With the Revolutionary war having come to an end, the Continental Congress still needed to deal with issues related to promises made to the Continental Army. Part of those promises would be dealt with by giving veterans western lands To do that, it needed to deal with conflicting state claims to western lands.
States Cede Territories
Back in 1763, London had tried to prevent western migration beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Prior to that, British colonial charters had been vague on western borders, or sometimes clearly in conflict with other charters. Part of the reason for this is that Britain wanted to push western claims as far as possible when it was competing with French claims from Quebec. As a result, states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Virginia all had documents that pushed far into the west, by some interpretations, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
The newly ratified treaty of Paris set the western border at the Mississippi River. That left the question as to what to do with all the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River, where Spanish control began.
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| Jefferson's Proposed New States |
Despite these demands, Virginia opened up a land claims court in Kentucky. It also had people like Colonel George Rogers Clarke on the ground claiming lands along the Mississippi, in what is today Illinois, as Virginia territory. The impasse remained for years, until Virginia finally agreed to give up its claims to land north of the Ohio River on the condition that all states ratify the Articles of Confederation. This left only what is today West Virginia and Kentucky within Virginia’s state borders. Finally, because of this concession in 1781, Maryland ratified the Articles, bringing them into effect.
Even after that, Congress had trouble negotiating details of various state borders and making sure all other state claims were turned over to Congress. New York fought for some time to condition its cession on the guarantee that the other states would recognize its claims to Vermont. Virginia was still focused on border disputes in the southwest corner of the state which conflicted with claims from North Carolina. There were also claims of private land companies which also might pose legal problems for Congress.
Eventually, New York dropped the condition of other states agreeing to its claim of Vermont. It did not drop the Vermont claims. It simply said it wouldn’t hold up the western land issue until the Vermont issue was resolved. Virginia similarly did not condition its border dispute with North Carolina on its cession of lands north of the Ohio River.
The Congressional Committee trying to resolve all matters also tried to get concessions from Massachusetts and Connecticut that they would give up claims to these lands as well. Both states failed to give such an assurance for several years.
Return of Jefferson
I’ve mentioned before that many of the more distinguished delegates to the Continental Congress had left by the end of the war. One big reason for this was the imposition of term limits. The fact that delegate pay could not even cover living expenses also meant that those who were not independently wealthy often had to find some other job that would help pay the bills.
One notable name that did return to Congress around this time, was Thomas Jefferson. The young Virginian had been a delegate early in the war, when he penned the Declaration of Independence. Shortly afterward, he returned to Virginia.
The end of the war was also a pretty low point in Jefferson’s life. He had left the office of the Governor in the summer of 1781, after getting pretty universal low marks for his term of office. Voters were particularly unhappy with his handling of the British invasion of the state and the government’s inability to mount an effective defense.
Jefferson spent the next two years as a private citizen. He devoted much of his time to his plantation, and to writing his Notes on the State of Virginia. During the summer of 1782, domestic tragedy came in the form of his wife Martha becoming gravely ill and bedridden. She had given birth to her seventh child that May and never seemed to recover. In September, she died.
Jefferson had remained with Martha through her illness. He had been asked several times to serve as a foreign minister in France, but refused to leave his wife. After her passing, Congress once again asked him to go to France to work on the peace treaty. This time, Jefferson agreed. He left his two younger daughters with relatives, and took his eldest, ten year old Patsy, to accompany him to Europe.
They hoped to catch a ship to France from Baltimore, but found the harbor frozen so that no ships could leave. Instead, Jefferson headed to Philadelphia. There, he stayed in a boarding house with Virginia delegate James Madison. Jefferson occupied his time by reading up on the secret correspondence between Congress and the American Peace delegation in France.
Jefferson and Madison knew each other before this, but became closer during this time. Jefferson encouraged Madison in a love interest during this time. The 32 year old bachelor had become infatuated with Kitty Floyd, the 15 year old daughter of New York Delegate William Floyd, who was living in the same boarding house as Jefferson and Madison. With Jefferson’s encouragement, Madison and Floyd became engaged.
Shortly after that, word arrived in Philadelphia that the Peace Commissioners had agreed to a preliminary peace treaty with Britain. This resulted in both Jefferson’s and Madison’s plans being thwarted. With the treaty already finalized, Jefferson saw no reason to go to France and decided to return home to Virginia.
The news of the peace treaty also caused Floyd to take his family back to Long Island for the first time since the British had captured the island seven years earlier. Kitty, having turned 16, went back to New York with her father. While separated from her fiancé, Kitty fell in love with a medical student and broke off her engagement with Madison.
After Jefferson returned home, the Virginia legislature voted for Jefferson to serve as a delegate to the Continental Congress in June, so Jefferson planned his return to Philadelphia once again. Before he could leave Virginia, Congress moved to Princeton following the mutiny of Continental Soldiers in Philadelphia in late June. Jefferson headed north in November, but went to Philadelphia around the same time that Congress was preparing to move to from Princeton to Annapolis. It seems that Jefferson did make a showing in Princeton to take his seat in Congress, but he very quickly returned to Philadelphia.
