Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/118

1803. has a right to acquire territory is one thing; but whether they can admit that territory into the Union upon an equal footing with the other States is a question of a very different nature." He refused to discuss this latter issue; in his opinion it was not before the House.

This flinching was neither candid nor courageous; but it was within the fair limits of a lawyer’s if not of a statesman’s practice, and Nicholson at least saved his consistency. On the simpler question, whether "a sovereign nation," as he next said, "had a right to acquire new territory," he spoke with as much emphasis as Roger Griswold and Gouverneur Morris, and he took the same ground. The separate states had surrendered their sovereignty by adopting the Constitution; "the right to declare war was given to Congress; the right to make treaties, to the President and Senate. Conquest and purchase alone are the means by which nations acquire territory." Griswold was right, then, in the ground he had taken; but Nicholson, not satisfied with gaining his point through the treaty-making power, which was at least express, added: "The right must exist somewhere:  it is essential to independent sovereignty." As it was prohibited to the States, the power was necessarily vested in the United States.

This general implication, that powers inherent in sovereignty which had not been expressly reserved to the States were vested in the national government, was not more radical centralization than