Some of its provisions deserve a close
examination. The changes made in the Johnson ordinance to satisfy the
Ohio Company are found chiefly in the appended six articles of the
Ordinance of 1787. These formed a guarantee that citizens in the
territory deprived of the protection of their States would have the
same personal rights which they enjoyed before leaving the States. The
United States, later destined to become a protector, was feared lest
it might be an oppressor. Such individual rights as _habeas corpus_,
trial by jury, freedom of conscience, possession of property, and
similar birthrights of Englishmen, had been secured in the States by
incorporating them in the various State Constitutions under the general
name of "declaration of rights" or "bill of rights." Without such
specific title, they were placed in the Ordinance of 1787. The sixth
article, no doubt also demanded by Cutler, incorporated the very wording
of Jefferson's rejected anti-slavery clause of three years before,
except making it immediate instead of after 1800. The New England
Associators were unwilling to offer their free labour in competition
with slave labour in their new home.
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