Dark Bargain

by Lawrence Goldstone

  Cutler served as a chaplain in various units during the early years of the Revolution, but returned home in 1778 to oversee his parish. In August of that year, the severe depreciation in the buying power of paper money—it was by then worth only 10 percent of face value—induced Cutler to learn a new career to supplement his income as a minister. "I have spent considerable effort in pursuit of an estate in support of my family," he wrote, "and am now driven to the practice of physic."9 While maintaining a full schedule in his parish, Cutler pored through the best medical books he could find and accompanied a doctor friend on visits to his patients. By the end of the year, he was sufficiently knowledgeable to see patients independently and soon afterward found himself pressed into service during a smallpox outbreak. At one point in early 1779, he had forty afflicted parishioners under his care.

  Manasseh Cutler

  As the war headed south toward the Carolmas, Cutler remained in Ipswich and turned his ravenous curiosity to science. He experimented on an "electrical machine" ( a contraption that produced a static charge, which, due to Benjamin Franklin's experiments, was all the rage at the time), became a proficient amateur astronomer, studied natural phenomena through a microscope, and, most of all, made himself into one of the most accomplished botanists in America. Cutler produced the first serious record of New England plant life, identifying and categorizing hundreds of different species. For his scientific work, Cutler was made a member of the newly formed American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

  But Cutler's most important contribution emanated from progressive social theories, not science, medicine, or religion. He had for a time turned his attention to education, founding a private boys' boarding school, when, in late 1785, he met up with Rufus Putnam and, together with some other New Englanders, they developed a plan for the future of America.

  Putnam, an engineer by trade, whose cousin Israel had become famous for his "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" admonition at Bunker Hill, had risen from lieutenant colonel to general during the war. As the conflict dragged on, he had dedicated himself to obtaining fair treatment for junior officers and enlisted men. Almost no one in either of these groups had been paid in anything but virtually worthless government paper, if they had been paid at all. Some officers had not received a cent in six years. In the early 1780s, Putnam seized on the idea of compensating these men by granting them title to acreage in the western territories. Congress had agreed with the notion in principle—it was better than paying out cash the government did not have— but Congress, as often happened in those days, dithered and failed to produce anything concrete.

  In frustration, Putnam had helped draft in 1783 what became known as the Newburgh Petition, in which 288 officers at the Continental army headquarters in Newburgh, New York, demanded that they be paid immediately in land grants. When once again Congress refused to act, the officers threatened to march south with the army and replace the government by force. Washington, who sympathized with the officers' plight and had even transmitted the petition to Congress with his recommendation for approval, quelled the incipient rebellion by showing up unannounced at a meeting of the officers and persuading them to abandon their plans.

  The failure of the Newburgh petition did not deter Putnam, who continued to work ceaselessly to settle the West with war veterans.10 After the war, he got a job as a government surveyor and in that role personally visited the Ohio Territory, helping to plot future settlements. He also began to speculate in land. More convinced than ever of the potential for his idea, Putnam succeeded in interesting some like-minded New Englanders and, on March 1,1786, at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston, with ten others including Cutler, most of them veterans, Putnam helped found the Ohio Company of Associates.*

  Cutler's social vision soon melded with Putnam's knowledge of the area to produce a plan of far greater scope than Putnam had originally envisioned. The new Ohio settlement would not simply be a refuge and new beginning for war veterans who had been cast aside by the government they had served—this new settlement would be a model of progressive thought and enlightened vision. Cutler's plan was to capitalize on the recently completed surveys to create a settlement that would promote education, social betterment, religious observance, and the New England virtues of simple values, frugality, and hard work. Unlike the idealistic Putnam, however, Cutler understood that visions could rarely be achieved without a healthy dose of pragmatism.

  They were an odd pair in other ways as well. Putnam dressed simply, spoke slowly, and cut a generally unimpressive figure, while Cutler was a smooth-talking raconteur, partial to velvet suits and silver-buckled shoes. One thing they did share, in addition to a desire to expand America, was an abhorrence of the institution of slavery.

  Cutler, Putnam, and the fledging Ohio Company of Associates drafted Articles of Agreement that began, "The design of this association is to raise a fund in continental certificates for the sole purpose and to be appropriated to the entire use of purchasing lands in the western territory belonging to the United States, for the benefit of the company, and to promote a settlement in that country."11

  As soon as the articles were finalized, Cutler began a lobbying effort by cultivating a member of the Massachusetts congressional delegation, Nathan Dane. Dane, a native of Ipswich and ten years Cutler's junior, shared Cutler's desire to populate the Ohio Territory with industrious New Englanders before slothful, slaveholding southerners moved in and took control.

