Mr. Taylor, of North Carolina, who was in favor of the treaty, said:

"The territory is ceded by the first article of the treaty. It will no longer be denied that the United States may constitutionally acquire territory. The third article declares that the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States.' And these words are said to require the territory to be erected into a State. This they do not express, and the words are literally satisfied by incorporating them into the Union as a territory, and not as a State. The Constitution recognizes, and the practice warrants, an incorporation of a territory and its inhabitants into the Union, without admitting either as a State."

Mr. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, who also supported the treaty:

"But if gentlemen are not satisfied with any of the expositions which have been given of the third article of the treaty, is there not one way, at least, by which this territory can be held? Cannot the Constitution be so amended, (if it should be necessary,) as to embrace this territory? If the authority to acquire foreign territory be not included in the treaty-making power, it remains with the people; and in that way all the doubts and difficulties of gentlemen may be completely removed; and that, too, without affording France the smallest ground of exception to the literal execution on our part of that article of the treaty."

Mr. Wilson C. Nicholas, of Virginia, to whom the letter of Mr. Jefferson was addressed, did not venture, against the opinion there expressed, to contend that Louisiana could be admitted as a State, without an amendment of the Constitution. He said:

"If, as some gentlemen suppose, Congress possesses this power, they are free to exercise it in the manner that they may think most conducive to the public good. If it can only be done by an amendment to the Constitution, it is a matter of discretion with the States whether they will do it or not;

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for it cannot be done according to the principles of the federal Constitution,' if the Congress or the States are deprived of that discretion which is given to the first, and secured to the last by the Constitution. In the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution, it is said, 'new States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.' If Congress have the power, it is derived from this source; for there are no other words in the Constitution that can, by any construction that can be given to them, be considered as conveying this power. If Congress have not this power, the constitutional mode would be by an amendment to the Constitution."

The treaty had been the subject of a debate in the House, a few days before. The constitutional right to acquire territory by purchase, was more strenuously questioned in the House than in the Senate. The right to admit territory, if acquired, was also denied.

Mr. Griswold, of New York, said:

"It was not consistent with the spirit of the Constitution that territory other than that attached to the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution should be admitted; because at that time the persons who formed the Constitution of the United States had a particular respect to the then subsisting territory. They carried their ideas to the time when there might be an extended population; but they did not carry them forward to the time when addition might be made to the Union of a territory equal to the whole United States, which additional territory might overbalance the existing territory, and thereby the rights of the present citizens of the United States be swallowed up and lost. Such a measure could not be consistent either with the spirit or the genius of the government."

Mr. Griswold, of Connecticut:

"The government of the United States was not formed for the purpose of distributing its principles and advantages to foreign nations. It was formed with the sole view of securing those blessings to ourselves and our posterity. It follows from these principles that no power can reside in any

public functionary to contract any engagement, or to pursue any measure, which shall change the Union of the States.

"A new territory and new subjects may undoubtedly be obtained by conquest and by purchase; but neither the conquest nor the purchase can incorporate them into the Union. They must remain in the condition of colonies, and be governed accordingly. The objection to the third article is not that the province of Louisiana could not have been purchased, but that neither this nor any other foreign nation can be incorporated into the Union by treaty or by law; and as this country has been ceded to the United States only under the condition of an incorporation, it results that, if the condition is unconstitutional or impossible, the cession itself falls to the ground."

On the other hand, Mr. Smilie, of Pennsylvania, after citing the article, added:

Now, where is the difficulty? We are obliged to admit the inhabitants according to the principles of the Constitution. Suppose those principles forbid their admission; then we are not obliged to admit them. This followed as an absolute consequence from the premises. There existed, however, a remedy for this case, if it should occur: for, if the prevailing opinion shall be, that the inhabitants of the ceded territory cannot be admitted under the Constitution as it now stands, the people of the United States can, if they see fit, apply a remedy, by amending the Constitution so as to authorize their admission. And if they do not choose to do this, the inhabitants may remain in a colonial state."

Mr. Nicholson, of Maryland:

"Whether the United States, as a sovereign and independent empire, had a right to acquire territory, was one question, but whether they could admit that territory into the Union, upon an equal footing with the other States, was a question of a very different nature. Upon this latter point, he meant to offer no opinion, because he did not consider it before the House. When the subject should come properly into discussion, he should have no objection not only to enter at large into the constitutional authority to admit the newly acquired territory into the Union as a State, but likewise to inquire whether this was really the spirit and intention of the third article of the treaty? The question now before the committee was, Is it expedient to carry this treaty into effect?

Mr. Rodney, of Delaware:

"How are these people to be admitted? According to the principles of the federal Constitution. Is it an open violation of any part of the Constitution? No. An express reservation is made by those who formed the treaty, that they must be admitted under the Constitution. Now, if admitted agreeably to the Constitution, it cannot be said to be in violation of it, and if not in violation of it, the fears of gentlemen are groundless."

Mr. John Randolph :

"A stipulation to incorporate the ceded country does not imply that we are bound ever to admit them to the unqualified enjoyment of the privileges of citizenship. It is a covenant to incorporate them into our Union — not on the footing of the original States, or of States created under the Constitution - but to extend to them, according to the principles of the Constitution, the rights and immunities of citizens, being those rights and immunities of jury trial, liberty of conscience, &c., which every citizen may challenge, whether he be a citizen of an individual State, or of a territory subordinate to and dependent on those States in their corporate capacity. In the mean time they are to be protected in the enjoyment of their existing rights. There is no stipulation, however, that they shall ever be formed into one or more States."

I have thus cited that part of the debates upon this subject in the Senate and House which bears directly upon this question, for the purpose of showing, that while the right to admit a State formed out of foreign territory was emphatically denied, no one attempted to controvert those arguments by asserting the existence of a constitutional power; but the argument was evaded by contending that the third article of the treaty did not stipulate for any admission as a State. It is true that it may be inferred, from the remarks of one or two of the friends of the administration, that personally they were ready to assert that the territory acquired

could be admitted, but the argument was suffered to go by default.

Upon the question, very much discussed in the preceding debate, whether the United States possessed a constitutional power to acquire territory by purchase, permit me to say that I have no doubt that such a power exists in certain cases as an incident to the powers expressly granted. The right to make war may involve a right of conquest as an incident. It does not follow that the subject-matter of the conquest is to become one of the States of the Union. Nor is it by any means to be concluded, that because the United States may acquire territory by conquest, they may acquire it by purchase in any and every case and for every purpose. The United States have no right to purchase territory merely for sale again. But the purchase may be made as an incident to the power to regulate commerce, embracing the power to provide for the necessities of commerce. On this principle, the arrangement with Spain was lawful; and a purchase for the purpose of the free navigation of the river, and for a place of deposit and transhipment, was within the just constitutional powers of the government. If this could not be effected without the purchase of the whole of Louisiana, I do not doubt the right to acquire that territory, and then to sell any part of it which was not necessary for the purpose for which it was required, or to retain it as a territory. But all that is far from proving a right on the part of Congress to admit any portion of it as a State.

Along with the right to acquire territory is the right to govern it. I shall not detain you with an argument to show this. It results as a necessity almost; as a right, certainly, proved upon sound principles, and shown by a uniform prac