Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/195

 CH. XXX.] We may calculate, therefore, that a rich and fertile soil of an area equal to the inhabited extent of the United States will soon become a national stock. Congress have assumed the administration of this stock. They have begun to make it productive. Congress have undertaken to do more; they have proceeded to form new states; to erect temporary governments; to appoint officers for them; and to prescribe the conditions, on which such states shall be admitted into the confederacy. All this has been done, and done without the least colour of constitutional authority. Yet no blame has been whispered, and no alarm has been sounded.

§ 1312. The truth is, that the importance, and even justice of the title to the public lands on the part of the federal government, and the additional security, which it gave to the Union, overcame all scruples of the people, as to its constitutional character. The measure, to which the Federalist alludes in such emphatic terms, is the famous ordinance of congress, of the 13th of July, 1787, which has ever since constituted, in most respects, the model of all our territorial governments; and is equally remarkable for the brevity and exactness of its text, and for its masterly display of the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty. It begins by providing a scheme for the descent and distributions of estates equally among all the children, and their representatives, or other relatives of the deceased in equal degree, making no distinction between the whole and half blood; and for the mode of disposing of real estate by will, and by conveyances. It then proceeds to provide for the organization of the territorial