Congress over the District of Columbia is the same as over its Territories. The legislative power over them resides in Congress.

NEW STATES.

One of the great powers of our republic is its authority to admit new states into the Union. Article 4th, Section 3d of the Constitution of the United States, says: "New states may be admitted by the Congress into 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 and other property belonging to the United States," &c.

To ascertain the limits of this power let us remember that by the 10th amendment to the Constitution all powers not delegated by that instrument to the United States are reserved to the states and people respectively. Our national administration has no other governmental powers than those expressly granted, and those necessarily incident to them. (See 45th No. of the Federalist by James Madison, ed. of 1818, p. 292.)

What is the extent of this grant as to new states? The original Articles of Confederation of the Thirteen Colonies was a confederacy of independent states giving certain national powers to a Congress to form a national government. But this Union was found to be imperfect, as Congress had not power to enforce its decrees, upon the states and the people. This feeble confederacy was declared to be "a perpetual union between " the Thirteen States under the name of "The United States of America." By the 9th Article Canada was allowed to join the Confederacy, but the last clause says: "No other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine states." This was plainly a union of these original States without any power of erecting new ones out of our new territories, or adding any foreign colony except Canada. When Canada failed to join in the revolution, this confederacy became limited to the thirteen original states. (See Federalist, p. 271 and 272.)

The Constitution of the United States in its preamble thus declares its object: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and

establish this Constitution for the United States of America." General Washington, in his letter to Congress of 17th of September, 1787, transmitting the Constitution agreed on by the Convention, says, that the aim of that body was, "the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence." The great end of enlarging the powers of the federal government was to perfect the union of the thirteen states and to secure to the people of them and their posterity the blessings of freedom. The idea of providing for territorial aggrandizement by the acquisition of Canada or any other territory beyond the limits of the United States was not suggested by that instrument, nor was it intended. (See Federalist, p. 271 and 293.) It was avowedly a more perfect union of the thirteen states in a more energetic federal government, with a power to admit new states to be formed out of any of them with consent of their legislatures concerned, or out of the vast territory lying out of the thirteen states, which by the treaty of peace of 1783, had passed to the United States from Great Britain. The Constitution did not enlarge the treaty-making power, but made it more effectual. (See Federalist, p. 293.) This is manifest from the general object of the Convention, from the preamble, from the letter of Washington, from

Madison's commentary in the Federalist, from the above quoted section relating to the admission of new states, and from the situation of our country at the time. The United States of America, the style of the old Confederacy, was continued and no provision was made for adding any foreign territory, state or empire to our republic. And as if to render this matter certain, the power to admit new states is conferred on Congress, and not on the President and Senate. As the Presi dent and Senate have exclusive charge of our foreign relations, this power thus conferred on Congress, is obviously a domestic power, and has no reference to the acquisition of foreign territory. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, members of the Convention, support this view of the subject in their exposition of the Constitution in the Federalist. (See Washington edition of 1818, p. 81, 82, 83, 84, 271, 272, 293, 467.) Mr. Jefferson says, that it was made for the territory embraced in the limits "fixed by the treaty of 1783, that the Constitution expressly declares itself to be made for the United States." He says it was not intended to give power to receive England, Ireland, Holland, &c. And he denies the power to annex a foreign territory or state by treaty to the United States. (See his works, vol. 3d, p. 512, and vol. 4th, p. 1, 2, 3.) The purchase of Louis

iana by himself, by treaty, he declared an act of high necessity "beyond the Constitution," as it had "no provision for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union." In his letter to Mr. Lincoln, (vol. 4th, p. 1,) the President proposed an amendment to ratify by a constitutional act this purchase in these words: "Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States is made part of the United States, its white inhabitants shail be citizens and stand as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of the United States, in analogous situations." This exposition of Mr. Jefferson of the power of Congress to admit new states, supported as it is, ought to settle this question. But no amendment to the Constitution was made, and in 1819, Florida, all important to compaet our territory and give us a continuous coast frontier, was obtained by treaty after the Louisiana precedent. Here are two acts of high necessity done 66 'beyond the Constitution," in the emphatic language of Jefferson.

It is now said by some that these two acts so admitted originally to be "beyond the Constitution," have sealed by precedent the power of the President and Senate or of Congress to admit any foreign state or territory within our Union. That these precedents do not establish the first is clear