" The Southern members, on the
other hand, heartily supported the plan. The committee that brought in
the ordinance, the majority being Southern men, also reported an article
prohibiting slavery. Dane was the mover, while the rough draft may have
been written by Cutler; and the report was vigorously pushed by the two
Virginians on the committee, William Grayson and Richard Henry Lee. The
article was adopted by a vote unanimous, except for the dissent of one
delegate, a nobody from New York.
The ordinance established a territorial government, with a governor,
secretary, and judges. A General Assembly was authorized as soon as
there should be five thousand free male inhabitants in the district. The
lower house was elective, the upper house, or council, was appointive.
The Legislature was to elect a territorial delegate to Congress. The
governor was required to own a freehold of one thousand acres in the
district, a judge five hundred, and a representative two hundred; and no
man was allowed to vote unless he possessed a freehold of fifty acres.
[Footnote: "St. Clair Papers," ii., 603.] These provisions would seem
strangely undemocratic if applied to a similar territory in our own day.
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