Alfred Mathews.
ARTHUR ST. CLAIR AND THE ORDINANCE OF 1787.
St. Clair is an honored name in history. First in Normandy, and after the eleventh century for many generations in Scotland, its possessors were men of wealth and a high order of intelligence, and were among the most prominent characters of the realm. They remained loyal to the crown through its varying fortunes, and when Scotland passed under the dominion of England, continued their allegiance to royalty. They showed a rare genius for military life. This bent of mind was characteristic of the St. Clair whose career in part is here briefly outlined.
Arthur St. Clair, whose father was a younger son and possessed neither lands nor title, was born in the year 1734, in the town of Thurso in Caithness, Scotland. Thurso is a place of some 3,500 inhabitants, a quiet village lying to the north of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and close to the Atlantic seaboard. Its chief claim to fame no doubt rests upon having been the birthplace of one who became so prominent in American affairs, gave such valuable aid in securing American independence, and had so large a share in the formation and administration of the government of a considerable portion of the American people. To his father he owed little, to his mother much. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, his parents intended him for a professional career. At an early age he began the study of medicine, which, upon the death of his mother in 1757, he abandoned, and through influential friends obtained a commission as ensign in the second battalion of the Sixtieth Regiment of Foot, known as the Royal American Regiment. It consisted of four battalions of 1,000 men each. In 1758 Major-general Amherst was made colonel of this regiment, and commander-in chief of all the forces in America, and on the 28th day of May of the same year, arrived in Canada with his army. Thus came to the western world in the twenty-fourth year of his age, Arthur St. Clair, with the laudable ambition of making, if possible, a fortune, but certainly a good and honored name. His first lessons in the art of war were taken under the tuition of such veterans as Lawrence, Murray and Wolfe, the story of whose heroic deeds for English supremacy in Canada is familiar to every reader. In every position in which he was placed young St. Clair acquitted himself with rare bravery. He soon received a lieutenant’s commission, serving with distinction in the battle at the mouth of the Montmorency, and in the siege of Quebec, where Gen. Wolfe lost his life, but where the French, on the 8th day of September 1759, surrendered, and Canada became an English province, though articles of capitulation were not executed until nearly a year later.
From Canada St. Clair went to Boston, where he made the acquaintance of Miss Phœbe Bayard, daughter of one of the first families of that city, whose mother was a half sister of Governor James Bowdoin. For Miss Bayard young St. Clair formed a strong attachment, and they were married, probably in the year 1761. In the Ligonier Valley, western Pennsylvania, St. Clair, for services in Canada, received a grant of one thousand acres of land, and thither, in the year 1764 or 1765, he removed. He set actively to work to improve his property. He built a handsome residence, and the first grist mill in western Pennsylvania. Many Scotch families sought a residence in this beautiful and fertile valley. He was the leading spirit in this western colony, and in 1770 was appointed surveyor, a justice of the court of quarter sessions and common pleas, and a member of the Governor’s council for the district of Cumberland, or Cumberland County. When Bedford County was formed in 1771, and Westmoreland in 1773, he was appointed to fill like offices of trust for these counties respectively. Here he led a busy life for two years, when upon the outbreak of hostilities with England he unsheathed his sword and proffered his services in defence of the country of his adoption.
It is not within the scope of this sketch, which is more immediately concerned with the relation he bore to the Ordinance of 1787, and that part of his history which records the acts of his administration as the first governor of the Northwest Territory, to follow the fortunes of Gen. St. Clair through the war for independence. Suffice it to say that quitting private life when its comforts were greatest and his financial affairs the most prosperous, he rendered to his country valuable service in Canada in the summer of 1776, at the battles of Trenton and Princeton in the winter of 1776–7, rose to the rank of Major-general in the northern department in 1777, and afterwards, as a member of Washington’s military family, won the confidence and friendship of his chief to such a degree that they were never withdrawn even when he was overtaken by reverses; and that he returned to civil life at the close of the struggle to find that to his country he had sacrificed not only eight years of the very prime of his life, but likewise his fortune and the emoluments of his lucrative offices. His first office after the war was that of member of the board of censors, whose duties were to see that the laws were efficiently and honestly executed. St. Clair became a member of Congress in 1786, and in 1787 its President. This was the year in which the ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory was adopted. It is a remarkable coincidence that this gentleman should have presided over the body that enacted this grand Charter of Freedom, and afterwards should have been the first executive officer, as governor of the Northwest Territory, to administer and enforce its laws. General St. Clair’s connection with this great and beneficent ordinance is of very great interest, intensified, however, by the fact that Mr. William Frederick Poole, in an able and well written contribution to the North American Review in 1876, on the authorship of the Ordinance, did him a great injustice by imputing to him improper motives wholly foreign to his character. For a full understanding of the charge and its complete refutation a brief history of the Ordinance will be necessary.
