y adopted by the
States, and which, no doubt, the States anticipated when they
surrendered their power to the new Government. And if we regard this
clause of the Constitution as pointing to this Territory, with a
Territorial Government already established in it, which had been ceded
to the States for the purposes hereinbefore mentioned--every word in it
is perfectly appropriate and easily understood, and the provisions it
contains are in perfect harmony with the objects for which it was ceded,
and with the condition of its government as a Territory at the time. We
can, then, easily account for the manner in which the first Congress
legislated on the subject--and can also understand why this power over
the Territory was associated in the same clause with the other property
of the United States, and subjected to the like power of making needful
rules and regulations. But if the clause is construed in the expanded
sense contended for, so as to embrace any territory acquired from a
foreign nation by the present Government, and to give it in such
territory a despotic and unlimited power over persons and property, such
as the confederated States might exercise in their common property, it
would be difficult to account for the phraseology used, when compared
with other grants of power--and also for its association with the other
provisions in the same clause.

The Constitution has always been remarkable for the felicity of its
arrangement of different subjects, and the perspicuity and
appropriateness of the language it uses. But if this clause is construed
to extend to territory acquired by the present Government from a foreign
nation, outside of the limits of any charter from the British Government
to a colony, it would be difficult to say, why it was deemed necessary
to give the Government the power to sell any vacant lands belonging to
the sovereignity which might be found within it; and if this was
necessary, why the grant of this power should precede the power to
legislate over it and establish a Government there; and still more
difficult to say, why it was deemed necessary so specially and
particularly to grant the power to make needful rules and regulations in
relation to any personal or movable property it might acquire there. For
the words, _other property_, necessarily, by every known rule of
interpretation, must mean property of a different description from
territory or land. And the difficulty would perhaps be insu