Government, — and it is these which give the whole document its historic importance. These articles fixed a definite rule, which no legislation could vary, on certain subjects. They protect religious liberty and popular education; assert the right to habeas corpus, trial by jury, common-law procedure, due process of law where land or liberty or goods are at stake, full compensation for property taken or services exacted, bail in all but capital cases, and proportionate representation; they insist upon the free dom of all navigable streams, and enjoin good faith toward the Indians, the preser vation of peace with them, and a strict observance of their property rights; they forbid immoderate fines, unusual punish ments and slavery, the enactment of any law which shall interfere with contracts already in existence or with the primary disposal of the public land by the United States; they also forbid the taxation of the national domain, and any disproportionate taxation of non-residents; and they declare that the Territory shall always be part of the United States and subject to a republican form of government, and that its inhabitants shall be taxable for their proportion of govern ment expenses, though levied by the local legislature. No one at the time claimed any credit for the statute. Lee, in a note to Washington, two days after it was passed, briefly explained the stringency of its provisions, on the ground that a strong-toned government seemed necessary " for the security of property among uninformed and perhaps licentious people." Dane excused it to King as the best they could do under the circumstances. Grayson, in writing to Monroe on the 8th of August, admits that the Ordinance was "something different from the one which," says he, " you drew; though I expect," he adds, " the departure is not so essential but that it will meet your approbation." It was not until forty-three years had passed that the question who drew it was raised at all; then, in the great debate on Foote's resolu
tion, Webster, in his famous reply to Hayne, made a passing allusion to Dane as the author of it, and Benton retorted that it was really the work of Thomas Jefferson. Dane was still living at the age of seventy-eight. Webster sent him a copy of his speech; and Dane, in acknowledging it, said that whenever he him self had written or spoken of the formation of the Ordinance, he had mainly referred to the Articles of Compact, — not to the tem porary part, in the formation of which, in 1786, Mr. Pinckney, himself, and, he thinks, Smith, took part. He adds : — "So little was done with the Report of 1786 that only a few lines of it were entered in the Journals. I think the files, if to be found, will show that report was re-formed, and temporaryparts added to it by the Committee of '87; and that I then added the titles and six articles, five of them before the Report of 1787 was printed, and the sixth article after." In an appendix to a supplementary volume of his " Abridgment," which he published soon afterwards, Mr. Dane put a short note explaining the formation of the Ordinance. In this he says that he took from Jefferson's plan the provisions that the Territory should always be part of the United States, subject to the Articles of Confederation and to con gressional legislation; that its inhabitants should pay their share of federal debts; that the territorial legislatures should never inter fere with the primary disposal of the soil by Congress, nor with any regulations Congress should make to secure bona fide purchasers in their title, nor tax the lands of the United States, nor over-tax non-resident owners. As for the " temporary organization," which, he says, was not deemed an important part of the Ordinance, none of it was in Jeffer son's plan; but he himself, with a little help from Pinckney, drafted it in 1786. His own invention, he adds, "furnished the pro visions respecting impairing contracts, the Indian security, and some other smaller mat ters." Other portions of the Ordinance were taken mainly from the Constitution and laws
