Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/114

1803. forward to the time when an addition might be made to the Union of a territory equal to the whole United States, which additional territory might overbalance the existing territory, and thereby the rights of the present citizens of the United States be swallowed up and lost." The power to admit new States referred only to the territory existing when the Constitution was framed; but this right, whatever it might be, was vested in Congress, not in the Executive.  In promising to admit Louisiana as a State into the Union, the treaty assumed for the President power which in any case could not have been his.  Finally, the treaty gave to French and Spanish ships special privileges for twelve years in the port of New Orleans; while the Constitution forbade any preference to be given, by any regulation of commerce or revenue, to the ports of one State over those of another.

John Randolph next rose. Just thirty years old, with a sarcasm of tone and manner that overbore remonstrance, and with an authority in the House that no one contested, Randolph spoke the voice of Virginia with autocratic distinctness. His past history was chiefly marked by the ardor with which, from 1798 to 1800, he had supported the principles of his party and encouraged resistance to the national government. He had gone beyond Jefferson and Madison in willingness to back their theories by force, and to fix by a display of Virginia power the limit beyond which neither Executive, Congress, nor Judiciary should pass. Even then he probably cared