nt among the States before their league was dissolved. It applied
only to the property which the States held in common at that time, and
has no reference whatever to any territory or other property which the
new sovereignty might afterward itself acquire.

The language used in the clause, the arrangement and combination of the
powers, and the somewhat unusual phraseology it uses, when it speaks of
the political power to be exercised in the government of the territory,
all indicate the design and meaning of the clause to be such as we have
mentioned. It does not speak of _any_ territory, nor of _Territories_,
but uses language which, according to its legitimate meaning, points to
a particular thing. The power is given in relation only to _the_
territory of the United States--that is, to a territory then in
existence, and then known or claimed as the territory of the United
States. It begins its enumeration of powers by that of disposing, in
other words, making sale of the lands, or raising money from them,
which, as we have already said, was the main object of the cession, and
which is accordingly the first thing provided for in the article. It
then gives the power which was necessarily associated with the
disposition and sale of the lands--that is, the power of making needful
rules and regulations respecting the territory. And whatever
construction may now be given to these words, every one, we think, must
admit that they are not the words usually employed by statesmen in
giving supreme power of legislation. They are certainly very unlike the
words used in the power granted to legislate over territory which the
new Government might afterwards itself obtain by cession from a State,
either for its seat of Government, or for forts, magazines, arsenals,
dock yards, and other needful buildings. And the same power of making
needful rules respecting the territory is, in precisely the same
language, applied to the _other_ property belonging to the United
States--associating the power over the territory in this respect with
the power over movable or personal property--that is, the ships, arms,
and munitions of war, which then belonged in common to the State
sovereignties. And it will hardly be said, that this power, in relation
to the last-mentioned objects, was deemed necessary to be thus specially
given to the new Government, in order to authorize it to make needful
rules and regulations respecting the ships it might itself bui