ll reflecting men must have foreseen would exist,
when the Government created by the Constitution should supersede that
of the Confederation. That if the new Government should be without
power to govern this Territory, it could not appoint and commission
officers, and send them into the Territory, to exercise there
legislative, judicial, and executive power; and that this Territory,
which was even then foreseen to be so important, both politically and
financially, to all the existing States, must be left not only without
the control of the General Government, in respect to its future
political relations to the rest of the States, but absolutely without
any Government, save what its inhabitants, acting in their primary
capacity, might from time to time create for themselves.

But this Northwestern Territory was not the only territory, the soil
and jurisdiction whereof were then understood to have been ceded to
the United States. The cession by South Carolina, made in August,
1787, was of "all the territory included within the river Mississippi,
and a line beginning at that part of the said river which is
intersected by the southern boundary of North Carolina, and continuing
along the said boundary line until it intersects the ridge or chain of
mountains which divides the Eastern from the Western waters; then to
be continued along the top of the said ridge of mountains, until it
intersects a line to be drawn due west from the head of the southern
branch of the Tugaloo river, to the said mountains; and thence to run
a due west course to the river Mississippi."

It is true that by subsequent explorations it was ascertained that the
source of the Tugaloo river, upon which the title of South Carolina
depended, was so far to the northward, that the transfer conveyed only
a narrow slip of land, about twelve miles wide, lying on the top of
the ridge of mountains, and extending from the northern boundary of
Georgia to the southern boundary of North Carolina. But this was a
discovery made long after the cession, and there can be no doubt that
the State of South Carolina, in making the cession, and the Congress
in accepting it, viewed it as a transfer to the United States of the
soil and jurisdiction of an extensive and important part of the
unsettled territory ceded by the Crown of Great Britain by the treaty
of peace, though its quantity or extent then remained to be
ascertained.[5]

[Footnote 5: _Note by Mr. Justice Curtis._