Northwest Ordinance of 1787: Manasseh Cutler's Deal and the Ohio River Line

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

After the 1783 Treaty of Paris handed the United States the land between Pennsylvania, the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, the Confederation Congress could not levy taxes and states with sea to sea charters were fighting over the territory. The states finally ceded their claims in exchange for land sale revenue covering their pooled war debts. Thomas Jefferson's 1784 plan for ten rectangular states with Latinized names was mocked and dropped. Then Manasseh Cutler of the Ohio Company of Associates offered to buy 1.5 million acres with veterans' IOUs bought cheaply and redeemed at face value, helped Nathan Dane draft the ordinance, made key congressmen silent partners, and got the governorship made an appointed post he could offer to Arthur St. Clair, the sitting president of Congress.

The ordinance set a three stage path to statehood at 60,000 free inhabitants, guaranteed habeas corpus, jury trial and freedom of religion, encouraged schools that led to Ohio University's 1804 charter, and banned slavery in language later copied into the 13th Amendment. It also carried a fugitive slave clause, and Illinois and Indiana factions used 99 year indenture contracts to keep slavery in practice. Its promise of good faith toward Native nations allowed just and lawful wars, and Blue Jacket and Little Turtle's confederacy destroyed St. Clair's army before Anthony Wayne won at Fallen Timbers. The ban made the Ohio River the line between free and slave soil.

• Under the Articles, Congress could only send letters asking states for money, which they routinely ignored.
• Running for the territorial assembly required 200 acres, and the first stage governor had to own 1,000.
• The ordinance established fee simple ownership, letting buyers sell land freely to anyone.
• Enslaved people who refused indenture contracts could be shipped down the Mississippi and sold to New Orleans sugar plantations.
• More than 800 American soldiers died in a single battle when Little Turtle routed St. Clair.