October 13, 2002

Constitution Inspiration

The Florida Gulf Coast University at Fort Myers, crowded with students, launched its first subsidiary campus last week at the Charlotte County Cultural Center in Port Charlotte.

Professor Steve Tull led an evening class in an examination of the United States Constitution. The non-credit series of six lectures and discussion is designed for "continuing education" of adults. Eventually the university will offer courses for degree credits.

This week's At Large column is not part of the scholarly aspects of Constitutional construction. However, readers may find interesting the little known inspiration for some of the cherished guarantees in that unique document.

The great prize of the American War For Independence was the vast and fertile Northwest Territory - today the five "Midwest" states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. Citizens there like to call it the "Heartland."

This land west of the Ohio River had been set aside by King George exclusively for Indians. American colonists wanted it.

Possession and use of this rich territory was a major factor in the rebellion against England - all the talk about tea and "taxation without representation" notwithstanding.

When things looked darkest during the revolutionary war, and the colonists were about to surrender, the Continental Congress promised to open up the western lands to settlers if they stayed on and won.

However, with victory, the fledgling states could not agree upon a plan of settlement that dealt realistically with Indians living on the land.

Thomas Jefferson, who had a large part in drafting the Declaration of Independence, laid out a plan in 1784 for dividing the Northwest Territory into five states. It meticulously described how boundaries of states, counties and townships were to be determined. Practical, but uninspired and ignored.

The Articles of Confederation that the new United States had adopted to govern itself were weak and ineffective. The economy was near collapse. Foreign nations threatened to gobble up the mini-states.

To study and solve the problems, the Continental Congress agreed to meet at Philadelphia in May 1787.

The convention was 11 days late in starting because a quorum of seven states was slow in assembling. With barely half the states represented, the delegates began deliberations that eventually resulted in the U.S. Constitution.

Into this gathering, one day in early July, strode the Rev. Manasseh Cutler of Connecticut. He represented the Ohio Company, a consortium of land speculators formerly officers of the Continental Army.

Rev. Cutler had a tempting proposition. He proposed to buy one and a half million acres of the Ohio country for cash money with almost worthless Continental dollars. A common description for things of little value was, "Not worth a continental."

Continental currency had little purchasing power - and Ohio land was priceless if the Indians could be removed. Nevertheless, the prospect of opening the coveted land to settlement, reducing national debt and rewarding war veterans was enticing.

Congress postponed its debate to consider the offer.

Rev. Cutler insisted on legal sanction and a governing ordinance which would enable the Ohio Company to buy out the Indians and  administer the territory.  

An added benefit of the Ohio Company offer would be to challenge Canadians still occupying much of the territory despite the treaty ending the Revolutionary War. This matter, however, would not be resolved until the mini-war of 1812-15.  

To draft a proposed ordinance authorizing the sale of Ohio Territory land, Congress assigned Nathan Dane, one of its members from Massachusetts, to work with Rev. Cutler and Rufus King, another member of the Ohio Company.

In addition to spelling out financial arrangements, Cutler and King insisted on certain guarantees that would make settlements governable.

Within three days, the three men returned with an astonishing document that pointed the way for the stalemated Congress.

Eight states had assembled 18 representatives by that time. This handful of delegates - presided over by President George Washington - attached the proposal to Thomas Jefferson's languishing Northwest Ordinance. The enlarged document was speedily adopted July 13, 1787.

New Ideas

The Northwest Ordinance contained provisions that were, and still are, superior to the U.S. Constitution crafted months later.

The most unusual idea incorporated in the Ordinance is so commonplace to us today that we no longer recognize it as a political breakthrough.

It set up machinery for eventually dividing the Northwest Territory into five states - each with equal sovereignty to the original 13 colonies. Theretofore, throughout world history, spin-offs of the mother country had been treated as dependencies to be exploited. This deeply rooted attitude by King George had provoked the American colonies.

The Ohio Company was determined not to repeat that folly. We have adhered ever after to the principle of equal sovereignty for adding 39 other states to the union.

The Northwest Ordinance also guaranteed civil liberties that later were incorporated in the U.S. Constitution as the Bill of Rights. Here are a few:

Article 1 - No person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments.

Article 2 - The inhabitants shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writs of habeas corpus and of the trial by jury; all persons shall be bailable; all fines shall be moderate; no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted; no man shall be deprived of his liberty or property but by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

Article 3 - Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

Article IV - the inhabitants and settlers shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts, and a proportional part of the expenses of government.

Article V - There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.

* * *

It is this last admonition that raised the Ordinance a notch above the Constitution finally approved. The original Constitution sidestepped the moral issue of slavery -- leaving it to a subsequent Civil War to resolve.

After adopting the Northwest Ordinance, the representatives sold a large tract of Ohio for nine cents an acre. Then they resumed debate on revision of the post-war Articles of Confederation.

By that time, however, it was recognized that the thoughts expressed in the Northwest Ordinance were what was needed to set the nation aright.

The convention determined to write a constitution along the lines already worked out by Cutler, Dane and King for the Ohio Company.

Throughout the rest of that long summer, Congress incorporated large parts of the Northwest Ordinance into the U.S. Constitution.  

Delegates adopted the Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787. Before the end of the year, they amended it to include the Bill of Rights. The final document, with relatively few other amendments, has governed us well for 205 years.

Thank you Rev. Cutler for the inspiration.

Author: Lindsey Williams

cutlines - 3 col

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1 - new photo large group.

Photo by Lindsey Williams

[ Students of Professor Steve Tull, standing right, assemble as did delegates to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia on Sept. 17, 1787. See adjacent picture. The students are, from left, Zsachlayne Roguska, Bob Gray, Audrey Seay, Helen Phillips, Sherry Munroe, Pam Seay, Tim Roguska, Donna Roguska. ]

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2- painting, standing men

Robert Fridenberg Galleries painting

[ President George Washington, standing right, presided over Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. This painting shows the delegates preparing to sign the document in Washington's hand. ]

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