Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/168

 160 § 1282. As an incidental power, the constitutional right of the United States to acquire territory would seem so naturally to (low from the sovereignty confided to it, as not to admit of very serious question. The constitution confers on the government of the Union the power of making war, and of making treaties; and it seems consequently to possess the power of acquiring territory either by conquest or treaty. If the cession be by treaty, the terms of that treaty must be obligatory; for it is the law of the land. And if it stipulates for the enjoyment by the inhabitants of the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens of the United States, and for the admission of the territory into the Union, as a state, these stipulations must be equally obligatory. They are within the scope of the constitutional authority of the government, which has the right to acquire territory, to make treaties, and to admit new states into the Union.

§ 1283. The mere recent acquisition of Florida, which has been universally approved, or acquiesced in by all the states, can be maintained only on the same