Page:State Documents on Federal Relations.djvu/80

22 created in territories, lying without the ancient limits of the United States, has been considered, by your Committee, in relation to constitutional principles and political consequences. By an Act of the Congress of the United States, passed the 8th day of April, 1812, entitled "an Act for the admission of the State of Louisiana into the Union and to extend the laws of the United States to the said State," the said State of Louisiana was admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the other States. This act was, in the opinion of your Committee, a manifest usurpation, by the Congress of the United States, of a power not granted to that body by the federal constitution. The State of Louisiana was formed, in countries situated beyond the limits of the old United States; according as those limits were established by the treaty of Paris, commonly called the Treaty of Peace, in the year 1783; and as they existed, at the time of the formation and adoption of the federal constitution. And the position which your Committee undertake to maintain is this, that the Constitution of the United States did not invest Congress with the power to admit into the Union, States created in territories not included within the limits of the United States; as they existed, at the peace of 1783, and at the formation and adoption of the Constitution.

Now the State of Louisiana lies without those limits; and on this distinction the whole question of constitutional right depends. The power, assumed by Congress, in passing this act for the admission of Louisiana, if acquiesced in, is plainly a power to admit new States into this Union, at their discretion, without limit of place or country. Not only new States may be carved, at will, out of the boundless regions of Louisiana, but the whole extent of South America, indeed of the globe, is a sphere, within which it may operate without check or control, and with no other limit than such as Congress may choose to impose on its own discretion. [Here follows a detailed examination of the Constitution in refutation of the constitutionality of annexation and admission of new States.]

Now it is very apparent to your Committee, that the power to admit States, created in territories, beyond the limits of the old United States is one of the most critical and important, whether we consider its nature, or its consequences. It is, in truth,