At their last meeting at Annapolis, Maryland, on May 2, 1784, when the final terms in their agreement as to Mr. Lemen's mission in Illinois were made, both he and Jefferson agreed that sooner or later, there would be a great contest to try to fasten slavery on the Northwestern Territory, and this prophesy was fully verified in spite of the fact that Congress, at a later period, passed the Ordinance of 1787 forever forbidding slavery; two contests arose in Illinois, the first to confirm the territory and the second to confirm the state to freedom. [17]From 1803 for several successive congresses Gen. William Henry Harrison, then governor of the Northwestern Territory, with his legislative council petitioned that body to repeal the anti-slavery clause in the Ordinance of 1787 and to establish slavery in the territory, but without avail, and finally recognizing that the influence of Rev. James Lemen, Sr., was paramount with the people of Illinois, he made persistent overtures for his approval of his pro-slavery petitions, but he declined to act and promptly sent a messenger to Indiana, paying him thirty dollars of the Jefferson fund given him in Virginia to have the church and people there sign a counter petition, meanwhile circulating one in Illinois among the Baptists and others; and at the next session of Congress Gen. Harrison's pro-slavery petitions for the first time encountered the anti-slavery petitions of the Baptist people and others, and the senate, before which the matter went at that time, voted to sustain the anti-slavery petitions and against the repeal of the anti-slavery clause in the Ordinance of 1787, and for the time the contest ended.