Page:Journal of the Sixth Legislative Council of the Territory of Michigan.djvu/140

128 the southerly bend of Lake Michigan;—and in prescribing her boundaries, and abandoning the Territorial line of the United States, it was in effect declared that new states should be formed between them and that line.

The act of Congress of April 30,1802, declares that the state of Ohio shall be admitted into the Union, upon the same footing with the original states. It was the inhabitants of that state, and none other, who were authorized to form a constitution. They were not permitted or required to form one for the people residing beyond the limits prescribed in the act of Congress.

The second section of that act says that "the state" shall consist of all the Territory included within the following boundaries, to wit: bounded on the east by the Pennsylvania line, on the south by the Ohio river to the mouth of the great Miami river, on the west by the line drawn due north from the mouth of the great Miami aforesaid, and on the north by an east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, running east, after intersecting the due north line aforesaid from the mouth of the great Miami, until it shall intersect Lake Erie, or the Territorial line, and thence with the same through Lake Erie, to the Pennsylvania line, &c."

So far was it from the intention of Congress to embrace any part of what is now the Michigan Territory within the State of Ohio, that in the concluding part of this same section, the right is reserved "to attach all the Territory lying east of the line to be drawn due north, from the mouth of the Miami aforesaid, to the Territorial line [of the United States,] and north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, &c. to the State of Ohio, or to dispose of it otherwise, in conformity to the fifth article of compact, &c."

But it is urged on behalf of Ohio, that in her constitution, her northern bounday was defined so as to embrace more Territory than was given by the act of 1802; and that Congress assented to this constitution.

It may be remarked that this constitution emanated from the people of Ohio, not from Congress; and it was only referred to that body in compliance with a requisition previously made, that Congress might determine whether that instrument established a government upon other than republican principles. If, by that reference and approval it became the act of the government of the United States, it is manifest that none of its provisions could now, or at any period hereafter, be changed or amended, without the permission and sanction of Congress—a conclusion from which it is presumed, the citizens of Ohio would choose to dissent. The constitutions of the new states have never, it is believed, been regarded, either by the courts of the United States, or by the states themselves, as positive enactments by Congress.