  The timing for such a scheme could not have been better. The nation was virtually bankrupt and Congress was pleased to listen to almost anyone who would promise to pump funds into the treasury. Moreover, the western lands were in no way proving to be the financial bonanza that had been expected. Land sales had been great disappointments, with few pioneers willing to pay for claims in the West. Settlers could be given no guarantee of protection from the tribes, or even the British, who continually made noises about reclaiming lost territory. In addition, few wanted to pay for something that could be had for free. Squatters had been pouring across the frontier and grabbing up the best land, undermining the entire western movement.12

  On March 16,1786, Cutler wrote to Dane. "There [are] a large number of persons who intend to be adventurers in the new company, in this part of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, provided a purchase of lands can be made that will be agreeable to them," the letter began. Cutler then said that the company's agent, Samuel Parsons, a seasoned Ohio explorer, would be making an application on the company's behalf. "The directors," Cutler went on, "entertain hopes that Congress, notwithstanding their land ordinance, will not refuse to make a private sale to this company, as it will greatly accelerate the settlement, save the company a large expense, and enable them to purchase the whole in one body."

  But Cutler and his associates were not simply going to throw money at Congress for the privilege of owning land in Ohio. He cautioned Dane that "the high price at which Congress have set the federal lands has operated much against the company . . . if the lands could be immediately purchased on the terms the Company propose, we have the fullest assurance that the subscription for one million dollars will be complete in a short time . . . The spirit of emigration never ran higher with us than at this time [but] if they are disappointed in their expectations westward, they will turn their attention to some other quarter."

  Cutler concluded, "We should be happy in obtaining your influence in favor of the Company, and have the fullest confidence of your readiness to second the wishes of so large a number of the inhabitants of the New England States."13

  Although Dane dutifully became an eager advocate for the Ohio Company in Congress, Parsons, the company's agent, failed to impress Dane's fellow legislators or make any headway in securing the 1.5 million acres that the company sought. (That in itself was down from the 5 million acres that the Associates had originally wanted.) "Our principal fears of a disappointment are that Congress may dispose of these lands before it may be in our power to a
pply for them," Cutler wrote on May 30. Suspicions arose that Parsons had "views separate from the interest of this Company."14

  Three weeks later, the company's fortunes had not improved, and all agreed that the gruff, plamspoken Parsons would not do. So, to take his place, the Ohio Company appointed an agent who had been described as "easy, affable, and communicative . . . given to relating anecdotes and making himself agree able."15 On Friday, July 6, 1787, while the Philadelphia convention was tied in knots trying to devise a formula for representation in the lower house of the legislature, the affable and agreeable Manasseh Cutler rode into New York City.

  Cutler spent his first weekend there delivering letters of introduction and dining with the likes of Arthur Lee and Henry Knox. On Monday morning, he met with Thomas Hutchms, the lead surveyor on the parties in which Rufus Putnam had participated, who told him the land where the Muskmgum River forked off the Ohio "was decidedly, in his opinion, the best part of the whole of the western country."16

  Later in the morning, when Congress convened in its meeting chamber, "an apartment in the second story of the City Hall," to debate the terms of the ordinance for the Northwest (the day before the census would be introduced into the debates in Philadelphia), Cutler was in attendance. The members, he observed, "were so wide apart that there seems to be little prospect of closing a contract."17

  After adjournment and into the evening, Cutler made himself affable and agreeable to the legislators. By the following day, he had persuaded them to give him a copy of the proposed ordinance "with leave to make remarks and propose amendments." The draft Cutler received said nothing about slavery.

  Cutler submitted his amendments that same day—he never specified precisely what they were—and first thing the next morning, July 11, left New York for Philadelphia and the Constitutional Convention because, as he put it, "I thought this the most favorable opportunity." Those amendments and that journey have been the source of the greatest mysteries surrounding the coincidental passage of the three-fifths compromise and the Northwest Ordinance on successive days.

  Cutler arrived late on July 12, just after the three-fifths rule had been adopted, and took a room at the Indian Queen. He met until midnight with a number of delegates, including Madison, Mason, Rutledge, and Charles Pinckney, sharing his vision for the western territories. After most had retired, Cutler then huddled privately with some Massachusetts delegates—Gerry, King, and Gorham—until 1:30 in the morning.18 A day later, Gerry and King opened the July 14 session of the debates by moving to limit the number of new states admitted from the western territories.

  On July 13, while Cutler continued to chat up delegates in Philadelphia, Congress in New York passed the Northwest Ordinance. Inserted at the last minute, almost certainly by Nathan Dane, was Article VI, banning slavery which, much to Dane's surprise, was approved.19 Soon afterward, Cutler settled his account at the Indian Queen and, on the morning of July 16, embarked on the return trip to New York.

  Cutler arrived on July 19 to find that "the amendments I proposed have all been made except one," the exception being an even more favorable method of taxation.20 The wording to his liking, he set to work obtaining a contract from Congress for the purchase of the prime land the company sought, where the Muskingum River flowed into the Ohio.

  Congress, Cutler soon discovered, was not so liberal-minded on location and payment as it had been on terms of the ordinance.21 The agreed-upon price was $1 per acre, which many congressmen demanded in hard currency. In addition, a number of the legislators didn't want to give up perhaps the best land in the entire territory and suggested other, less favorable locations for the company's settlements.

