Page:Journal of the Sixth Legislative Council of the Territory of Michigan.djvu/144

132 If such statement of the case be true, and if it were competent for the General Government; "with the assent of Congress," to alter the previously established boundary, it may nevertheless be submitted to your Excellency, whether an y other deduction be fairly inferrible from the premises, than that the General Government agreed with the people of Ohio that, if Congress should thereafter assent to it, the boundary in question might, at a time then future, be altered in the manner suggested by the framers of that constitution; and leaving it still for Congress to act specifically upon such a proposition, when it should thereafter be presented to them.

The strongest aspect in which the question can be fairly presented by those who would favor the pretensions of Ohio, is one in which Congress may be supposed, by adopting the constitution, themselves to speak the language of it. What then may they be supposed to say, other than this, that we (the General Government) agree that in a certain event, the boundary line in question may be altered, provided Congress shall agree to such alteration, whenever afterward such proposition shall be made. Such a deduction from the premises assumed, I beg leave to suggest as the true one. But there are other considerations and of a more general nature, and which would not be deemed the less applicable, if the alteration contended for had rested on words of positive import. The framers of that constitution were certainly incompetent to make any positive alteration in the boundaries previously defined. The act of Congress of the 3d April, 1802, which was the substantum of all their authority—which alone sustained the political fabric which they erected, expressly circumscribed them. In whatsoever respect they may nave transcended their powers, in so far their acts must have been merely void. Nor could it have required an affirmative act of Congress to make them more so. Is it fair, then, to presume from the absolute silence of Congress concerning this subject, (whether the proposed alteration, were in its terms, absolute or merely conditional) that therefore they assented to the specific alteration, thus without previous authority exhibited in this fundamental law of the State? Had that constitution contained any other absurd or void proposition, as for example, had it proposed to extend the sovereign power of the State so far as to comprehend a part of Maine or Virginia, would such void act have acquired validity upon the admission of the State, because Congress should not have taken notice of such void proposition?

It will not have escaped the observation of your Excellency, that Congress have not by any positive legislative act, expressly avowed their assent to any part of the constitution of Ohio. Can such assent then be inferrible in regard to any proposition contained in it, except in regard to such as, by the constitution of the United States, it is imperatively made the duty of Congress to act upon,