Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/646

630 which is superadded, in the Constitution, to that of declaring war, is not confined to captures which are extra-territorial, but extends to rules respecting enemy's property found within the territory, and is an express grant to Congress of the power of confiscating enemy's property, found within the territory at the declaration of war, as an independent substantive power, not included in that of declaring war. Ibid.

45. The legislature may enact laws more effectually to enable all sects to accomplish the great objects of religion, by giving them corporate rights for the management of their property, and the regulation of their temporal as well as spiritual concerns. Terret et Al. v. Taylor et Al., 6 Cranch, 43.

46. Consistently with the Constitution of Virginia, the legislature could not create or continue a religious establishment which should have exclusive rights and prerogatives, or compel the citizens to worship under a stipulated form or discipline, or to pay taxes to those whose creed they do not conscientiously believe. But the free exercise of religion is not restrained by aiding, with equal attention, the votaries of every sect to perform their own religious duties, or by establishing funds for the support of ministers, for public charities, for the endowment of churches, or for the sepulture of the dead. Nor did either public or constitutional principles require the abolition of all religious corporations. Ibid.

47. The public property acquired by the Episcopal churches under the sanctions of the law did not, at the revolution, become the property of the state The title was indefeasibly vested in the churches, or their legal agents. The dissolution of the form of government did not involve in it a dissolution of civil rights, or an abolition of the common law. Ibid.

48. A legislative grant and confirmation vests an indefeasible, irrevocable title; is not revocable in its own nature, or held only durante bene placito. Ibid.

49. In respect to public corporations, which exist only for public purposes, as counties, towns, cities, &c., the legislature may, under proper limitations, have a right to change, modify, enlarge, or restrain them; securing, however, the property for the uses of those for whom, and at whose expense, it was originally purchased. Ibid.

50. But the legislature cannot repeal statutes creating private corporations, or confirming to them property already acquired under the faith of previous laws, and by such repeal vest the property exclusively in the state, or dispose of the same to such purposes as they may please, without the consent or default of the corporators. Ibid.

51. Congress cannot vest any portion of the judicial power of the United States, except in courts ordained and established by itself. Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 380.

52. The 25th sect. of the judiciary act of September 24, 1789, ch. 20, (2 Bior. 56,) is supported by the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Ibid.

The Constitution of the United States was ordained and established, not by the United States in their sovereign capacities, but, as the preamble declares, by the people of the United States. Ibid. 324.

53. It was competent for the people to invest the national government with all the powers which they might deem proper and necessary, to extend or limit these powers at their pleasure, and to give to them a paramount and supreme authority. Ibid.

54. The people had a right to prohibit to the states the exercise of any powers which were, in their judgment, incompatible with the objects of the general compact; to make the powers of the state governments, in given cases, subordinate to those of the nation; or to reserve to themselves those sovereign authorities which they might not choose to delegate to either. Ibid.

55. The Constitution was not, therefore, necessarily carved out of existing state sovereignties, nor a surrender of powers already existing in the state governments. Ibid.

56. On the other hand, the sovereign powers vested in the state governments by their respective constitutions, remain unaltered and unimpaired, except so far as they pre granted to the government of the United States. Ibid.