not speak out and tell what they
wanted? Or did they take it for granted that Congress would always act
in the premises according to their wishes, and that too, without their
_making known_ their wishes? If, as honorable senators tell us, Maryland
and Virginia did verily travail with such abounding _faith_, why brought
they forth no _works_?

It is as true in _legislation_ as in religion, that the only _evidence_
of "faith" is _works_, and that "faith" _without_ works is _dead_, i.e.
has no _power_. But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing
_expressed_, an "implied" _faith_ without works, is _omnipotent_. Mr.
Clay is lawyer enough to know that even a _senatorial hypothesis_ as to
what must have been the _understanding_ of Maryland and Virginia about
congressional exercise of constitutional power, _abrogates no grant_,
and that to plead it in a court of law, would be of small service except
to jostle "their Honors'" gravity! He need not be told that the
constitution gives Congress "power to exercise exclusive legislation in
all cases whatsoever over such District." Nor that the legislatures of
Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with this clause
_before their eyes_, and that both of them declared those acts made "in
_pursuance_" of said clause. Those states were aware that the United
States in their constitution had left nothing to be "_implied_" as to
the power of Congress over the District;--an admonition quite sufficient
one would think to put them on their guard, and induce them to eschew
vague implications and resort to _stipulations_. Full well did they know
also that those were times when, in matters of high import, _nothing_
was left to be "implied." The colonies were then panting from a twenty
years' conflict with the mother country, about bills of rights,
charters, treaties, constitutions, grants, limitations, and _acts of
cession_. The severities of a long and terrible discipline had taught
them to guard at all points _legislative grants_, that their exact
import and limit might be self-evident--leaving no scope for a blind
"faith," that _somehow_ in the lottery of chances there would be no
blanks, but making all sure by the use of explicit terms, and wisely
chosen words, and _just enough_ of them. The Constitution of the United
States with its amendments, those of the individual states, the national
treaties, the public documents of the general and state governments at
that peri