Mr. Jefferson’s Sickle: Thomas Worthington and the Implementation of the Agrarian Republic Research Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with research distinction in History in the undergraduate colleges of The Ohio State University By Joseph T. Ross The Ohio State University March 2015 Project Advisor: Professor John L. Brooke, Department of History Committee Member: Professor Lucy M. Murphy, Department of History Committee Member: Professor Andrew R. L. Cayton, Miami University Ross 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..3 Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………………………...4 The Jeffersonian Commonwealth: An Introduction………………………………………………6 Chapter 1: “Fair Objects of Speculation:” Land Companies and Oligarchy…………………….18 Chapter 2: “A Very Great Quantity of Land Has Been Sold:” Harringtonian Land Reform……44 Chapter 3: “A Government of Our Own Choice:” Democratization and Deliberation………….74 Epilogue: “An Incapacity to Bear Up Any Other Than Free Men”…………………………….101 Ross 3 Acknowledgements There are a lot of people who I am grateful towards for helping me to conduct this project. First I would like to thank Nathaniel Swigger for his help in securing two Ohio State Newark Student Research Grants, which I utilized to conduct and present this research. I was also the recipient of one of Ohio State’s 2014 Undergraduate Research Office Summer Research Fellowships, which provided the means for much of the research. During my trips both in and out of state I met many wonderful people who were gracious enough to help me in my endeavor. They include Janet Ackley, the archivist at the Ross County Probate Court Archive, who was very helpful in reference questions, as well as entertainment for the grueling process of probate research; Doug Perks of the Jefferson County Museum, who provided excellent knowledge and insight into the lives of many of Thomas Worthington’s Virginia peers; and also Patricia Medert of the Ross County Historical Society who is a walking encyclopedia of knowledge and understanding in regards to Chillicothe’s history, as well as a wonderful interpreter of Worthington’s handwriting. I am grateful to Karah Walser who was an excellent companion on my various trips and who helped with the “busy work” associated with record finding. Much of my historical methodology would not be the same without the many long, engaging, and joyful (though sometimes painful) conversations with Jim Weeks. Pieces of the research were read over by Dr/ Eric MacGilvray and Dr. Andrew Cayton, both of who gave remarks on my historical interpretation and understanding of the historiography. This project would not have existed if not for the prodding from Dr. Mike Mangus, whose guidance in Ohio history got me excited about the topic. Dr. Lucy Murphy was a voice of reason in the earliest stages, reigning in useless rambling and helping me to present my arguments in a more coherent and precise manner while also considering different avenues I had not thought of. I am a better historian for it. My family has been supportive throughout the entire endeavor, such as my grandfather allowing me to use an empty bedroom for my study, my Aunt Patty providing lodging for my trip to Washington D.C., and my mom and stepdad lending interest to a topic they would normally have no enthusiasm for. Finally, I would like to thank Dr. John Brooke, who has developed into an ideal mentor. The time he has given to this project despite his busy schedule, as well as his advice, counsel, and encouragement will always be appreciated and never forgotten. Ross 4 Abbreviations JAH—Journal of American History JER—Journal of the Early Republic. Letters of Congress—Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, ed. Edmund C. Burnett (Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1921-1936). LRHL—The Letters of Richard Henry Lee, ed. James Curtis Ballagh (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1914). New Nation Votes—A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787-1825, Tufts University Digital Arches, http://elections.lib.tufts.edu/ OHS—Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH. Papers of Adams—The Adams Papers, Series III: General Correspondence and Other Papers of the Adams Statesmen, Papers of John Adams, ed. Robert Taylor, et. al. (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977-). Papers of Jefferson—The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, et. al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950-). Papers of Madison—The Papers of James Madison, William T. Hutchinson, et. al., eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956-1977; Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 1977-). Papers of Mason—The Papers of George Mason, 1725-1792, ed. Robert A. Rutland (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970). Papers of Washington—The Papers of George Washington: Confederation Series, ed. W. W. Abbot, 6 vols. (Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 