ling, within its sphere
of action throughout the United States; but this Government was to be
carefully limited in its powers, and to exercise no authority beyond
those expressly granted by the Constitution, or necessarily to be
implied from the language of the instrument, and the objects it was
intended to accomplish; and as this league of States would, upon the
adoption of the new Government, cease to have any power over the
territory, and the ordinance they had agreed upon be incapable of
execution and a mere nullity, it was obvious that some provision was
necessary to give the new Government sufficient power to enable it to
carry into effect the objects for which it was ceded, and the compacts
and agreements which the States had made with each other in the exercise
of their powers of sovereignty. It was necessary that the lands should
be sold to pay the war debt; that a Government and system of
jurisprudence should be maintained in it, to protect the citizens of the
United States who should migrate to the territory, in their rights of
person and of property. It was also necessary that the new Government,
about to be adopted, should be authorized to maintain the claim of the
United States to the unappropriated lands of North Carolina and Georgia,
which had not then been ceded, but the cession of which was confidently
anticipated upon some terms that would be arranged between the General
Government and these two States. And, moreover, there were many articles
of value besides this property in land, such as arms, military stores,
munitions, and ships of war, which were the common property of the
States, when acting in their independent characters as confederates,
which neither the new Government nor any one else would have a right to
take possession of, or control, without authority from them; and it was
to place these things under the guardianship and protection of the new
Government, and to clothe it with the necessary powers, that the clause
was inserted in the Constitution which gives Congress the power "to
dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the
territory or other property belonging to the United States." It was
intended for a specific purpose, to provide for the things we have
mentioned. It was to transfer to the new Government the property then
held in common by the States, and to give to that Government power to
apply it to the objects for which it had been destined by mutual
agreeme