rom 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 in 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
agreement among the States before their league was dissolved. It
applied only to the property which the States held in common at that
time, and has no reference whatever to any territory or other property
which the new sovereignty might afterwa