s. Nor can that Government affect the duration of slavery
within the States, other than by a legislation over the foreign slave
trade. The power of Congress to adopt the section of the act above
cited must therefore depend upon some condition of the Territories
which distinguishes them from States, and subjects them to a control
more extended. The third section of the fourth article of the
Constitution is referred to as the only and all-sufficient grant to
support this claim. It is, that "new States may be admitted by the
Congress to this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected
within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by
the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the
consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned, as well as of the
Congress. The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other
property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this
Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the
United States, or of any particular State."

It is conceded, in the decisions of this court, that Congress may
secure the rights of the United States in the public domain, provide
for the sale or lease of any part of it, and establish the validity of
the titles of the purchasers, and may organize Territorial
Governments, with powers of legislation. (3 How., 212; 12 How., 1; 1
Pet., 511; 13 P., 436; 16 H., 164.)

But the recognition of a plenary power in Congress to dispose of the
public domain, or to organize a Government over it, does not imply a
corresponding authority to determine the internal polity, or to adjust
the domestic relations, or the persons who may lawfully inhabit the
territory in which it is situated. A supreme power to make needful
rules respecting the public domain, and a similar power of framing
laws to operate upon persons and things within the territorial limits
where it lies, are distinguished by broad lines of demarcation in
American history. This court has assisted us to define them. In
Johnson _v._ McIntosh, (8 Wheat., 595--543,) [Transcriber's Note:
modern citation form is 8 Wheat. 543, 595] they say: "According to the
theory of the British Constitution, all vacant lands are vested in the
Crown; and the exclusive power to grant them is admitted to reside in
the Crown, as a branch of the royal prerogative.

"All the lands we hold were originally