, and another for education. The house refused its assent to the reservation for the support of religion, as connecting the church with the state; but the reservation for the support of schools received a general welcome. Jefferson had proposed townships of ten miles square; the committee, of seven; but the motion of Grayson, that they should be of six miles square,# was finally accepted. The South, accustomed to the mode of indiscriminate locations and settlements, insisted on the rule which would give the most free scope to the roving emigrant; and, as the bill required the vote of nine states for adoption, and during the debates on the subject more than ten were never present, the eastern people, though "amazingly attached to their own custom of planting by townships," yielded to the compromise that every other township should be sold by sections. The surveys were to be confined to one state and to five ranges, extending from the Ohio to Lake Erie, and were to be made under the direction of the geographer of the United States. The bounds of * Grayson to Madison, 1 May 1785. The ordinance for the sale of lands required the consent of nine states; the regulative ordinance, of but seven. + Grayson to Washington, 15 April 1785. The original report in the handwriting of Grayson is preserved in the Papers of Old Congress, lvi., 451. # Journals of Congress, iv., 512. Grayson to Madison, 1 May 1785. every parcel that was sold were fixed beyond a question; the mode of registry was simple, convenient, and almost without cost; the form of conveyance most concise and clear. Never was land offered to a poor man at less cost or with a safer title. For one bad provision, which, however, was three years after repealed, the consent of congress was for the moment extorted; the lands, as surveyed, were to be drawn for by lot by the several states in proportion to the requisitions made upon them, and were to be sold publicly within the states. But it was carefully provided that they should be paid for in the obligations of the United States, at the rate of a dollar an acre. Το secure the promises made to Virginia, chiefly on behalf of the officers and soldiers who took part in conquering the Northwest from British authority, it was agreed, after a discussion of four days,* to reserve the district between the Little Miami and the Scioto. The land ordinance of Jefferson, as amended from 1784 to 1788, definitively settled the character of the national land laws, which are still treasured up as one of the most precious heritages from the founders of the republic. The frontier settlements at the west needed the protection of a military force. In 1784, soon after the exchange of the ratifications of peace, Gerry at Annapolis protested against the right of congress on its own authority to raise standing armies or even a few armed men in time of peace. His conduct was approved by his state, whose delegation was instructed to oppose and protest on all occasions against the exercise of the power. From that time congress had done no more than recommend the states to raise troops. It was now thought necessary to raise seven hundred men to protect the West. The recommendation should have been proportioned among all the states; but congress ventured to call only on Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania as the states most conveniently situated to furnish troops who were to be formed into one regiment and for three years guard the north-western frontiers and the public stores. * Grayson to Madison, 1 May 1785. |