e land, care is taken to include,
by express words, the treaties made by the confederated States. The
language is: "and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land."

Whether, therefore, we take the particular clause in question, by
itself, or in connection with the other provisions of the Constitution,
we think it clear, that it applies only to the particular territory of
which we have spoken, and cannot, by any just rule of interpretation, be
extended to territory which the new Government might afterward obtain
from a foreign nation. Consequently, the power which Congress may have
lawfully exercised in this Territory, while it remained under a
Territorial Government, and which may have been sanctioned by judicial
decision, can furnish no justification and no argument to support a
similar exercise of power over territory afterward acquired by the
Federal Government. We put aside, therefore, any argument, drawn from
precedents, showing the extent of the power which the General Government
exercised over slavery in this Territory, as altogether inapplicable to
the case before us.

But the case of the American and Ocean Insurance Companies _v._ Canter
(1 Pet., 511) has been quoted as establishing a different construction
of this clause of the Constitution. There is, however, not the slightest
conflict between the opinion now given and the one referred to; and it
is only by taking a single sentence out of the latter and separating it
from the context, that even an appearance of conflict can be shown. We
need not comment on such a mode of expounding an opinion of the court.
Indeed it most commonly misrepresents instead of expounding it. And this
is fully exemplified in the case referred to, where, if one sentence is
taken by itself, the opinion would appear to be in direct conflict with
that now given; but the words which immediately follow that sentence
show that the court did not mean to decide the point, but merely
affirmed the power of Congress to establish a Government in the
Territory, leaving it an open question, whether that power was derived
from this clause in the Constitution, or was to be necessarily inferred
from a power to acquire territory by cession from a foreign Government.
The opinion on this part of the case is short, and we give the whole of
it to show how well the selection of a single sentence is calculated to
mislead.

Th