 Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Bill Bennett’s latest book, America: The Last Best Hope. Additional excerpts forthcoming on Townhall.com. The book can be purchased here.
After independence and peace, the greatest achievement of the Confederation government was the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. From the old Northwest Territory would be carved a huge region—the modern reflection and choice states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. It was the culmination of a series of land measures that began as early as 1780.
Under that wise, far-seeing measure, slavery was forever banned in those lands. Further, the lands were divided into townships six miles square, and subdivided into thirty-six sections of 640 acres each. One of these sections was to be donated for the purposes of public education.
“Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged,” Congress said. Thus, even from the beginning of the republic, the focus of attention in education was on the moral as well as the intellectual development of youth.
The Northwest Ordinance continued Congress’s plan to treat each new territory as a state-in-embryo. Settlers in the territories could establish free governments and write constitutions, and once they had achieved sixty thousand inhabitants, they could apply for admission to the Union as new states. Each new state would be admitted on an equal basis with all previous states.
Thomas Jefferson had set the pattern for this unprecedented treatment of new states with his plans for Kentucky and fourteen other new states. This was the first time in the history of the world that the principle of equality was so recognized. American territories would not be colonies, held in perpetual subordination to the “mother” country. We had learned that from the failure of the British Empire.
A critically important feature of the Northwest Ordinance was its treatment of religion. The first article stated: “No person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship, or religious sentiments, in the said territory.” This enlightened principal was little short of revolutionary for its time. No other government had ever laid out such a principal for administering newly acquired territories. In setting up this rule, Congress was clearly drawing on the recently passed Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.
Originally introduced in 1779 by Thomas Jefferson, the Virginia statute had failed to win majority support in wartime Virginia. When Mr. Jefferson left America in 1784 for Paris, he arranged to stay in the closest possible contact with his good friend and neighbor, James Madison. They exchanged letters, news, books, and pamphlets regularly. Jefferson especially wanted to be kept informed of events in the Virginia Assembly.
Patrick Henry introduced a bill in 1785 to provide state support for “Teachers of the Christian Religion.” Many people saw it as a step forward for religious tolerance. After all, Virginia had previously required all its citizens to support the Anglican (now Episcopal) church. Under Henry’s bill, government support would be given to a wide variety of Christian sects. Continued... |