While in Philadelphia, Jefferson met up again with Madison and found a tutor for his daughter Patsy. Leaving his daughter in Philadelphia, Jefferson and Madison left for Annapolis in late November, planning to arrive just before the opening of the new session of Congress there.
Jefferson seemed to be on the same page as Madison, believing that the Articles of Confederation needed to be strengthened, with more power over the states. Jefferson had been assigned to a committee to ratify the final peace treaty. I mentioned a few episodes back that the treaty had arrived in November, and had to be ratified and sent back to Europe by March 3, 1784. Jefferson wrote repeatedly about his frustration that Congress could not get nine state delegations to show up and ratify the treaty in a timely manner.
Once the delegates finally showed up in January, 1784, and ratified the treaty, Jefferson could focus more on other issues. During this time, he regularly corresponded with George Washington. The former general asked Jefferson’s advice about The Society of the Cincinnati. Jefferson thought Washington should distance himself from the Society. Jefferson also encouraged Washington to get more involved in a project that would link the Potomac and Ohio Rivers, believing that trade with the west would be a key commercial center of growth in the post-war era.
Governing Western Lands
While Jefferson and Washington were considering how to link Virginia to the Northwest territories, Jefferson also sat on the Congressional committee that was deciding how this territory would be governed.
By the time Jefferson arrived in Congress in late November, 1783, various committees and advisors had already put forward quite a few suggestions on how to handle the new territories. While he was in Princeton, awaiting the evacuation of New York, George Washington had suggested that much of the area be established as one or two large inland states, which would be areas being opened to white settlement while other areas being reserved for the Indian tribes that lived in the region.
There also had been a debate on how the territories would be governed. Congress would institute a temporary government that would remain in place until the territories had a population sufficient to form its own state government. At that time, the people could apply to Congress for statehood and admission to the union as an equal partner to the existing states. There was no serious consideration of keeping the territories in a perpetual colonial status. There was, however, a debate over the process by which they became states.
There would have to be some period of time when Congress governed the region directly. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts offered an amendment to ensure that Congress would be solely responsible for governing the territory. Individual states would have no direct say over the region.
Samuel Huntington of Connecticut offered another amendment which required that the new governments be based on republican principles. The people could not choose to form a monarchy or a dictatorship. David Howell of Rhode Island wanted a slightly different solution, giving the residents a greater say in the initial government to the people who lived there. This was voted down since Congress did not really trust the frontiersmen who made the initial settlers to be capable of establishing a government under republican principles and respectful of the rights and liberties of the people. Congress would have to control the region until a sufficient population settled and created real civilization to form a proper state government.
When Jefferson arrived, he was given the chairmanship of a succession of committees that were responsible for sorting out these issues. By February of 1784, Jefferson was working on a committee with Howell, as well as Jeremiah Chase of Maryland. By that time, it seemed that the committee had already worked out most of the details, but it took several more weeks before the committee issued its final report.
Land Ordinance of 1784
In March 1784, Jefferson’s committee issued its report. Around this same time, Congress formally accepted the Virginia session of western territories that today make up Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.
While initial proposals suggested that settlers define the actual borders of the new territories, Jefferson disagreed with this approach. His final report suggested drawing relatively straight lines through the territory, creating a series of rectangular shapes without regard to natural boundaries.
The report mapped out about ten states and gave all of them names. A few of the state names are similar to ones actually used, like Michigania and Illinoia. Another was named after the hero of the Revolution (Washington) and another for a critical event in the war (Saratoga). The rest of the state names seemed to flow from Jefferson’s imagination, combined with his appreciation for Greek and Latin: Cherronesus, Sylvania, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia.
Within each territory, the settlers could establish their own constitution and laws, and that when the population of the territory reached 20,000, they could hold a state convention to establish a temporary constitution. When the population grew to be the size of the least populous state already in the Union, it could apply for statehood. At the time, the least populous state was Delaware, with a population of around 50,000.
The report also recommended that slavery be banned from the new territories beginning in 1800. This change would have required the support of nine states. In the end, only eight supported the prohibition on slavery. Maryland, South Carolina voted against this. Virginia’s delegation left Jefferson in the minority and also voted against it. North Carolina’s delegation was divided and, therefore, could not support it. New Jersey did not have a full delegation present to vote.
Jefferson later wrote about the absence of one New Jersey delegate whose illness prevented the adoption of the prohibition on slavery “Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and heaven was silent in that awful moment.” The debate, however, did have a strong impact on Jefferson. Around this same time, he also submitted a draft constitution to the Virginia Assembly which would have ended slavery by granting freedom to the children of any slaves born after 1800. We touched on this issue a couple of weeks ago. The notion of abolition in Virginia was, of course, rejected.
