The idea was general. "The total
exclusion of slavery from the State" had been a prominent provision
in a transitory association in Connecticut four years before.
[Illustration: NATHAN DANE'S DRAFT OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY CLAUSE IN THE
ORDINANCE OF 1787. The authorship of this article of the Ordinance has
been in much dispute. Benton attributed it to a similar provision,
drafted by Jefferson, which was struck out of the Ordinance of 1784.
Northern men gave the credit to Nathan Dane, a Massachusetts jurist,
who was in Congress in 1787. During the sectional feeling aroused over
the admission of Missouri in 1820, a dispute arose in Congress over
the respective claims of Jefferson and of Dane. Of this, Dane himself
said: "In April, 1820, search was made for the original manuscript of
the Ordinance of 1787. Daniel Bent's answer was 'that no written draft
could be found'; but there was found attached to the printed Ordinance
in my handwriting the sixth article, as it now is, that is, the slave
article." The original is now in the Library of Congress, Manuscript
Division. The signature of Chas. Thomson, Jr.
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