St. Clair and Wayne 349 



year 1801. This clause was struck out; and even 

 if adopted it would probably have amounted to 

 nothing, for if slavery had be^n permitted to take 

 firm root it could hardly have been torn up. In 

 1785, Rufus King advanced a proposition to pro 

 hibit all slavery in the Northwest immediately, but 

 Congress never acted on the proposal. 



The next movement in the same direction was 

 successful, because when it was made it was pushed 

 by a body of well-known men who were anxious to 

 buy the lands that Congress was anxious to sell, 

 but who would not buy them until they had some 

 assurance that the governmental system under which 

 they were to live would meet their ideas. This body 

 was composed of New Englanders, mostly veterans 

 of the Revolutionary War, and led by officers who 

 had stood well in the Continental army. 



When, in the fall of 1783, the Continental army 

 was disbanded, the war-worn and victorious soldiers, 

 who had at last wrung victory from the reluctant 

 years of defeat, found themselves fronting grim 

 penury. Some were worn with wounds and sick 

 ness; all were poor and unpaid; and Congress had 

 no means to pay them. Many among them felt that 

 they had small chance to repair their broken fortunes 

 if they returned to the homes they had abandoned 

 seven weary years before, when the guns of the 

 minute-men first called them to battle. 



These heroes of the blue and buff turned their 

 eyes westward to the fertile lands lying beyond 

 the mountains. They petitioned Congress to mark 



