History of the Ordinance of 1787

the long version

This was an 1856 address by the former Governor of Illinois to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in which he sketches the development of the Ordinance of 1787, the first version of which was found in a report of a Congressional committee of April, 1784, ending with its nearly-unanimous passage July 13, 1787. Governor Coles also weighed in the question of who was primarily responsible for the ideas expressed in the Ordinance. Senator Daniel Webster had recently claimed that Nathan Dane of Massachusetts was mainly responsible. Coles argued that Thomas Jefferson was the principal author.