is made use of in commendation of the Constitution.

Keeping these facts in view, it may confidently be asserted that there
is very strong reason to believe, before we examine the Constitution
itself, that the necessity for a competent grant of power to hold,
dispose of, and govern territory, ceded and expected to be ceded,
could not have escaped the attention of those who framed or adopted
the Constitution; and that if it did not escape their attention, it
could not fail to be adequately provided for.

Any other conclusion would involve the assumption that a subject of
the gravest national concern, respecting which the small States felt
so much jealousy that it had been almost an insurmountable obstacle to
the formation of the Confederation, and as to which all the States had
deep pecuniary and political interests, and which had been so recently
and constantly agitated, was nevertheless overlooked; or that such a
subject was not overlooked, but designedly left unprovided for, though
it was manifestly a subject of common concern, which belonged to the
care of the General Government, and adequate provision for which could
not fail to be deemed necessary and proper.

The admission of new States, to be framed out of the ceded territory,
early attracted the attention of the Convention. Among the resolutions
introduced by Mr. Randolph, on the 29th of May, was one on this
subject, (Res. No. 10, 5 Elliot, 128,) which, having been affirmed in
Committee of the Whole, on the 5th of June, (5 Elliot, 156,) and
reported to the Convention on the 13th of June, (5 Elliot, 190,) was
referred to the Committee of Detail, to prepare the Constitution, on
the 26th of July, (5 Elliot, 376.) This committee reported an article
for the admission of new States "lawfully constituted or established."
Nothing was said concerning the power of Congress to prepare or form
such States. This omission struck Mr. Madison, who, on the 18th of
August, (5 Elliot, 439,) moved for the insertion of power to dispose
of the unappropriated lands of the United States, and to institute
temporary Governments for new States arising therein.

On the 29th of August, (5 Elliot, 492,) the report of the committee
was taken up, and after debate, which exhibited great diversity of
views concerning the proper mode of providing for the subject, arising
out of the supposed diversity of interests of the large and small
States, and between those which had and those which had n