It is undoubtedly true that to no one man are the people who have enjoyed and to-day enjoy the benefits of the Ordinance, so much indebted as to Dr. Manasseh Cutler. It was he who directed the battle in its favor; it was he who secured the appointment of his friends, Carrington and Lee, on the committee; who urged the necessity of the adoption of the Ordinance before the land purchase could be made; who insisted, as representative of the company which was most immediately concerned in the nature of the laws that should form the government of the Territory, upon the anti-slavery clause, and, to win the southern members to its support, favored the addition of the proviso for the rendition of fugitive slaves; and without doubt it was he who urged the insertion of what relates to religion, morality and education. At this time anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia was popular with the leading men of that State, and with the protection to the property rights in the slave which the proviso afforded, the Virginia members of the committee were readily won to the support of the anti-slavery clause. What, therefore, Dr. Cutler accomplished in behalf of the Ordinance was of the greatest importance. He obtained the appointment of a new committee favorable to such a measure as he was solicitous to have adopted; urged the insertion of many of the grand principles it contained; won such friendly interest for it from opposing elements as to insure for it certain victory, and was instrumental in securing its passage. Judge Ephraim Cutler, in 1849, received a letter from his brother, Temple Cutler, in which he says: “Hon. Daniel Webster is now convinced that the man who suggested some of its articles was our father,” and in the same year Judge Cutler wrote as follows: I visited my father at Washington during the last session he attended Congress (1804).... We were in conversation relative to the political concerns of Ohio, the ruling parties, and the effects of the constitution (of Ohio) in the promotion of the general interest; when he observed that he was informed that I had prepared that portion of the Ohio constitution which contained the ‘part of the ordinance of July, 1787, which prohibited slavery. He wished to know if it was a fact. On my assuring that it was, he observed that he thought it a singular coincidence, as he himself had prepared that part of the ordinance while he was in New York negotiating the purchase of the lands for the Ohio Company. I had not seen the journal he kept while he was in New York at that time....[13]