perty
of this kind from this clause of the Constitution. Nor can it, upon
any fair construction, be applied to any property but that which the
new Government was about to receive from the confederated States. And
if this be true as to this property, it must be equally true and
limited as to the territory, which is so carefully and precisely
coupled with it--and like it referred to as property in the power
granted. The concluding words of the clause appear to render this
construction irresistible; for, after the provisions we have
mentioned, it proceeds to say, "that nothing in the Constitution shall
be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of
any particular State."

Now, as we have before said, all of the States, except North Carolina
and Georgia, had made the cession before the Constitution was adopted,
according to the resolution of Congress of October 10, 1780. The
claims of other States, that the unappropriated lands in these two
States should be applied to the common benefit, in like manner, was
still insisted on, but refused by the States. And this member of the
clause in question evidently applies to them, and can apply to nothing
else. It was to exclude the conclusion that either party, by adopting
the Constitution, would surrender what they deemed their rights. And
when the latter provision relates so obviously to the unappropriated
lands not yet ceded by the States, and the first clause makes
provision for those then actually ceded, it is impossible, by any
just rule of construction, to make the first provision general, and
extend to all territories, which the Federal Government might in any
way afterwards acquire, when the latter is plainly and unequivocally
confined to a particular territory; which was a part of the same
controversy, and involved in the same dispute, and depended upon the
same principles. The union of the two provisions in the same clause
shows that they were kindred subjects; and that the whole clause is
local, and relates only to lands, within the limits of the United
States, which had been or then were claimed by a State; and that no
other territory was in the mind of the framers of the Constitution, or
intended to be embraced in it. Upon any other construction it would be
impossible to account for the insertion of the last provision in the
place where it is found, or to comprehend why, or for what object, it
was associated with the previous provision.

This