Note 29 — THE REPLY TO HAYNE

The Ordinance of July 13, 1787, was an act of the Congress of the Confederation,—prior to the beginning of the constitutional government of the United States in 1789,—which, in its sixth article, said of the “Northwest Territory,” organized by this Ordinance: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Under the provisions of this Ordinance Ohio became a State in 1802. Says Johnston in his “History of American Politics “: “The Ordinance of 1787 is noteworthy as an exercise by the Congress of the Confederacy of the right to exclude slavery from the territories. It will be found that the language of this Ordinance was copied in the efforts made in 1819 (Missouri), 1846 (Wilmot Proviso), and 1865 (XIIIth Amendment), to assert and maintain for the Federal Congress under the Constitution this power of regulating and abolishing slavery in the territories of the United States, and finally in the States as the result of civil war.”