Community Chat

[Oznell]

Sometimes my insomnia pays off.  I dozed off again in front of the tube the other night, only to groggily awaken sometime in the wee hours to an electrifying discussion by Pulitzer- winning historian David McCullough on C-SPAN.

He was talking about his new book, "The Pioneers".   It tells of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which added to the current U.S. territory by over a third.  In other words, our land mass almost doubled with its acquisition.

As an Ohio-phile, I'd been vaguely aware of the Northwest Territory acquisition, but knew almost nothing of the circumstances of its establishment.  McCullough says a galvanizing force behind it was a multi-talented Yale- trained New England minister and legislator Manasseh Cutler, and his son, Ephraim Cutler.

Because of these men and others, the new Ohio-"plus" territory which encompassed so many future states, was a beacon of American ideals.  The New England Puritans behind its establishment, managed to get their strong values of universal education, religious liberty, and abolition of slavery in the region, embedded into the new territory in 1787.

In fact, McCullough discovered, the merchant and later, appointed Judge in Ohio, Ephraim Cutler, cast the key, winning vote in securing the condition that the institution of slavery would be banned in the vast new territory.  Cutler was extremely ill at the time, in home in bed, but he somehow got himself to the assembly voting and cast his decisive ballot.  McCullough said some accounts stated he was carried in on a stretcher, but he could not definitively prove that.

People in the C-SPAN crowd were as wowed as I was, and asked McCullough why this, and these remarkable people, were so little known.  He was at a loss to explain it.  He found it all there, in original documents in Ohio, and had brought these stories and this remarkable history to the fore.

Anyway, "The Pioneers" sounds really good.  I'm so glad historians like McCullough are still chugging on all cylinders!

Edited to correct my dopey misspellings of Mr. McCullough's name throughout the post! 

[Oznell]

[SahmIam]

@Oznell  Mr. McCullough is fascinating to listen to be it in a lecture hall, the National Press Club or in a living room sipping tea after dinner. I look forward to reading this book. : )

[Oznell]

Me too, @SahmIam!   If only his fluid, all-encompassing grasp of America's extraordinary history were more pervasive everywhere....