ressional commissioners of Indian affairs to treat, at
fort Stanwix, with and thereat to make a purchase from the five nations
without the authority or consent of the legislature of this state. It was
an infraction of the rights of the citizens of this state, and an insult
on their government, for those commissioners to wrest private property
from individuals, imprison their persons, set at defiance the civil
authority of the county of Montgomery, and violently to resist the
execution of legal process. Nor was the ordinance of the 7th of August,
1786, for the regulation of Indian affairs, less so, namely, that "the
Indian department be divided into two districts, viz.: the southern, which
shall comprehend within its limits all the nations in the territory of the
United States, who reside to the southward of the Ohio; and the northern,
which shall comprehend all the nations within the said territory, and
westward, not of lake Ontario, but of Hudson's river; that a
superintendent for the northern districts shall have authority to appoint
two deputies to reside in such places as shall best facilitate the
regulation of the Indian trade; that no person, citizen or other, under
the penalty of five hundred dollars, shall reside among or trade with any
Indian or Indian nations within the territory of the United States,
without a licence for that purpose first obtained from the superintendent
of the district, or of one of the deputies, who is hereby directed to give
such licence to every person who shall produce from the supreme executive
of any state a certificate under the seal of the state, that he is of good
character and suitably qualified and provided for that employment, for
which licence he shall pay for one year the sum of fifty dollars to the
said superintendent for the use of the United States." If this was the
conduct of Congress and their officers, when possessed of powers which
were declared by them to be insufficient for the purposes of government,
what have we reasonably to expect will be their conduct when possessed of
the powers "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the
several states, and with the Indian tribes," when they are armed with
legislative, executive and judicial powers, and their laws the supreme
laws of the land--and when the states are prohibited, without the consent
of Congress, to lay any "imposts or duties on imports," and if they do
they shall be for the use of the treasury of the