ess had power to authorize the Territorial
Legislature of Florida to pass the law under which the Territorial
court was established, whose decree was brought before this court for
revision. The power of Congress, therefore, was the point in issue.

The word "territory," according to Worcester, "means land, country, a
district of country under a temporary Government." The words
"territory or other property," as used, do imply, from the use of the
pronoun other, that territory was used as descriptive of land; but
does it follow that it was not used also as descriptive of a district
of country? In both of these senses it belonged to the United
States--as land, for the purpose of sale; as territory, for the
purpose of government.

But, if it be admitted that the word territory as used means land, and
nothing but land, the power of Congress to organize a temporary
Government is clear. It has power to make all needful regulations
respecting the public lands, and the extent of those "needful
regulations" depends upon the direction of Congress, where the means
are appropriate to the end, and do not conflict with any of the
prohibitions of the Constitution. If a temporary Government be deemed
needful, necessary, requisite, or is wanted, Congress has power to
establish it. This court says, in McCulloch _v._ The State of
Maryland, (4 Wheat., 316,) "If a certain means to carry into effect
any of the powers expressly given by the Constitution to the
Government of the Union be an appropriate measure, not prohibited by
the Constitution, the degree of its necessity is a question of
legislative discretion, not of judicial cognizance."

The power to establish post offices and post roads gives power to
Congress to make contracts for the transportation of the mail, and to
punish all who commit depredations upon it in its transit, or at its
places of distribution. Congress has power to regulate commerce, and,
in the exercise of its discretion, to lay an embargo, which suspends
commerce; so, under the same power, harbors, lighthouses, breakwaters,
&c., are constructed.

Did Chief Justice Marshall, in saying that Congress governed a
Territory, by exercising the combined powers of the Federal and State
Governments, refer to unlimited discretion? A Government which can
make white men slaves? Surely, such a remark in the argument must have
been inadvertently uttered. On the contrary, there is no power in the
Constitution by which Congress c