Authors: Alfred W. Blumrosen
These considerations converged to identify the fundamental reason why southerners supported the slavery prohibition in the Northwest Ordinance. It is the same reason which led them into the Revolution—the protection of the institution of slavery—in light of the post-Revolutionary War conditions. Creating a free area north of the Ohio kept Yankees in the north while protecting slavery interests in the south. The result was the creation of the largest slavefree area in the western world.
This then, was the mutual modification by North and South of the arrangement of 1774 between John Adams and the southern gentlemen.
65
The unlimited pro-slavery arrangement of 1774 was changed by mutual agreement between southern and northern interests and sealed by the unanimous vote of the Continental Congress for the Northwest Ordinance.
66
With the territory divided between slave and free areas, the states could remain united. A principle was established that addressed the slavery issue for eighty years: a Congressionally drawn line between slave and free states would maintain a balance of power in the national government.
Placing the conclusion concerning the future of slavery in the ordinance instead of the constitution had an additional significant effect; it enhanced the likelihood of adoption of the constitution. It reduced the emphasis on the issue of slavery in both North and South. Antislavery northerners would not attack the pro-slavery elements in the constitution as heavily; advocates for slavery would be given comfort by the pro-slavery provisions, and not be overly concerned with expansion of slavery into the North.
67
It served to stabilize the nation until 1850, long after the British had freed the slaves in the West Indies.
The ordinance was the foundation of the Connecticut Compromise in which the states were given equal votes in the Senate while in the House, slave-state power was enhanced by counting three-fifths of the slaves toward state representation. This balance of interests achieved what Madison had first sought at the Convention on June 30, when he identified the struggle as between slave and nonslave states.
Ironically, the division of the nation over slavery hardened some whites’ perceptions that blacks were their economic enemies because their cheap labor diminished the worth of white labor. Where physical labor was the primary necessity for survival, not to mention prosperity, the difference in labor value of whites and blacks was the difference between bare subsistence and some level of comfort. This explains, at least in part, why whites in the South fought so hard to keep their one or two slaves, and why whites in the North were so adamant in their opposition to slavery. There is no “sole cause” of the social phenomena of black exploitation and subordination. But the division of the union in 1787, which provided the first extension of human rights to blacks, simultaneously sharpened racebased difficulties that confront us to this day.
John Adams recognized that the two documents—the Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance—constituted a single new system of government. In the fall of 1787 he wrote:
In the course of last summer, two authorities have appeared.…The first is an ordinance of Congress of the 13th of July, 1787, for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio. The second is the report of the convention at Philadelphia of the 17th of September, 1787.…The new system, which seems admirably calculated to unite their interests and affections, and bring them to an uniformity of principles and sentiments, is equally well combined to unite their wills and forces as a single nation; a result of accommodation cannot be supposed to reach the ideas of perfection of any one.
68
The Northwest Ordinance was not an accident, or an independent fortuitous event, or the result of cool weather. It was an extraordinary act of statesmanship in a situation that otherwise would have produced the dissolution of the union, resulting in two or three nations competing for territory and resources. At least one of those nations would have maintained slavery into an indefinite future. The British probably anticipated such a prospect when they turned the huge and ungoverned territory over to the United States.
The various compromises of the founding fathers produced a single nation. The price slaves paid for the maintenance of that nation was nearly a hundred more years of slavery, and another hundred years of subordination to white “superiority.” Their descendants—indeed, all citizens— should understand the price they paid for our liberties.
The Northwest Ordinance was adopted on Friday, July 13, 1787. The ninety-mile trip from New York to Philadelphia took a day and a half by a coach service called “the flying machine.”
1
Therefore, news that the ordinance had been adopted in New York reached Philadelphia by late Saturday, July 14, or early Sunday, July 15.
By Sunday afternoon, the northern delegates in Philadelphia knew that slavery had been prohibited in the northwest territory. They may have caucused that day to decide whether to end their objections to the threefifths rule that they had resisted so vigorously the previous week. We do know that on Monday morning, the sixteenth of July, the Connecticut compromise was adopted. States would have equal representation in the Senate, and in the House they would be represented in proportion to their population plus three-fifths of their slaves. Northerners had abandoned their objections of the previous weeks.
If Franklin or Lee, or anyone else, had discussed with the northerners the possibility that the no-slavery clause in the Northwest Ordinance would be adopted by the Congress, the northerners would have had time to think about how to respond. If—as seems more likely—the southerners had decided to adopt the ordinance to show their good faith without prior discussion with the northerners, then the northerners would have had little time to decide what to do. Either way, it was decision time for them. The interests of their constituents in a no-slavery zone in which to settle—and their personal interests—won out.
The arrival of the news about the Northwest Ordinance changed the tone of the Convention from the snarling hostility of June 29 through July 14. Now it was calm and business-like. Historian Catherine Drinker Bowen, among others, has attributed this change in tone to a cooling breeze; but northern tempers about slavery were so hot in the previous week that it is unlikely that a breeze could have calmed them.
2
The extent to which slavery could expand in the West was just as important to the North on Monday, July 16, as it had been on Saturday, July 14, when it was discussed by the Convention.
3
The northern tempers cooled on Monday, July 16, because they had won equal votes in the Senate and a huge slave-free area where their constituents could go west without facing plantation owners grown rich from slave labor or slaves whose presence threatened their jobs and wage level. Whatever other factors may have been at work in producing the Northwest Ordinance—and there were many—the overriding concern, as expressed by Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts in 1785, was to prevent this threat to white workers from spreading throughout the new nation.