He wrote later that he would no longer risk his “usefulness” fighting against slavery. Although he retained his concerns on the matter, and continued to write against it privately, he realized that such issues would hold him back in politics, and would also make it more difficult for him to champion many other policies.
Debate over the bill continued for nearly two months. The final ordinance which Congress adopted on April 23, 1784, mostly relied on the principles set forth by the committee.
The new state would be required to remain forever part of the United States. They would be subject to the Articles of Confederation and all laws passed by Congress. Congress would remain in charge of all lands until sold. New states would be liable for their share of repaying all of the public debt that Congress had to repay. New states could not impose a tax on land owned by the United States. Any governments created had to be republican. Non-residents could not be taxed on land at a higher rate than residents.
Territories could send a delegate to Congress for purposes of debate, but could not vote until admitted as a state with the approval of two-thirds of the existing states. Until new territories had been established, Congress would remain the sole authority over laws for the region.
The final ordinance left out the exact borders of each state, as well as the names that the committee had recommended, but it did include language spelling out the use of straight lines and maintaining relatively small states.
With the controversial provision about slavery removed, the Ordinance passed easily. Only one state voted against the ordinance, South Carolina.
Further Plans
Jefferson also thought that western plans should go beyond the territories already ceded. He was making plans for western territories south of the Ohio River, on lands that were still claimed by Virginia, as well as the Carolinas and Georgia. He wrote to Madison, who had returned to the Virginia Assembly at the beginning of 1784, urging him to get the Assembly to cede additional western lands, so Congress could form new territories. He also wrote to George Washington, expressing the same hope.
Part of the reason for this is that Jefferson did not want states so large that there were different regional interests within the state. Smaller states would remain more homogenous and more likely to maintain a republican government that did not attempt to force policies on unwilling minorities in distant parts of a state. Because settlers in the western parts of Virginia had different interests than those in the east, it made sense for them to form their own states.
Jefferson’s interest in the west, however, would be set aside after the passage of this ordinance. A few weeks later, in May, Congress appointed Jefferson to join Adams and Franklin in France as part of a larger effort to establish more alliances and trade agreements in Europe.
Jefferson almost immediately submitted his resignation to Congress. He spent the next few weeks preparing for his departure, collecting his daughter Polly from Philadelphia, and bringing with him to Europe one of his teen aged slaves, James Hemings, to be trained as a French chef in Paris. James was the half brother of Jefferson’s wife Martha, but because his mother was a slave, he remained a slave.
Jefferson made his way to Boston. On July 5, after celebrating America’s eighth Independence Day, he boarded a ship for France.
The Ordinance Languishes
Although the Land Ordinance of 1784 made some progress toward resolving how the western territories would evolve, there was still plenty of work to do on the matter. Treaties needed to be worked out with the natives who still claimed most of this land. British soldiers still occupied parts of it. How the new land would be sold or distributed to land owners still needed to be resolved. There were even still some land claims by Massachusetts and Connecticut that needed to be terminated.
While the Ordinance had made some progress, there was still work to do before any of this could be implemented. Congress ended its session in June, planning to take up further issues in the next Congress.
Americans, however, were very much looking west as America’s future. We’ll see more of that next week as Americans try to establish a fourteenth state, called Franklin.
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Next Episode 335 The State of Franklin
Previous Episode 333 Slavery and Revolution
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Further Reading
Websites
Report from the Committee for the Western Territory to the United States Congress: http://jeffersonswest.unl.edu/archive/view_doc.php?id=jef.00155
“III. Report of the Committee, 1 March 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-06-02-0420-0004
Report from the Committee for the Western Territory to the United States Congress: http://jeffersonswest.unl.edu/archive/view_doc.php?id=jef.00155
“V. The Ordinance of 1784, 23 April 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-06-02-0420-0006
Ordinances Related to Western Lands: https://csac.history.wisc.edu/document-collections/confederation-period/ordinances-related-to-western-lands
Berkhofer, Robert F. “Jefferson, the Ordinance of 1784, and the Origins of the American Territorial System.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 2, 1972, pp. 231–62. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1921145
Horsman, Reginald. “Thomas Jefferson and the Ordinance of 1784.” Illinois Historical Journal, vol. 79, no. 2, 1986, pp. 99–112. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40191942
McCormick, Richard P. “The ‘Ordinance’ of 1784?” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 1, 1993, pp. 112–22. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2947238
Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)
Journals of Congress: 3d day of Nov. 1783 to 3d day of June, 1784 (Google Books).
Hulbert, Archer Butler Ohio in the time of the Confederation, Marietta Historical Commission, 1918.
Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*
Havighurst, Walter Land of Promise The Story of the Northwest Territory, Macmillan Company, 1946.
Lindley, Harlow & Norris F Schneider & Milo M Quaife, History Of The Ordinance Of 1787 And The Old Northwest Territory, Kessinger Publishing, 2010.
Meacham, Jon Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Random House, 2012.
* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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