Forgotten Founders -- Historical Documents and Coins of Freedom -- By: Stanley L. Klos -- Arthur St. Clair

Arthur St. Clair and New York City Hall Medallion
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Ninth President of the United States
in Congress Assembled February 2, 1787 to October 29, 1787
http://www.arthurstclair.com

St. Clair, Arthur – Autographed letter signed, 8 ¼” x 10 ¼ ’, March 4th, 1813 two sided one page letter. St. Clair, now in his seventies, deepened poverty forcing him to seek an annuity, not just from President James Madison, but his home State of Pennsylvania. In these state petitions word of his dire circumstances became public knowledge and a few citizens of Pennsylvania came personally to his aide. Arthur St. Clair thanks several women for sending him money in his poverty while reminding his benefactors that he "... made the people happy and laid a foundation for the continuance of the happinefs to millions yet unknown..." In part he states:

"... My Heart Is not yet so cold as to be insensible to female Praife (Praise) --- it conveyed a Balm to my wounded spirit. Wounded not by the loss of fortune and the need of pecuniary aid, but by confine obloquy and contumely whom I thought (and now since I have their approbation I say it boldly), I thought that I had least merited thanks, for to say nothing of my military services which they have so kindly eulogized. I had, in a great meafsive (massive) therefore at my own expense, raised up for the United States in fifteen years a colony from thirty men to upwards of sixty thousand -- amalgamation the most heterogeneous mafs -- Mafs of population --- carried Laws, Religion, Mounts and Manner to the extreme limits of New Territory --- made the people happy and laid a foundation for the continuance of the happinefs to millions yet unknown and in which every faculty of mind and Body has been overwhelmingly employed. ... "

Several months later the legislature of Pennsylvania finally granted St. Clair an annuity of $8400, and shortly before his death he received from congress $2,000 in discharge of his claims, and a pension of $60 a month.

[Ordinance of 1787 Compliance] - Slave Emancipation Signed with the mark of David Enlow, dated September 20, 1810, Harrison County, Indiana Territory. The Manuscript is 12 ½” x 7 ½” on laid rag-content paper which is toned with tiny holes in fine condition framed, 21” x 32” for display. Enlow frees a Negro woman Sara after committing her to four years of indentured servitude:

“ … a my right, title, and interest in and to the said Negro woman Sarah … in consequence of her voluntarily bound herself to serve me and during the term of four years commencing from the first day of January in the year Eighteen hundred and Seven…”

On July 13, 1787 Arthur St. Clair’s Confederation Congress passed, after three years of long debate, “an Ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio.”[i] This vast territory which was conceded by Britain in the 1783 Treaty of Paris now comprises the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. One of the major stumbling blocks in the Ordinance’s passage was due to Article 6 which prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the entire territory. Despite the final language in Article Six excepting fugitive sales, this new ordinance meant that a Black American could swim or walk into the Northwest Territory and this new law would protect their claim to freedom until proven a fugitive. Many slaves did just that and as the Northwest Territory, beginning with Ohio, became Free States the exportation of fugitives became quite impossible and illegal as new laws were enacted to protect all former slaves. This trek north and west became so popular that it was named the Underground Railroad by the 1830’s.

In addition to the Underground Railroad many slaves gained their freedom through their “masters” north and westward migration. The Northwest provided these settlers with unprecedented advantages of inexpensive land and government incentives to settle in the new territory. Those citizens with slaves were forced to emancipate them to comply with Article Six of the Ordinance. This rare emancipation manuscript which has been carefully preserved was consequently forced upon David Enlow by the territory of Indiana resulting in the freedom of Sarah.

[U.S. Constitution]. The Gentleman’s Magazine, by Sylvanus Urban. London: John Nichols for D. Henry, November 1787 (93 pp.) and December 1787 85 pages Quarto 10” x 8½” with a November 1787 printing of the United States Constitution of 1787:

WE, the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…”

On Monday, September 17, 1787 in Philadelphia, thirty-nine founders from twelve states signed a newly created document by which all agreed the United States of America could be governed. Two days later the complete text of The United States Constitution appeared for the general population to read in the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser. Slightly more than one month later The Gentleman’s Magazine in London, England under the pseudonymous editorship of one Sylvanus Urban published one half of the document in its November issue. The second half was presented in the following month. On page 1007 of the November issue the Constitution of 1787 begins “New York, Sept. 21. The following is the new Plan of the Constitution of the United States of America, upon which the Convention of all the most distinguished men in the States have been deliberating for several months, and by which, if finally adopted, the Constitution of the United States is totally changed.” There follows the printing of the Constitution up to and including Article I. The December issue completes the publication with the next six Articles.

The "Plan for the New Federal Government" arrived in New York on September 20th and its fate was subject to the vote of the United States in Congress Assembled, the very body that would be disassembled should they vote to send it onto the states for ratification. The debate that ensued is forever lost due to the veil of secrecy that surrounded Congress. We do know, however, that the same Congress that passed the Northwest Ordinance voted, after only eight days of deliberation, to send the Constitution to the legislature of each state. Not one word was deleted, added, or changed by the United States in Congress Assembled. St. Clair's legislation ordered each state to hold a special convention that would either ratify or reject the Constitution of 1787 in its September 17th form. The Journals of the United States in Congress Assembled reported on September 28, 1787:

Congress having received the report1 of the Convention lately assembled in Philadelphia

Resolved Unanimously that the said Report with the resolutions and letter accompanying the same be transmitted to the several legislatures in Order to be submitted to a convention of Delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof in conformity to the resolves of the Convention made and provided in that case.

