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Full-Text Articles in Law
"No Person . . . Shall Ever Be Molested On Account Of His Mode Of Worship Or Religious Sentiments . . . .": The Northwest Ordinance Of 1787 And Strader V. Graham, Allan W. Vestal
Marquette Law Review
The Article looks at the first article of compact of the Northwest Ordinance,
the religious liberty guarantee: “No person . . . shall ever be molested on
account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments . . . .” Congress
provided that the Northwest Ordinance articles of compact would “forever
remain unalterable.” But in a fugitive slave case from 1851, Strader v. Graham,
Chief Justice Roger Taney declared the articles of compact to be no longer in
force.
In evaluating Chief Justice Taney’s reasoning, the question posed at the
dawn of the 20th Century by historian Professor Andrew McLaughlin …