This ambition of Mr. Jefferson was not destined to complete defeat. Three years later, the now celebrated Ordinance of 1787 was enacted into law. "No one was more active," says Mr. Fiske, "in bringing about this result than William Grayson of Virginia, who was earnestly supported by Lee."[[29]]
Mr. Bancroft says:
"Thomas Jefferson first summoned Congress to prohibit slavery in all the territory of the United States; Rufus King lifted up the measure when it lay almost lifeless on the ground, and suggested the immediate instead of the prospective prohibition; a Congress composed of five Southern States to one from New England and two from the Middle States, headed by William Grayson, supported by Richard Henry Lee, and using Nathan Dane as scribe, carried the measure to the goal in the amended form in which King had caused it to be referred to a committee; and, as Jefferson had proposed, placed it under the sanction of an irrevocable compact."[[30]]
VIRGINIA CONFIRMS ORDINANCE OF 1787
The ordinance as passed contained many provisions in addition to those set out in Virginia's deed of cession. It was necessary, therefore, that Virginia should by proper enactment reaffirm her deed. The General Assembly of Virginia at its next session accordingly passed an act fixing for all time the validity of both deed and ordinance.[[31]] Mr. Bancroft says:
"A powerful committee on which were Carrington, Monroe, Edmund Randolph and Grayson, successfully brought forward the bill by which Virginia confirmed the ordinance for the colonization of all the territory then in the possession of the United States, by freemen alone."[[32]]
Thus the old commonwealth which had won the land from England and the Indians bore a foremost part in the legislative work by which slavery was forever excluded from the empire north of the Ohio River.
| [23] | Hening's Statutes, Vol. IX, p. 471. |
| [24] | History of Slavery in Virginia, Ballagh, p. 23. |