The two ordinances were alike in precluding the separation of any part
of the territory from the United States, requiring the inhabitants to
pay a portion of the national debt, and forbidding new States, to
interfere with the sale of or to tax the national public lands within
their limits.
Two provisions in Jefferson's first draft of the Ordinance of 1784
were struck out by the Congress before adoption. One, which forbade
granting of titles of nobility, was eliminated because, as Jefferson
wrote to Madison, "it was thought an improper place to encounter them."
The contest against the introduction of aristocracy was unlikely to
be precipitated in the backwoods bordering the Ohio River. Yet the
provision would have been in keeping with the spirit of the times.
Congress had recently rejected a proposition made to Washington by the
Polish Order of Knights of Divine Providence that their order should
be officially extended to the United States. The other eliminated
provision, forbidding slavery and involuntary servitude in the territory
after the year 1800 except as a punishment for crime, is important not
only as the first attempted restriction of the slavery system by the
National Government, but also as furnishing an interesting comparison
with the later sentiment on this unfortunate controversy which affected
every phase of United States history for a century.
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