Page:Final Report of the Northwest Territory Celebration Commission.pdf/40

 ideas for which American men had fought and starved in the Revolution.

The ideas presented by the soldiers in post-war but pre-treaty camp at Newburgh, New York, and which resulted in the so called "Pickering Petition", were the ideas of the common men—of-the-line; the American proletariat.

That those views, there expressed, and from there carried into the Ordinance of 1787, also were the views of the common people of America generally is evidenced by their forced adoption as the first group of amendments, a requirement necessary to secure ratification of the United States Constitution.

This meeting also presented in definite form the growing attitude of the American people toward settlement of the western country.

The fourth episode—""—depicted the early dealings with the Indians, in securing titles to their lands by proper and official methods.

Episode No. 5 deals with the formation of the, which reflected clearly the attitudes of the soldiers at Newburgh and the people generally, as to the future of the West, and the principles of government which these men held. The Ohio Company of Associates must be clearly differentiated from the earlier Ohio Company which was a land grab scheme and had no relation whatsoever to the 1786 Company.

At the behest of the Ohio Company of Associates, it is notable that Congress passed this ordinance, even with its rigid antislavery clause, by the votes of Southern members, and the vote was almost unanimous. The only vote in opposition was cast by one member from New York.

It is also to be recalled that no previous United States governmental document had contained any reference to a bill of rights— nor did any succeeding document for four years after the Ordinance was enacted.

Other citizens generally insisted upon such provisions in the organic law of the new nation, and only ratified the United States Constitution upon definite assurance of these principles would be added.

The Ohio Company of Associates was merely in better position to secure its objectives than were the people at large. These men were proposing to buy a large amount of government land, thus discharging a part of the new nation's heavy debt; and to settle the new west, insuring a frontier guard against the Indians. They were in good position to get what they wanted in the way of laws.

Study of the proceedings of Congress at time of passage of the Ordinance and subsequent correspondence of its members suggests very strongly that these new principles of national government as expressed by the Ordinance were not then adopted as the result of any high-minded concepts of Congress for the future of the nation.

Instead, they were included at the insistent behest of the Ohio Company representatives, as the more or less begrudged price of a deal to reduce public debt, stop soldiers' clamor for their pay and secure protection for an exposed frontier.