The Jefferson-Lemen Compact | Page 4

of 1784 to the National Government, all the rights and privileges of the former citizens of Virginia were assured to them in the ceded district. Thus, at the time of Lemen's arrival, slavery had been sanctioned on the Illinois prairies for sixty-seven years. One year from the date of his arrival, however, the Territorial Ordinance of 1787 was passed, with the prohibition of slavery, as originally proposed by Jefferson in 1784.[9] Thus it would seem that the desired object had already been attained. By the terms of the famous "Sixth Article of Compact," contained in that Ordinance, it was declared that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the accused shall have been duly convicted." This looks like a sweeping and final disposition of {p.12} the matter, but it was not accepted as such until the lapse of another fifty-seven years. But neither Jefferson nor his agents on the ground had anticipated so easy a victory. Indeed, they had foreseen that a determined effort would be made by the friends of slavery to legalize that institution in the Territory. Almost at once, in fact, the conflict commenced, which was to continue actively for thirty-seven years. Like the Nation itself, the Illinois country was to be for a large part of its history "half slave and half free"--both in sentiment and in practice.
Two attempts against the integrity of the "Sixth Article" were made during Gov. St. Clair's administration. The trouble began with the appeals of the French slave-holders against the loss of their slaves.[10] As civil administration under the Territorial government was not established among the Illinois settlements until 1790, both the old French inhabitants and the new American colonists suffered all manner of disabilities and distresses in the interval between 1784 and 1790, while just across the Mississippi there was a settled and prosperous community under the Spanish government of Louisiana. When, therefore, the French masters appealed to Gen. St. Clair, in 1787, to protect them against the loss of the principal part of their wealth, represented by their slaves, he had to face the alternative of the loss of these substantial citizens by migration with their slaves to the Spanish side of the river. And, in order to pacify these petitioners, St. Clair gave it as his opinion that the prohibition of slavery in the Ordinance was not retroactive, and hence did not affect the rights of the French masters in their previously acquired slave property. As this view accorded with the "compact" contained in the Virginia deed of cession, it was sanctioned by the old Congress, and was later upheld by the new Federal Government; and this construction of the Ordinance of 1787 continued to prevail in Illinois until 1845, when the State Supreme Court decreed that the prohibition was absolute, and that, consequently, slavery in any form had never had any legal sanction in Illinois since 1787.[11]
It does not appear that Mr. Lemen took any active measures against this construction of the anti-slavery ordinance at the time. He was, indeed, himself a petitioner, with other American settlers on the "Congress lands" in Illinois, for the recognition of their claims, which were menaced {p.13} by the general prohibition of settlement then in effect.[12] Conditions in every respect were so insecure prior to the organization of St. Clair county in 1790, that it was hardly to be expected that any vigorous measure could be taken against previously existing slavery in the colony, especially as the Americans were then living in station forts for protection against the hostile Indians. Moreover, Jefferson was not in the country in 1787, and hence there was no opportunity for co-operation with him at this time. Mr. Lemen was, however, improving the opportunity "to try to lead and direct the new settlers in the best way"; for we find him, although not as yet himself a "professor" of religion, engaged in promoting the religious observance of the Sabbath on the part of the "godfearing" element in the station fort where, with his father-in-law, he resided (Fort Piggott). In 1789 Jefferson returned from France to become Secretary of State in President Washington's cabinet, under the new Federal Government. He had not forgotten his friend Lemen, as Dr. Peck assures us that "he lost no time in sending him a message of love and confidence by a friend who was then coming to the West."
St. Clair's construction of the prohibition of slavery unfortunately served to weaken even its preventive force and emboldened the pro-slavery advocates to seek persistently for the repeal, or, at least, the "suspension" of the obnoxious Sixth Article. A second effort was made under his administration in 1796, when a memorial, headed by Gen. John Edgar, was sent to Congress praying