To be sure, the emerging abolitionist movement, the inconsistency of slavery with the principles of the Revolution, a rise in religious sensibilities, the manipulations of land speculators, and the ambitions of political figures contributed to the outcome. But these are soft variables— difficult to measure and weigh. In a world where most work for most people was physical labor, the presence of black labor that was free to its owners had chilling consequences for white workers in the northern tier of states. The adoption of the Northwest Ordinance in Philadelphia is the only viable explanation for the decision of the northern states to give up their attacks on the three-fifths rule.
The Connecticut compromise for equal votes in the Senate and whites plus three-fifths of the slaves in the House passed five to four.
4
Connecticut voted for it, despite earlier threats to secede. New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and North Carolina supported it. The opponents were Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, all of whom were opposed to the equality of votes in the Senate.
5
New York was absent, but Virginia governor Edmund Randolph noted that if New York had been present, the vote would have been six to four in favor.
6
On the other hand, if Massachusetts had voted against it, instead of being divided, it would have been five to five, and as a tie would have lost.
After the vote, Governor Randolph of Virginia appeared to be disconcerted. He asked for an adjournment so that “the large states might consider the steps proper to be taken in the present solemn crisis of the business, and that the small states might also deliberate on the means of conciliation.”
7
Patterson, whose New Jersey plan had succeeded with respect to the Senate, considered Randolph’s statement as a threat by the large states to walk out of the Convention and end the Confederation. Patterson told Randolph that “No conciliation could be admissible on the part of the smaller states on any other ground than that of an equality of votes in the second branch [Senate]. If Mr. Randolph would reduce to form his motion for an adjournment
sine die
, he [Patterson] would second it with all his heart.”
8
An indefinite adjournment—without a date to reconvene—would mean the end of the Convention and the Union.
Randolph hastily backed away from this interpretation of his statement. He “had never entertained an idea of an adjournment
sine die
, and was sorry that his meaning had been so readily and strangely interpreted. He had in view merely an adjournment till tomorrow in order that some conciliatory experiment might if possible be devised.”
Randolph denied threatening a walk-out. Patterson became more gracious. He seconded the motion for a day’s adjournment. The states divided five to five on the adjournment question.
Then cooler heads prevailed. Elbridge Gerry said Massachusetts, which had voted “no” on adjournment, would change its vote because “they saw no new ground of compromise, but as it seemed to be the opinion of so many states that a trial should be made, the state would now concur in the adjournment.”
9
John Rutledge of South Carolina, a state that had also opposed the adjournment, could
see no chance of a compromise. The little states were fixt.…All that the large states had to do was to decide whether they would yield or not.…Had we not better keep the govt. up a little longer, hoping that another convention will supply our omissions, than abandon everything to hazard. Our constituents will be very little satisfied with us if we take the latter course.
10
The motion to adjourn “til tomorrow” was adopted seven to two with one divided. Massachusetts and South Carolina had changed their votes.
A hastily organized caucus of members from the larger states and some from the smaller states met the next morning, before the Convention session began. At this meeting, the states that had opposed equal votes in the Senate were indecisive and vague, and could not agree on a strategy to oppose the result. Madison, who had fought the equality of votes in the Senate with all his skill, was unhappy to report this conclusion, but report it he did.
The result of this consultation satisfied the smaller states that they had nothing to apprehend from a union of the larger, in any plan whatever against the equality of votes in the Senate.
11
In the Convention that morning, the opponents of equal representation in the Senate opened a new front by questioning how much power to give a Congress that would not be entirely elected by proportional representation as they had wished. From that point forward, the Convention settled down to business. As historian Lance Banning put it, “The bargain of July 16 assured that the Convention would succeed.”
12
By July 26, it adjourned so that a committee of detail could begin to shape the issues that had been resolved in the previous days. The Convention reconvened on August 6, and began to work through the report of the committee. That report structured the rest of the Convention’s work. The discussion at the Convention became more technical and less emotional. Slavery related issues were discussed on August 21, 22, 25, and September 10.
13
Some harsh words were exchanged, but the level of contention and dissatisfaction expressed in early July never resurfaced. The slavery issues were interspersed with other matters as the Convention moved toward its conclusion. These issues never dominated the way that they had in early July.
On Tuesday, August 21, toward the end of the day, the Convention voted to prohibit taxes on exported goods. Luther Martin of Maryland proposed a provision to permit a prohibition or tax on the import of slaves because the three-fifths rule would encourage such importation.
14
Nobody else was interested. John Rutledge of South Carolina said, “The true question at present is whether the southern states shall or shall not be parties to the union.”
15
Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, who had been prepared to leave the union over the three-fifths rule before the Northwest Ordinance was passed, now took a different view. “Let every state import what it pleases. The morality or wisdom of slavery are considerations belonging to the states themselves.”
16
Charles Pinckney from South Carolina seconded Rutledge. “South Carolina can never receive a plan if it prohibits the slave trade. In every proposed extension of the powers of Congress, that state has expressly and watchfully excepted that of meddling with the importation of Negroes.”
17
The next day, August 22, the discussion continued. Roger Sherman joined his Connecticut colleague Ellsworth in opposing any change in the situation of the three-fifths rule, because “the abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the U.S. and the good sense of the several states would probably by degrees complete it.”
18