Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/390

370 370 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. that the latter, cannot be substituted for the former when used in its original sense/ When used in its second sense, it is plain that the term "United States" has no reference to extent of territory, either directly or in- directly. Regarded as a body pohtic, the United States may and does own territory, and may be and is a sovereign over territory, but to speak of its constituting or comprising territory would be no less absurd than to predicate the same thing of a personal sovereign, though the absurdity would be less obvious. Thirdly. — Since the treaty with England of September 3, 1783, the term "United States" has often been used to designate all terri- tory over which the sovereignty of the United States extended. The occasion for so using the term could not of course arise until the United States acquired the sovereignty over territory outside the limits of any State, and they first acquired such territory by the treaty just referred to. For, although, as has been said, that treaty was made with each of the thirteen States, yet, in fixing the boundaries, the thirteen States were treated as constituting one country, England not being interested in the question how that country should be divided among the several States. Moreover, the boimdaries established by the treaty embraced a considerable amount of territory in the Northwest to which no State had any separate claim, and which, therefore, belonged to the United States; and the territory thus acquired was enlarged from time to time by cessions from diflferent States, until at length it embraced the entire region within the limits of the treaty, and west of Penn- sylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, as the western boundaries of those States were afterwards established, with the exception of the territory now constituting the State of Kentucky. Then followed in succession the acquisitions from France, Spain, Texas, and Mexico. Out of all the territory thus acquired, twenty- eight great States have been from time to time carved ; and yet there has never been a time, since the date of the treaty before referred to, when the United States had not a considerable amount of terri- tory outside the limits of any State. sect. 8, subsect. 15 [Congress shall have power "to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions"]; in Art. 2, sect. 3 [the President "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union," &c.]; and in Art. 4, sect. 3, subsect. i ["new States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union"].
 * The term "Union" is used three times in the Constitution, namely, in Art. i,