<P> The natural rights provisions of the ordinance foreshadowed the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution . Many of the concepts and guarantees of the Ordinance of 1787 were incorporated in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights . In the Northwest Territory, various legal and property rights were enshrined, religious tolerance was proclaimed, and it was enunciated that since "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged ." The right of habeas corpus was written into the charter, as was freedom of religious worship and bans on excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment . Trial by jury and a ban on ex post facto laws were also rights recognized . </P> <P> Art . 6 . There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid . </P> <P> The language of the ordinance prohibits slavery, but also contained a clear fugitive slave clause as well . Efforts in the 1820s by pro-slavery forces to legalize slavery in two of the states created from the Northwest Territory failed, but an "indentured servant" law allowed some slaveholders to bring slaves under that status; they could not be bought or sold . Southern states voted for the law because they did not want to compete with the territory over tobacco as a commodity crop; it was so labor - intensive that it was grown profitably only with slave labor . Additionally, slave - states' political power would merely be equalized, as there were three more slave - states than there were free - states in 1790 . </P> <P> In two parts, the Northwest Ordinance mentions the Native Americans within this region . The first pertains to the demarcation of counties and townships out of lands that the Indians were regarded as having lost or relinquished title: </P>

What did the northwest ordinance of 1787 prohibit in the northwest territories