articular State could have
claims in or to a territory ceded by a foreign Government, or to
account for associating this provision with the preceding provisions
of the clause, with which it would appear to have no connection.

The words "needful rules and regulations" would seem, also, to have
been cautiously used for some definite object. They are not the words
usually employed by statesmen, when they mean to give the powers of
sovereignty, or to establish a Government, or to authorize its
establishment. Thus, in the law to renew and keep alive the ordinance
of 1787, and to re-establish the Government, the title of the law is:
"An act to provide for the government of the territory northwest of
the river Ohio." And in the Constitution, when granting the power to
legislate over the territory that may be selected for the seat of
Government independently of a State, it does not say Congress shall
have power "to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the
territory;" but it declares that "Congress shall have power to
exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such
District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of
particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of
the Government of the United States."

The words "rules and regulations" are usually employed in the
Constitution in speaking of some particular specified power which it
means to confer on the Government, and not, as we have seen, when
granting general powers of legislation. As, for example, in the
particular power to Congress "to make rules for the government and
regulation of the land and naval forces, or the particular and
specific power to regulate commerce;" "to establish an uniform _rule_
of naturalization;" "to coin money and _regulate_ the value thereof."
And to construe the words of which we are speaking as a general and
unlimited grant of sovereignty over territories which the Government
might afterwards acquire, is to use them in a sense and for a purpose
for which they were not used in any other part of the instrument. But
if confined to a particular Territory, in which a Government and laws
had already been established, but which would require some alterations
to adapt it to the new Government, the words are peculiarly applicable
and appropriate for that purpose.

The necessity of this special provision in relation to property and
the rights or property held in common by the confederated Sta