In 1784 Thomas Jefferson had prepared and reported a comprehensive measure for the government of the Northwest Territory, from which ten States were to be formed. It contained among other provisions the following stipulation: “That, after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said (ten) States, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty.” This provision was stricken out, and the ordinance was passed, but owing to the fact that the lands had not been surveyed nor Indian titles perfected, it became inoperative and remained a dead letter. In 1786, a memorial having been received from the inhabitants of Kaskaskia, praying for the organization of a territorial government, a committee consisting of Mr. Johnson of Connecticut, Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina; Mr. Smith of New York, Mr. Dane of Massachusetts, and Mr. Henry of Maryland, was appointed to draft a suitable measure, and April 26, 1787, reported a code of laws for the temporary government of the Territory, which reached a third reading on the 10th of May, but was not brought to a final vote. At this juncture there appeared at the door of Congress a gentleman to whom more than to any other the people of the northwestern States are indebted for the prompt action by Congress which gave them this great bill of rights, aptly called the Ordinance of Freedom.
This gentleman was the Rev. Manasseh Cutler of Ipswich, Massachusetts. He came before Congress as the agent of the Ohio Land Company. He wished to purchase for that company a million and a half—and finally did purchase nearly five million—acres of land in the Northwest Territory. He was well fitted for the business he had undertaken. He was a ripe scholar, a graduate of Yale College, a distinguished scientist, an able divine, an eloquent speaker, and more than all, a wily diplomatist, possessed of a fine and commanding presence and courtly manners. He came to Congress armed with letters of introduction to Gen. St. Clair, the President of that body, General Knox, Richard Henry Lee, Melancthon Smith, Colonel Carrington and others.
Dr. Cutler greatly desired to make the purchase for his company, but stipulated, as a necessary condition of purchase, for the passage of a suitable charter of laws for the government of the Territory. The Ohio Company was composed chiefly of Massachusetts men, accustomed to good laws wisely administered, and would not invite their neighbors and friends to immigrate to the far west to settle in a country for which no good system of government had been provided. Hence this was the first matter to be looked into. Dr. Cutler arrived in New York on the 5th day of July, Thursday. On Friday, the 6th, he presented his letters of introduction to President St. Clair and a number of members of Congress. The 7th he passed in extending his acquaintance and explaining his business. The 8th was Sunday. On the 9th he secured the appointment by President St. Clair of a committee who favored such a system of laws for the Northwest Territory as Dr. Cutler wished to see adopted. This committee consisted of Colonel Carrington, a personal friend, as chairman, and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, Mr. Dane of Massachusetts, Mr. Kean of South Carolina, and Mr. Smith of New York. These gentlemen prepared an ordinance, the famous Ordinance of 1787, submitted it to Dr. Cutler for his opinion or Amendment, introduced it to Congress, had it read, amended, and on the 13th day of July procured its passage. This was quick work, and the way was now clear for the main business which Dr. Cutler had in hand—the negotiation of the purchase of lands for the Ohio Company. A committee on lands was appointed for the purpose of negotiating with the Ohio Land Company’s agent for the sale of the lands, having the same chairman, Dr. Cutler’s friend, Colonel Carrington, with Rufus King, James Madison, Mr. Dane and Mr. Benson as the other members.
The Ordinance having become a law on the 13th day of July, the negotiation for the Ohio Company’s purchase was concluded on the 27th of the same month, and terms agreed upon. On the 5th day of October, 1787, officers for the government of the new territory were elected by Congress as follows: Arthur St. Clair, Governor; James M. Varnum, Samuel Holden Parsons and John Armstrong, Judges, and Winthrop Sargent, Secretary. Mr. Armstrong declining, the vacancy was filled by the appointment of John Cleves Symmes. The charge against General St. Clair, made by Mr. Poole, is that Dr. Cutler, when he arrived in New York and called on the President of Congress to obtain the appointment of a committee to draft and report a system of laws for the Northwest Territory that should be friendly to his terms of purchase, met with a cool reception, and, to quote from Mr. Poole, “he found that General St. Clair wanted to be Governor of the Northwest Territory; and Dr. Cutler, representing the interests of the Ohio Company, intended that General Parsons, of Connecticut, should have the office. But he must have General St. Clair’s influence, and found it necessary to pay the price. From the moment he communicated this decision, General St. Clair was warmly engaged in his interests.”