the Confederation
power to govern the Territory north of the Ohio, still, it cannot be
denied, as I think, that power was wanting to admit a new State under
the Articles of Confederation.

With these facts prominently before the Convention, they proposed to
accomplish these ends:

1st. To give power to admit new States.

2d. To dispose of the public lands in the Territories, and such as
might remain undisposed of in the new States after they were admitted.

And, thirdly, to give power to govern the different Territories as
incipient States, not of the Union, and fit them for admission. No one
in the Convention seems to have doubted that these powers were
necessary. As early as the third day of its session, (May 29th,)
Edmund Randolph brought forward a set of resolutions containing nearly
all the germs of the Constitution, the tenth of which is as follows:

"_Resolved_, That provision ought to be made for the admission of
States lawfully arising within the limits of the United States,
whether from a voluntary junction of government and territory or
otherwise, with the consent of a number of voices in the National
Legislature less than the whole."

August 18th, Mr. Madison submitted, in order to be referred to the
committee of detail, the following powers as proper to be added to
those of the General Legislature:

"To dispose of the unappropriated lands of the United States." "To
institute temporary Governments for new States arising therein." (3
Madison Papers, 1353.)

These, with the resolution, that a district for the location of the
seat of Government should be provided, and some others, were referred,
without a dissent, to the committee of detail, to arrange and put them
into satisfactory language.

Gouverneur Morris constructed the clauses, and combined the views of a
majority on the two provisions, to admit new States; and secondly, to
dispose of the public lands, and to govern the Territories, in the
mean time, between the cessions of the States and the admission into
the Union of new States arising in the ceded territory. (3 Madison
Papers, 1456 to 1466.)

It was hardly possible to separate the power "to make all needful
rules and regulations" respecting the government of the territory and
the disposition of the public lands.

North of the Ohio, Virginia conveyed the lands, and vested the
jurisdiction in the thirteen original States, before the Constitution
was formed. She had the sole title and s