The difficulty with which slavery was permanently
kept out, although expressly prohibited by the Ordinance of 1787, is
a proof of this assertion. The clearing of the way for the later
prohibitive action by striking out the clause tended to the ultimate
good. On the other hand, it is pointed out that the Jefferson ordinance
provided only for "a temporary government of the western territory"
and covered "so much of the territory ceded or to be ceded by the
individual States to the United States as is already purchased or shall
be purchased of the Indian inhabitants and offered for sale by
Congress." Eulogists of Jefferson argue, consequently, that if his
restricting clause had been allowed to remain it would have prohibited
slavery in all the land west of the thirteen States, both north and
south, after the year 1800, and thus the entire slavery system would
have died through non-extension. But it must be remembered that the
only land thus far ceded lay north of the Ohio and immediately west
of the free States. It is not conceivable that such a restriction would
have been permitted to hold south of the Ohio and west of the
slaveholding States, directly in the line of migration.
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