ch was held to
be only leased to its occupants, who were often dispossessed, and their
lands given as a recompense by the consul or imperator to his disbanded
legionaries. The provincials were subjects of Rome, but formed no part
of the Roman people, and had no share in the political power of the
state, till at a late period the privileges of Roman citizens were
extended to them, and the Roman people became coextensive with the
Roman empire. So the United States have held and still hold large
territorial possessions, acquired by the acknowledgment of their
independence by Great Britain, the former sovereign, the cession of
particular states, and purchase from France, Spain, and Mexico. Till
erected into States and admitted into the Union, this territory, with
its population, though subject to the United States, makes no part of
the political or sovereign territory and people of the United States.
It is under the Union, not in it, as is indicated by the phrase
admitting into the Union--a legal phrase, since the constitution
ordains that "new States may be admitted by the Congress into this
Union."

There can be no secession that separates a State from the national
domain, and withdraws it from the territorial sovereignty or
jurisdiction of the United States; yet what hinders a State from going
out of the Union in the sense that it comes into it, and thus ceasing
to belong to the political people of the United States?

If the view of the constitution taken in the preceding chapters be
correct, and certainly no facts tend to disprove it, the accession of a
Territory as a State in the Union is a free act of the territorial
people. The Territory cannot organize and apply for admission as a
State, without what is called an "enabling act" of Congress or its
equivalent; but that act is permissive, not mandatory, and nothing
obliges the Territory to organize under it and apply for admission. It
may do so or not, as it chooses. What, then, hinders the State once in
the Union from going out or returning to its former condition of
territory subject to the Union? The original States did not need to
come in under an enabling act, for they were born States in the Union,
and were never territory outside of the Union and subject to it. But
they and the new States, adopted or naturalized States, once in the
Union, stand on a footing of perfect equality, and the original States
are no more and no less bound than they to remain Sta