The Heritage of The South / A History of the Introduction of Slavery; Its Establishment From Colonial Times and Final Effect Upon the Politics of the United States

by Jubal Anderson Early

The bill, however, passed with amendments to grant compensation for losses, and this was as far as English statesmanship would venture to go at that time. Was it to be expected that American statesmen should be better, wiser and more philanthropic than English statesmen?

Shortly after the close of the war, Virginia had ceded to the Confederation for the common benefit of all the states, the territory northwest of the Ohio river; and Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut had ceded their rights. (?) The claim of Connecticut skipped over Pennsylvania and that state made a very good bargain for herself by securing the title to the lands in what has since been known as the "Western Reserve," though no officer or soldier or, so far as is known, citizen of hers, had even been in the northwestern territory.

Virginia's original charter, the oldest of all covered the country, but independent of that, it had been conquered from the Indians and British by the forces of Virginia under George Rogers Clarke. It was a magnificent empire which Virginia thus surrendered for the common good and for the cause of the Union of the states, and the only compensation she asked was, that the land grants pledged her own soldiers should be ratified.

During the sitting of the convention which framed the Constitution, the Congress, which was in session, adopted the celebrated ordinance of 1787, for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio river, in which ordinance was contained a prohibition of slavery in that territory forever, and also a provision for the recovery of slaves escaping into the territory similar to that incorporated into the Constitution.

At the first session of the first Congress, under the new Constitution, an act was passed for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio river, by which the ordinance of 1787 was recognized and confirmed.

In 1787, South Carolina had surrendered her claim to all territory west of the present limits, and in 1790, North Carolina ceded to the United States that part of her territory which subsequently became the state of Tennessee, with a stipulation, "that no regulation made or to be made by Congress shall tend to the emancipation of slaves."

In 1791, Vermont, formed out of part of the territory of New York, with the consent of the legislature of that state, was admitted into the Union as one of the states and came in without slavery, which was forbidden by her constitution.

Kentucky (formed out of the territory of Virginia, south of the Ohio river, with the assent of her legislature) in 1792 was admitted into the Union, and came in with slavery as it existed in Virginia and with similar laws on the subject.

In 1793, Congress passed an act to carry into effect the provision of the Constitution for the restitution of fugitive slaves, providing for their delivery to the owners by order of any United States judge, or any magistrate of the city, town or county where they might be arrested, on due proofs of ownership, etc.