ves. It is clear that public charities
within the States can be efficiently administered only by their
authority. The bill before me concedes this, for it does not commit the
funds it provides to the administration of any other authority.

I can not but repeat what I have before expressed, that if the several
States, many of which have already laid the foundation of munificent
establishments of local beneficence, and nearly all of which are
proceeding to establish them, shall be led to suppose, as, should this
bill become a law, they will be, that Congress is to make provision for
such objects, the fountains of charity will be dried up at home, and the
several States, instead of bestowing their own means on the social wants
of their own people, may themselves, through the strong temptation which
appeals to states as to individuals, become humble suppliants for the
bounty of the Federal Government, reversing their true relations to
this Union.

Having stated my views of the limitation of the powers conferred by
the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, I deem it
proper to call attention to the third section of the fourth article
and to the provisions of the sixth article bearing directly upon
the question under consideration, which, instead of aiding the claim
to power exercised in this case, tend, it is believed, strongly to
illustrate and explain positions which, even without such support,
I can not regard as questionable. The third section of the fourth
article of the Constitution is in the following terms:

The Congress shall have power to _dispose_ of and make all needful rules
and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging
to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so
construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States or of any
particular State.

The sixth article is as follows, to wit, that--

All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of
this Constitution shall be as valid against the United States under this
Constitution as under the Confederation.

For a correct understanding of the terms used in the third section of
the fourth article, above quoted, reference should be had to the history
of the times in which the Constitution was formed and adopted. It was
decided upon in convention on the 17th September, 1787, and by it
Congress was empowered "to dispose of," etc., "the territory or ot