e that the vacant lands lying
within any of the States should become the property of the Union, as by
a common exertion they would be acquired. This claim was resisted by the
others on the principle that all the States entered into the contest in
the full extent of their chartered rights, and that they ought to have
the full benefit of those rights in the event of success. Happily this
controversy was settled, as all interfering claims and pretensions
between the members of our Union and between the General Government and
any of these members have been, in the most amicable manner and to the
satisfaction of all parties. On the recommendation of Congress the
individual States having such territory within their chartered limits
ceded large portions thereof to the United States on condition that it
should be laid off into districts of proper dimensions, the lands to
be sold for the benefit of the United States, and that the districts
be admitted into the Union when they should obtain such a population
as it might be thought proper and reasonable to prescribe. This is the
territory and this the property referred to in the second clause of the
fourth article of the Constitution.

All the States which had made cessions of vacant territory except
Georgia had made them before the adoption of the Constitution, and
that State had made a proposition to Congress to that effect which
was under consideration at the time the Constitution was adopted. The
cession was completed after the adoption of the Constitution. It was
made on the same principle and on similar conditions with those which
had been already made by the other States. As differences might arise
respecting the right or the policy in Congress to admit new States
into the Union under the new Government, or to make regulations for the
government of the territory ceded in the intermediate state, or for the
improvement and sale of the public lands, or to accept other cessions,
it was thought proper to make special provisions for these objects,
which was accordingly done by the above-recited clause in the
Constitution.

Thus the power of Congress over the ceded territory was not only
limited to these special objects, but was also temporary. As soon as
the territory became a State the jurisdiction over it as it had before
existed ceased. It extended afterwards only to the unsold lands, and
as soon as the whole were sold it ceased in that sense also altogether.
From that momen