Slavery and four years of war

by Joseph Warren Keifer

Adding, by way of reason, that:

"The rapid population of the State of Ohio sufficiently evinces, in the opinion of your committee, that the labor of slaves is not necessary to promote the growth and settlement of the colonies in that region."

This did not end the effort to secure slavery in the Indiana Territory. In March, 1804, a special committee of Congress reported in favor of the suspension of the inhibition for ten years; a similar report was made in 1806 by Mr. Garnett, of Virginia; and in 1807 Mr. Parker, delegate from Indiana, reported favorably on a memorial of Governor Harrison and the Territorial Legislature, praying for a suspension of that part of the Ordinance relating to slavery. These reports were not acted on in the House. Subsequently, Governor Harrison and his Legislature appealed to the Senate and a special committee to suspend the article, but when the committee reported adversely, all efforts to break down the legal barrier to slavery in the Northwest Territory ceased.(20)

But notwithstanding the mandatory terms of the Ordinance, and the repeated failures in Congress to suspend the provision relating to slavery, it existed in the Northwest throughout its territorial existence and in the State of Illinois until 1844.(21) The early slaveholding inhabitants well understood the Ordinance to mean the absolute emancipation of their slaves, and hence manumitted them or commenced to remove them to the Spanish territory beyond the Mississippi. Some few of the inhabitants complained to Governor St. Clair that the inhibition against slavery retarded the growth of the Territory. He volunteered the opinion that the Ordinance was not retroactive; that it did not apply to existing conditions; that it was "a declaration of a principle which was to govern the Legislature in all acts respecting that matter (slavery) and the courts of justice in their decisions in cases arising after the date of the Ordinance"; and that if Congress had intended the immediate emancipation of slaves, compensation would have been provided for to their owners. But he admitted Congress "had the right to determine that property of that kind afterwards acquired should not be protected in future, and that slaves imported into the Territory after that declaration might reclaim their freedom."(22) This unfortunate opinion operated to continue slavery in the Territory, and fostered the idea that the sixth article might be annulled and slavery be made perpetual in the Territory. Governor St. Clair was President of the Congress when the Ordinance was passed, and his opinion in relation to it was therefore given much weight.

By Act of Congress, passed May 7, 1800, what is now the State of Ohio became the Territory of Ohio, and that part of the Northwest Territory lying west and north of Ohio was erected into the Territory of Indiana; by like Acts, January 11, 1805, the Territory of Michigan was formed, and February 3, 1809, all that part lying west of Indiana and Lake Michigan became the Territory of Illinois. Prior, however, to the last Act, the Legislature of Indiana Territory (September 17, 1807) passed an act "to encourage emigration," making it lawful to bring negroes and mulattoes into the Territory, "owing service or labor as slaves."

The act provided that these people and their children should be held for a term of years, and if they refused to serve as slaves they might be removed, "within sixty days thereafter," to any place where they could be lawfully held. This statute was substantially re-enacted by the Legislature of the Territory of Illinois in 1812.

The first Constitution (1818) of Illinois did not prohibit slavery. The first section of Article VI, declared that: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall hereafter be introduced into this State, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes." Slavery existed in Illinois after it became a State. The French and Canadian inhabitants or their descendants continued to hold colored and Indian slaves, and others were held under the Territorial Acts of 1807 and 1812. The old slaves and their descendants, held at the time of the cession by Virginia to the United States, were sold from hand to hand in the State, and transported to and sold in other slave States.(23)

The Constitution of Indiana (1816) prohibited slavery, but slaves were held therein until its Supreme Court in 1820, in a habeas corpus case, held the Constitution freed all persons hitherto held in bondage, including the old French slaves, regardless of the Ordinance of 1787, of the deed of cession of Virginia, or of any treaty stipulations.(24)

After the separation (1805) of Michigan from Indiana, the former's Territorial Chief Justice held slavery existed in Michigan by virtue of the Jay treaty (1796) with Great Britain (not otherwise) notwithstanding the Ordinance of 1787,(25) but Michigan's Constitution (1837) put an end to slavery in the State, as did also the Constitution (1802) of Ohio, likewise the Constitution (1848) of Wisconsin. Slaves shown by census reports in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin after they became States, were there by tolerance, not by legal right.

Whatever contrariety of views obtained, and regardless of the conflicting opinions of the courts or judges as to the effect of the great Ordinance on the condition of the slaves in the Northwestern Territory, certain it is that the Ordinance operated to prevent, after its date, the legal importation of slaves into the Territory, and hence resulted in each of the States formed therefrom becoming free States. In the light of history it seems certain that at least Indiana and Illinois would have become slave States but for the Ordinance.(26)