ready
established in it, which had been ceded to the States for the purposes
hereinbefore mentioned--every word in it is perfectly appropriate and
easily understood, and the provisions it contains are in perfect
harmony with the objects for which it was ceded, and with the
condition of its government as a Territory at the time. We can, then,
easily account for the manner in which the first Congress legislated
on the subject--and can also understand why this power over the
territory was associated in the same clause with the other property of
the United States, and subjected to the like power of making needful
rules and regulations. But if the clause is construed in the expanded
sense contended for, so as to embrace any territory acquired from a
foreign nation by the present Government, and to give it in such
territory a despotic and unlimited power over persons and property,
such as the confederated States might exercise in their common
property, it would be difficult to account for the phraseology used,
when compared with other grants of power--and also for its association
with the other provisions in the same clause.

The Constitution has always been remarkable for the felicity of its
arrangement of different subjects, and the perspicuity and
appropriateness of the language it uses. But if this clause is
construed to extend to territory acquired by the present Government
from a foreign nation, outside of the limits of any charter from the
British Government to a colony, it would be difficult to say, why it
was deemed necessary to give the Government the power to sell any
vacant lands belonging to the sovereignty which might be found within
it; and if this was necessary, why the grant of this power should
precede the power to legislate over it and establish a Government
there; and still more difficult to say, why it was deemed necessary so
specially and particularly to grant the power to make needful rules
and regulations in relation to any personal or movable property it
might acquire there. For the words, _other property_ necessarily, by
every known rule of interpretation, must mean property of a different
description from territory or land. And the difficulty would perhaps
be insurmountable in endeavoring to account for the last member of the
sentence, which provides that "nothing in this Constitution shall be
so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States or any
particular State," or to say how any p