The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1857-02-17
VOL XII MIsDAIE MICH, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY IL 1857

Ahoy h"u oonic feaoou iof preicrrlilg inc WOru
: territory; and that reason is contained in one
{ Of the quotations have already made from
: Vattel. repeat it:
r 'The whole space over which a nation er-
s tends ats government, becomes the seat of its
jurisdiction, and is called its TERRIroRY."-
b. l., s 2O5.
, nation may own land, and others may
, have the jurisdiction: as, for example, the
, public lands lying within the limits of the
State of Michigan; but these arc now spoken
} OF as constituting the territory of the United
States, because tho jurisdiction belongs to
the State. Territory, then, includes tho idea
OF property, but it includes ALSO the idea Of
Jurisdiction over that property.
Territories are property; but they are Pc
cullar species of property-namely, that
which is accomno u;1sl ~lss~. -;sl.ti. s'n,,-
accompanied by jurisdiction. Hence the ne
cessity FOR tho very form Of expression used in
this section. General Cass has for the humid
reth time repeated the argument that the ex-
preston ''territory or other property" implied
that territory meant property simply, and
nothing else. But careful discrimination
will discover that the very form Of erpres-
sion goes to show that there is something Pc
cular about territory which distinguishes it
from other kinds of property. Else the con-
else fern would be--"Congress shall have
full power to make all needful rules and reg
ulations respecting the property of the U. 81
Now what is the popularity belonging to Ter
ritory which made il necessary to specify that
rather than any other kind of propertyl /
answer, il is this---that the term is appropri-
ately used with reference to lands under the
jurisdiction of the general government, as is
seen from the statement Of Vattel. And his
steatement in respect TO the use Of this word
is the more in point, because his book was
published abut tho time of tho American
Revolution aud tho formation Of the Amer-
can Constitution. So that it settles the ques-
tion rs to the meaning attached TO it at that
period, and thus enables us to understand
what the trainers of the Constitution them
selves intended by it. The meaning of a
writer sometimes changes in the course of
eighty years. And tho quotation from Vat
tel has all the authority Of n standard diction
AIRY published at the very date of the framing
of our Constitution.
8. The connection in which this clause of
the Constitution is found, shows us what
meaning was attached TO it. No ono can
study closely the context and the arrange
ment of the Constitution in general, without |
being forced 10 the conclusion that 'territory,"
in the clause under consideration, was not |
used in the sense Of property, simply, but !
that il was understood by the trainers Of the |
Constitution to refer to that part of the do
main out OF which States might be made.
1t isa part of Article 4. Now of what
do the other sections of this Article treat?-
All of ihcm Of matters pertaining to the
States, and of the relation Of tho States to
each other, and to the general government.
Section Is. provides that full faith and
credit shall be given in each State to the pub.
lie acts. records and judicial proceedings of
every other State.
Section provides
/. The citizens Of each State shall be en-
titled to all the privileges and immunties of
citizens in the several States.
2. A person charged with crime, fleeing
from one State to another, shall. on demand,
be given mp, to be removed TO the State hav-
ing jurisdiction Of the crime.
3. Persons held 20 service in ono State
shall not be discharged by escaping into an
other, but .hall be given up to the party to
whom such service is due.
Section provides
|
every State a republican form Of government,
DC. ..,-
Thus all the other sections Of STATES,
STATES, their relation to each other and
to the general government.
The clause under discussion is the second
part of section 8, the first part being as fol-
lows:
/. "New States may be admitted by the
Congress into the Union: but no new States
shall be formed or erected within the juris-
diciion Of any other State, nor any State
be formed by the junction Of two or more
States, or parts Of States, without the con-
sent Of tho Legislatures Of the States con- s
cerned, as well as of the Congress
2. "Thc Congress shall have power to dis
pose of, and make all nccful rules and regu- {
lations respecting the Territory or other prop
erty belonging to the United States" DC.
These fourssections constitute the entire j
Article. Now, by what association of thought |
was this clause thrown into tho midst OF this 2
Article? And, especially, how came it to be '
yoked up in the same section with that clause ]
which provides for tho admission Of new
States! No other answer can be given to {
this question than ths-that in tho midst Of c
the maker Of the Constitution the terri o
tory spoken Of was conceived not simply C
as property, but as the public domain of n
the Union ont of which new States might be b
formed. o
If this clause means simply as our vcnera- h
bic Senator insists--that Congress shall have e.
power to dispose Of the property of the Uni 50
ted States, its appropriate place was not in n
This Article, but in section of Article ], in 81
which tho oeneroI rowcr of Conoresa ara | ii
in
That provides thus: q
"Tho Congress shall have power to levy "a
md collect taxes, DC. to pay the deb;s-to in
borrow money-to regulate commerce--to SC
DIN money and regulate the value thereof" je
This would have been the appropriate loca-