1992-1997). Political Parties—Kenneth C. Martis, The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress (New York: Macmillan, 1989). PTW— Papers of Thomas Worthington, MIC 35, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH. RCHS—Ross County Historical Society, Chillicothe, OH. RCPCA—Ross County Probate Court Archives, Chillicothe, OH. St. Clair Papers— William Henry Smith, ed., The St. Clair Papers: The Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair…, 2 vols. (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1882). Territorial Papers—Clarence Edwin Carter, ed., The Territorial Papers of the United States, 28 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1934). TWP— Thomas Worthington Papers, MIC 96, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH. WMQ—The William and Mary Quarterly. Works of Harrington—James Harringtion, The Political Works of James Harrington, ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977). Ross 5 Portrait of Thomas Worthington by Charles Wilson Peale, oil on canvas, 1814. Ross 6 The Jeffersonian Commonwealth: An Introduction In 1785 Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia that “those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people.” For Jefferson, the “genuine virtue” of the American republic rested on the shoulders of an agrarian based class of freeholders, because “corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phaenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example.”1 Several questions come to mind after reading such passages. What was the agrarian republic Jefferson envisioned? How did he develop these ideas? Why did he choose freeholders, commonly referred to as yeomen? Were these ideas influential, and who did they influence? Did these ideas ever manifest themselves, and if so what were their results? Without even answering these questions some historians have lately dismissed the ideal altogether. John Ashworth argues that such passages “cannot be read literally” and that “Jefferson had not the slightest intention of conferring praise upon all of ‘those who labor in the earth.’”2 The late Roger G. Kennedy considered the ideal a “lost cause,” and with Adam Rothman and Walter Johnson focused mostly on the supposed influence of Jefferson to the resurgence of agrarian capitalism and chattel slavery, with an emphasis on their expansion into 3 the Mississippi Valley following the Louisiana Purchase. 1 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785; New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 170. 2 John Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic: Volume 1: Commerce and Compromise, 1820-1850 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 21. 3 Roger G. Kennedy, Mr. Jefferson’s Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Adam Rothman, Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); and Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013). See also Christopher Michael Curtis, Jefferson’s Freeholders and the Politics of Ownership in the Old Dominion (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), which argues that reforms in Virginia, enacted Ross 7 While these studies are important explanations of the relationship between land, slavery, and capitalism, it seems unfair to either dismiss or to credit Jefferson’s vision and its influence without understanding what he meant. These authors also ignore the other half of America’s early western expansion: the Northwest Territory. In a new approach to Jefferson’s ideal this study looks into the political life of Thomas Worthington, the “father of Ohio statehood,” and one of Jefferson’s most prominent protégés. A Virginian, Worthington manumitted his inherited slaves in 1797 when he was twenty-three years old and then moved to the Northwest Territory, settling in Chillicothe. In a political career that spanned thirty years and earned him two trips to the U.S. Senate and the governorship of Ohio, Worthington worked diligently to promote and construct Jefferson’s agrarian republic of freeholders. Considering the rapidly expanding economic domain of slavery and the Virginian heritage of Ohio’s most prominent politician, an obvious question then is why did slavery not take root and flourish in the Old Northwest as it had in the Southwest? For some historians such as Peter S. Onuf, Article VI of the Northwest Ordinance stamped out the spread of slavery by prohibiting it in the territory, part of the various compromises between North and South during the Constitutional Convention.4 Such an emphasis on any institutional framework was laid to rest by Paul Finkelman’s body of work, which describes the ambivalence towards slavery in the territory. Human bondage continued amongst various French inhabitants, under the eyes of federal officials, including Governor Arthur St. Clair, and its vestiges remained among American by Jefferson and his followers, resulted in the replacement of land with slaves as the ultimate measure of political power. 4 Peter S.