“It has been distinguished as one of the greatest monuments of civil jurisprudence.”
George V. N. Lothrop, LL.D., in an address delivered at the annual commencement of the University of Michigan, June 27, 1878, said substantially:
“In advance of the coming millions, it had, as it were, shaped the earth and the heavens of the sleeping empire. The Great Charter of the Northwest had consecrated it irrevocably to human freedom, to religion, learning, and free thought. This one act is the most dominant one in our whole history, since the landing of the Pilgrims. It is the act that became decisive in the Great Rebellion. Without it, so far as human judgment can discover, the victory of free labor would have been impossible.”
Notwithstanding the high praises that have been bestowed upon the ordinance, and the many and great benefits that have flowed from it, its authorship was, for nearly a century, a matter of dispute. No less than four different persons have had claims to authorship advanced for them by their friends.
Who, if any one man, was primarily the author of the ordinance, is uncertain, and now of little moment. The long contention which was waged as to its authorship serves its greatest purpose in emphasizing the importance which was then and has since been attributed to the document.
Because of the geographic implications later involved it is worth while, however, to consider briefly the various assertions of authorship.
Webster, in his famous two-day speech in reply to Hayne, gives to Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, the entire credit for devising the ordinance, and such was the confidence in Webster’s statement, that many writers since have accepted it as a demonstrated fact.
Thomas H. Benton, in the debate following Webster’s speech, replied:
“He [Webster] has brought before us a certain Nathan Dane, of Beverly, Mass., and loaded him with such an exuberance of blushing honors as no modern name has been known to merit or claim. So much glory was caused by a single act, and that act the supposed authorship of the Ordinance of 1787, and especially the clause in it which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude. So much encomium and such greatful consequences it seems a pity to spoil, but spoilt it must be; for Mr. Dane was no more the author of that Ordinance, sir, than you or I.... That Ordinance, and especially the non-slavery clause, was not the work of Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, but of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia.”
Charles King, president of Columbia College, in 1855 published a paper on the Northwest Territory in which he claimed for his father, Rufus King, the authorship of the non-slavery clause.