President Arthur St. Clair, in less than one year, presided over the United States Unicameral Government that not only enacted the Northwest Ordinance, but produced legislation that created and provided for the ratification of the most important body of United States' law second Constitution of the United States of America.

The last major act of President Arthur St. Clair's Congress was on October 5, 1787 when they selected a governor and other officers for the Northwest Territory according to the terms of the Ordinance of 1787. General St. Clair was overwhelmingly appointed governor of what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota whose lands, at that time, comprised more than one half of the United States. The Journals of the United States in Congress Assembled report:

Congress proceeded to the election of a governor for the western territory pursuant to the Ordinance of the 13th. of July last and the ballots being taken The honble Arthur St Clair was elected. Congress proceeded to the election of a secretary pursuant to the said Ordinance and the ballots being taken Mr Winthrop Sargent was elected

Oliver Ellsworth
Framer of the Constitution of 1787
Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court
http://famousamericans.net/OliverEllsworth/

Ellsworth, Oliver - Rare Revolutionary Era document signed O. Ellsworth and dated, Hartford, June 7th 1776, approving payment of Twenty Pounds, three shillings & seven pence for Salt Peter, a component of gunpowder, for the Colony of Connecticut. Document is framed, 14” x 22”, for display.

Ellsworth took an active part in the proceedings of the Philadelphia Convention. Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia moved to name a new entity in the Constitution of 1787 the “national government":

“Mr. R. wishes to have that resol. dissented to. The resol. postponed to take up the following: 1st. That a union of the States merely federal will not accomplish the object proposed by the articles of confederation, namely, "common defence, security of liberty, and general welfare" … 2. Resolved that no treaty or treaties between the whole or a less number of the States in their sovereign capacities will accomplish their common defence, liberty or welfare. 3. Resolved therefore that a national governmen ought to be established consisting of a supreme legislature, judiciary and executive.”[ii]

For a month the delegates debated Randolph's motion of a tri-cameral division and the utilization of the phrase "national government": On June 20^th the following amendment was proposed by Oliver Ellsworth:

It was moved by Mr. Ellsworth seconded by Mr. Gorham to amend the first resolution reported from the Committee of the whole House so as to read as follows -- namely, Resolved that the government of the United States ought to consist of a Supreme Legislative, Judiciary, and Executive. On the question to agree to the amendment it passed unanimously in the affirmative.[iii]

The words, "of America”, were added by Gouverneur Morris’ final editorial changes in the Constitution. [iv] Had Ellsworth not been a Delegate to the Philadelphia convention the Constitution of 1787 would have titled the nation, The National Government of America. George Washington would have been titled, rightfully, the President of the National Government of America. The name, United States of America from the Constitution of 1777, however, was adopted and Washington became the 11^th President to utilize the title President of the United States.

In the spring of 1796, Ellsworth was appointed Chief Justice of the United States. He also was a candidate in the 1796 US Presidential Election as a Federalist receiving 11 electoral votes.

Size: 30 mm - 50 cents size Types of Issue: Gold - Silver - Merlin Gold Bronze - Copper

© Stanley L. Klos has a worldwide copyright on the artwork in these Medallions not legal tender.
The artwork is not to be copied by anyone by any means
without first receiving permission from Stanley L. Klos.

Peyton Randolph	September 5, 1774	October 22, 1774
Henry Middleton	October 22, 1774	October 26, 1774
Peyton Randolph	May 20, 1775	May 24, 1775
John Hancock	May 25, 1775	October 29, 1777
Henry Laurens	November 1, 1777	December 9, 1778
John Jay	December 10, 1778	September 28, 1779

Samuel Huntington*	September 28, 1779	July 6, 1781
Thomas McKean	July 10, 1781	November 4, 1781
John Hanson	November 5, 1781	November 3, 1782
Elias Boudinot	November 4, 1782	November 2, 1783
Thomas Mifflin	November 3, 1783	November 2, 1784**
Richard Henry Lee	November 30, 1784	November 22, 1785
John Hancock	November 23, 1785	June 5, 1786
Nathaniel Gorham	June 6, 1786	November 13, 1786
Arthur St. Clair	February 2, 1787	October 29, 1787
Cyrus Griffin	January 22, 1788	January 21, 1789

[i] Journals of the United States, in Congress Assembled, an Ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio, July 13, 1787

[ii] Farrand, Max, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, May 30, 1787, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911

[iii] Ibid, June 20, 1787

[iv] Ibid

Philadelphia	September 5, 1774 to October 24, 1774	City Tavern on September 4^th and then Carpenters Hall
Philadelphia	May 10, 1775 to December 12, 1776	Pennsylvania State House
Baltimore	December 20, 1776 to February 27, 1777	Henry Fite House, Maryland
Philadelphia	March 4, 1777 to September 18, 1777	Pennsylvania State House
Lancaster	September 27, 1777	Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Court House
York	September 30, 1777 to June 27, 1778:	York, Pennsylvania, Court House
Philadelphia	July 2, 1778 to June 21, 1783	Philadelphia, College Hall, then Pennsylvania State House
Princeton,	June 30, 1783 to November 4, 1783	Prospect House and then Nassau Hall, New Jersey
Annapolis	November 26, 1783 to August 19, 1784	Maryland State House
Trenton	November 1, 1784 to December 24, 1784	French Arms Tavern, New Jersey
New York City	January 11, 1785 to November 13, 1788	New York City Hall
New York City	November 1788 - March 1789	Fraunces Tavern