<Li> They shall in their governments uphold republican forms . </Li> <Li> After the year 1800 there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of them . </Li> <P> In the late eighteenth century, slavery prevailed throughout much more than half the lands of Europe . Jefferson designed the ordinance to establish from end to end of the whole country a north and south line, at which the westward extension of slavery should be stayed by an impassable bound . On exactly the ninth anniversary of the fight at Concord and Lexington, Richard Dobbs Spaight of North Carolina, seconded by Jacob Read of South Carolina, moved to strike out the fifth article concerning the restriction on the expansion of slavery . The votes of seven states were needed to approve Jefferson's clause . </P> <P> From a letter from Jefferson to James Madison, dated April 25, 1784: "The clause was lost by an individual vote only . Ten states were present . The four eastern states, New York, and Pennsylvania were for the clause; Jersey would have been for it, but there were but two members, one of whom was sick in his chambers . South Carolina, Maryland, and (!) Virginia (!) voted against it . North Carolina was divided, as would have been Virginia, had not one of its delegates been sick in bed ." The absent Virginian was James Monroe, who for himself has left no evidence of such an intention . For North Carolina the vote of Spaight was neutralized by Williamson . Six States against three, sixteen men against seven strove to stop the spread of slavery . Jefferson denounced this outcome all his life . George Wythe and himself, as commissioners to codify the laws of Virginia, had provided for gradual emancipation . When, in 1785, the legislature refused to consider the proposal, Jefferson wrote: "We must hope that an overruling Providence is preparing the deliverance of these our suffering brethren ." In 1786, narrating the loss of the clause against slavery in the ordinance of 1784, he said: "The voice of a single individual would have prevented this abominable crime; heaven will not always be silent; the friends to the rights of human nature will in the end prevail ." </P>

Congress nearly passed a clause in the ordinance