It is easy to criticize Jefferson and to pick flaws in the things that he said as well as in the things that he did, but practically every one admits that he was closely in touch with the course of events and understood the temper of his contemporaries. In this period of transition from the old order to the new, he seems to have expressed the genius of American institutions better than almost any other man of his generation. He possessed a quality that enabled him, in the Declaration of Independence, to give voice to the hopes and aspirations of a rising nationality and that enabled him in his own State to bring about so many reforms.
Just how much actual influence Thomas Jefferson had in the framing of the American land policy is not clear. Although the draft of the committee report in 1784 is in Jefferson’s handwriting, it is altogether probable that more credit is to be given to Thomas Hutchins, the Geographer of the United States, and to William Grayson of Virginia, especially for the final form which the measure took; for Jefferson retired from the chairmanship and had already gone to Europe when the Land Ordinance was adopted by Congress in 1785. This ordinance has been superseded by later enactments, to which references are usually made; but the original ordinance is one of the great pieces of American legislation, for it contained the fundamentals of the American land system which, with the modifications experience has introduced, has proved to be permanently workable and which has been envied and in several instances copied by other countries. Like almost all successful institutions of that sort, the Land Ordinance of 1785 was not an immediate creation but was a development out of former practices and customs and was in the nature of a compromise. Its essential features were the method of survey and the process for the sale of land. New England, with its town system, had in the course of its expansion been accustomed to proceed in an orderly method but on a relatively small scale. The South, on the other hand, had granted lands on a larger scale and had permitted individual selection in a haphazard manner. The plan which Congress adopted was that of the New England survey with the Southern method of extensive holdings. The system is repellent in its rectangular orderliness, but it made the process of recording titles easy and complete, and it was capable of indefinite expansion. These were matters of cardinal importance, for in the course of one hundred and forty years the United States was to have under its control nearly two thousand million acres of land.
The primary feature of the land policy was the orderly survey in advance of sale. In the next place the township was taken as the unit, and its size was fixed at six miles square. Provision was then made for the sale of townships alternately entire and by sections of one mile square, or 640 acres each. In every township a section was reserved for educational purposes; that is, the land was to be disposed of and the proceeds used for the development of public schools in that region. And, finally, the United States reserved four sections in the center of each township to be disposed of at a later time. It was expected that a great increase in the value of the land would result, and it was proposed that the Government should reap a part of the profits.
It is evident that the primary purpose of the public land policy as first developed was to acquire revenue for the Government; but it was also evident that there was a distinct purpose of encouraging settlement. The two were not incompatible, but the greater interest of the Government was in obtaining a return for the property.
The other committee of which Jefferson was chairman made its report of a plan for the government of the western territory upon the very day that the Virginia cession was finally accepted, March 1, 1784; and with some important modifications Jefferson’s ordinance, or the Ordinance of 1784 as it was commonly called, was ultimately adopted. In this case Jefferson rendered a service similar to that of framing the Declaration of Independence. His plan was somewhat theoretical and visionary, but largely practical, and it was constructive work of a high order, displaying not so much originality as sympathetic appreciation of what had already been done and an instinctive forecast of future development. Jefferson seemed to be able to gather up ideas, some conscious and some latent in men’s minds, and to express them in a form that was generally acceptable.
It is interesting to find in the Articles of Confederation (Article XI) that, “Canada acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union: but no other colony shall be admitted into the same unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.” The real importance of this article lay in the suggestion of an enlargement of the Confederation. The Confederation was never intended to be a union of only thirteen States. Before the cession of their western claims it seemed to be inevitable that some of the States should be broken up into several units. At the very time that the formation of the Confederation was under discussion Vermont issued a declaration of independence from New York and New Hampshire, with the expectation of being admitted into the Union. It was impolitic to recognize the appeal at that time, but it seems to have been generally understood that sooner or later Vermont would come in as a full-fledged State.
It might have been a revolutionary suggestion by Maryland, when the cession of western lands was under discussion, that Congress should have sole power to fix the western boundaries of the States, but her further proposal was not even regarded as radical, that Congress should “lay out the land beyond the boundaries so ascertained into separate and independent states.” It seems to have been taken as a matter of course in the procedure of Congress and was accepted by the States. But the idea was one thing; its carrying out was quite another. Here was a great extent of western territory which would be valuable only as it could be sold to prospective settlers. One of the first things these settlers would demand was protection—protection against the Indians, possibly also against the British and the Spanish, and protection in their ordinary civil life. The former was a detail of military organization and was in due time provided by the establishment of military forts and garrisons; the latter was the problem which Jefferson’s committee was attempting to solve.
The Ordinance of 1784 disregarded the natural physical features of the western country and, by degrees of latitude and meridians of longitude, arbitrarily divided the public domain into rectangular districts, to the first of which the following names were applied: Sylvania, Michigania, Cherronesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, Pelisipia. The amusement which this absurd and thoroughly Jeffersonian nomenclature is bound to cause ought not to detract from the really important features of the Ordinance. In each of the districts into which the country was divided the settlers might be authorized by Congress, for the purpose of establishing a temporary government, to adopt the constitution and laws of any one of the original States. When any such area should have twenty thousand free inhabitants it might receive authority from Congress to establish a permanent constitution and government and should be entitled to a representative in Congress with the right of debating but not of voting. And finally, when the inhabitants of any one of these districts should equal in number those of the least populous of the thirteen original States, their delegates should be admitted into Congress on an equal footing.
Jefferson’s ordinance, though adopted, was never put into operation. Various explanations have been offered for this failure to give it a fair trial. It has been said that Jefferson himself was to blame. In the original draft of his ordinance Jefferson had provided for the abolition of slavery in the new States after the year 1800, and when Congress refused to accept this clause Jefferson, in a manner quite characteristic, seemed to lose all interest in the plan. There were, however, other objections, for there were those who felt that it was somewhat indefinite to promise admission into the Confederation of certain sections of the country as soon as their population should equal in number that of the least populous of the original States. If the original States should increase in population to any extent, the new States might never be admitted. But on the other hand, if from any cause the population of one of the smaller States should suddenly decrease, might not the resulting influx of new States prove dangerous?
But the real reason why the ordinance remained a dead letter was that, while it fixed the limits within which local governments might act, it left the creation of those governments wholly to the future. At Vincennes, for example, the ordinance made no change in the political habits of the people. “The local government bowled along merrily under this system. There was the greatest abundance of government, for the more the United States neglected them the more authority their officials assumed.” ¹ Nor could the ordinance operate until settlers became numerous. It was partly, indeed, to hasten settlement that the Ordinance of 1785 for the survey and sale of the public lands was passed. ²