Government, and gives the powers necessary to carry
them into execution." The publication of the journals of the Federal
Convention in 1819, of the debates reported by Mr. Madison in 1840,
and the mass of private correspondence of the early statesmen before
and since, enable us to approach the discussion of the aims of those
who made the Constitution, with some insight and confidence.

I have endeavored, with the assistance of these, to find a solution
for the grave and difficult question involved in this inquiry. My
opinion is, that the claim for Congress of supreme power in the
Territories, under the grant to "dispose of and make all needful rules
and regulations respecting _territory_," is not supported by the
historical evidence drawn from the Revolution, the Confederation, or
the deliberations which preceded the ratification of the Federal
Constitution. The ordinance of 1787 depended upon the action of the
Congress of the Confederation, the assent of the State of Virginia,
and the acquiescence of the people who recognised the validity of that
plea of necessity which supported so many of the acts of the
Governments of that time; and the Federal Government accepted the
ordinance as a recognised and valid engagement of the Confederation.

In referring to the precedents of 1798 and 1800, I find the
Constitution was plainly violated by the invasion of the rights of a
sovereign State, both of soil and jurisdiction; and in reference to
that of 1804, the wisest statesmen protested against it, and the
President more than doubted its policy and the power of the
Government.

Mr. John Quincy Adams, at a later period, says of the last act, "that
the President found Congress mounted to the pitch of passing those
acts, without inquiring where they acquired the authority, and he
conquered his own scruples as they had done theirs." But this court
cannot undertake for themselves the same conquest. They acknowledge
that our peculiar security is in the possession of a written
Constitution, and they cannot make it blank paper by construction.

They look to its delineation of the operations of the Federal
Government, and they must not exceed the limits it marks out, in their
administration. The court have said "that Congress cannot exercise
municipal jurisdiction, sovereignty, or eminent domain, within the
limits of a State or elsewhere, beyond what has been delegated." We
are then to find the authority for supreme power in the Ter