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- From: cthorne@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Charles E Thorne)
- Subject: Re: Founding Fathers
- Message-ID: <1992Nov19.202223.21537@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
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- Organization: The Ohio State University
- References: <1eckbfINNgr3@fido.asd.sgi.com> <1edhpiINNd47@transfer.stratus.com> <1992Nov18.212008.21608@Princeton.EDU>
- Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 20:22:23 GMT
- Lines: 49
-
- In article <1992Nov18.212008.21608@Princeton.EDU> glhewitt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Gary Livingston Hewitt) writes:
- >In article <1edhpiINNd47@transfer.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes:
- >[regarding whether non/anti-slavery should have been a condition of
- >entry into the US way back in 177-whenever]
-
- >>The US, at the time of the Constitution, was very worried about
- >>the collapse of the country, and subsequent takeover by
- >>European powers. Furthermore, the compromise was needed to get
- >>several of the most important states into the fold. Virginia
- >>and the Carolinas were important to the new country. If, for
- >>example, only Georgia was holding out, the union may have gone
- >>on without them. We couldn't have gone on without Virginia. It
- >>would have been a lot like France or Germany holding out from
- >>the EC. The EC would have much more trouble surviving without
- >>one of those countries than they will in surviving without
- >>Spain.
-
- >If you think about it, the US *did* lose a few colonies -- East & West
- >Florida, Nova Scotia, Canada, Quebec, not to mention the Caribbean. In
- >addition, slavery was legal in all of the 13 colonies in 1774 when the
- >"United States" came into existence with the meeting of the Continental
- >Congress and when these decisions would have had to have been made
- >(don't you just love that syntax -- 5 helping verbs!).
-
- >When slavery does become a condition of admission into the Union, it is
- >a crisis every time (first time in 1820 w/ Missouri, 1854 w/ Kansas &
- >Nebraska); and eventually it led to Civil War. I don't think that
- >anyone in 1774 thought that it would lead to Civil War, but certainly
- >even by 1787 and the Constitutional Convention the delegates knew well
- >what they would be tampering with.
-
- >How to explain the Northwest Ordinance (which banned slavery in the
- >process of organizing the Northwest Territories) in this context, I
- >don't know.
-
- I suspect that one reason this wasn't an issue at the time of the Northwest
- Ordinance was that at that time the Northwest Territories were not particu-
- larly heavily populated. Ohio didn't become a State until 1803 and was
- not particularly populous at that time. At the time of the NW ordinance
- (late 1780's), the South hadn't yet realized what was happening. Also in
- the NW territory slavery wasn't likely to be adopted, so there were no
- pro slavery adherants (as there were later in Kansas). The early settlers
- in Ohio and Indiana were mostly small farmers and merchants and thus
- slavery wasn't an issue. Of course by the time of the Civil War, Ohio
- became very abolutionist (possibly due to the large amount of New Englanders
- who settled in NE Ohio.
-
- Charlie
-
-