After the Revolution was over, the colonies having achieved their independence, the vast lands lying between the Alleghanies and Mississippi were held by certain members of the Confederacy. As the charters by which these lands were held conflicted; the whole having been won by the common valor of all the colonies; it was agreed, to avoid disputes and settle the matter upon equitable principles, that the colonies, thus holding lands, should cede their right over to the General Government. Accordingly in 1784 Mr. Jefferson reported “An Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded already, or to be ceded, by individual States to the United States; specifying that such territory extends from the 31st to the 47th degree of latitude, so as to include what now constitutes the States of Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi;” the fifth article of which ordinance declares “that after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States”—that is States formed from the said territory. The southern members generally voted against this bill, but it came so near being the fundamental law of the land, thus restricting slavery forever where the mother country had planted it, that it only lacked one vote, occasioned by the absence of a member from New Jersey.
In 1787 the last Continental Congress passed a law prohibiting slavery in the territory north-west of the Ohio River which Virginia had ceded to the United States, and to which other States had relinquished their claims. The prohibition reads as follows:
“There shall be neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crime, whereof the parties shall be duly convicted.”
In the constitutional convention that framed the government under which we now live, the triumph of