  Cutler was livid. He thought it understood that payment for the grant would be in military warrants, paper then worth about the same 10 percent of face value that had forced him to supplement his ministerial salary with medical fees. He consulted with Hutchins, who urged him to settle for nothing less than the Muskingum land.

  Cutler had solid allies in Congress, some of them southerners like Richard Henry Lee.22 Treasury Secretary William Duer and the president of the Congress, Arthur St. Clair, were also supporters, but many others had begun to see Cutler as nothing more than a fast-talking hustler. Even the loyal Dane was proving to be not so malleable. After listing the members of Congress he could trust, Cutler wrote in his diary, "Dane must be carefully watched, notwithstanding his professions." He added, "Clarke, Bingham, Yates, Kearney, and Few are troublesome fellows. They must be attacked by my friends at their lodgings. If they can be brought over, I shall succeed; if not, my business is at an end."23

  For the next week, Cutler lobbied furiously, alternating threat and charm, but not moving the Ohio Company investors any closer to the sweetheart deal they expected. On July 27, a disgusted Cutler visited Congress one last time "and informed them of my intention to leave the city that day. My expectations of obtaining a contract, I told them, were nearly at an end." Richard Henry Lee urged Cutler to wait while he called one final meeting on the company's offer.

  Congress caved in. "At half-past three," Cutler reported, "I was informed that an Ordinance had passed Congress on the terms stated in our letter, without the least variation, and that the Board of Treasury was directed to take Order and close the contract."24

  The agreement between Congress and the Ohio Company was one of the great giveaways in American history. The investors received a grant of 5 million acres, 1.5 million for the Ohio Company and the remainder for private speculation. The purchase price was officially $3.5 million, $1 per acre minus one-third allowance for bad land and to defray expenses. But Congress had agreed to accept payment almost entirely in military warrants, making the actual price about eight cents per acre. For the company's 1.5 million acres, only $ 500, 000 (once again in warrants) was payable up front so, in return for the most valuable open land in the United States, an almost-bankrupt government received only about $42,500 in real money.

  As an additional inducement, in order to create a kind of demilitarized zone between the coming white settlers and the tribes, Congress threw in an additional 100, 000 acres with in which any adult white male could obtain 100 acres of free land. This came to be known, fittingly, as the "Donation Tract."

  Most important to Cutler, the settlements were indeed going to be social experiments. According to the charter, company investors were required to reserve "one lot of six hundred forty acres per township, for the purposes of religion; an equal quantity for the support of schools; and two townships of twenty-three thousand and forty acres each, for a university."

  In December 1787, Rufus Putnam led the first group of settlers to Ohio and in April of the following year established Marietta, named, in the spirit of freedom, for Marie Antoinette.25 Cutler visited the settlement later that year and studied the natural history of the area. He then returned to Massachusetts and never visited Ohio again.

  The combination of Cutler's shuttle diplomacy, a South-dominated Congress agreeing at the last minute to open the Northwest territories to antislavery New Englanders, and the northern delegates in Philadelphia agreeing to the apportionment of three-fifths of the South's slaves, certainly has the appearance of a deal. The timing of events, however, makes such an explanation unlikely.26

  Although certain select delegates in Philadelphia might have been aware of Cutler's proposed "amendments" to the ordinance—and Gerry and King almost certainly were—they could not have known for certain that an antislavery provision, not even officially proposed until Cutler had left New York, would be included in the final product. Congress, although aware that a three-fifths provision was under active consideration, would not have known of its approval only one day after it was passed—ninety miles was a long way in 1787. Nonetheless, despite the absence of an arranged compromise, a relationship likely existed between the two events, the nature of which may be found in Article V of the ordinance, "There shall be formed in the said territory, not less than three nor more than five State
s," and in Article VI itself.

  In 1784, Thomas Jefferson, then a member of Congress, submitted a plan that would place all the western territories from the Canadian border to Florida on a grid divided into sixteen regions. Two would go to extending South Carolina and Georgia westward and the other fourteen would be set aside for new states, at least eight of which would lie north of the Ohio. He suggested names for ten of these, two of which, Michigania and Illinoia, more or less survived, while the others, including such baroque offerings as Pelisipia, Assensipia, and Cherronesus, were mercifully consigned to history's dustbin. Among the provisions that would apply to all these new states was one that stated, "after the year 1800 of the Christian era there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude . . . otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty."27 Another provision allowed the admission of any new states on an equal footing with the old.

  Since voting was by state under the Articles, if Jefferson's plan had been accepted as written, free states could ultimately have outnumbered slave states by a total of twenty-two to five. In addition, since slavery was already in place in much of the western territories—"The Western people are already calling out for slaves for their new lands," George Mason was to say at the convention— an approval of the plan would have meant eliminating slavery where it already existed.

  Not surprisingly, Congress found Jefferson's plan unacceptable. The following month, the plan was altered to eliminate at least one of the states above the Ohio and to drop the slavery prohibition altogether. Some of the same men who were to approve Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance were instrumental in removing any mention of slavery from the 1784 plan.