read was acquiesced in by the nine justices upon that court, including Justices McLean and Curtis, who disagreed with the majority in regard to the slavery question, but acquiesced in the opinion that this Government had no right to adopt the colonial system of Europe. I read this extract from the court's opinion. [Supreme Court. Opinions of the court. Scott vs. Sandford.]

Dred

There is certainly no power given by the Constitution to the Federal Government to establish or maintain colonies bordering on the United States or at a distance, to be ruled and governed at its own pleasure, nor to enlarge its territorial limits in any way except by the admission of new States. That power is plainly given; and if a new State is admitted it needs no further legislation by Congress, because the Constitution itself defines the relative rights and powers and duties of the State and the citizens of the State and the Federal Government. But no power is given to acquire a territory to be held and governed permanently in that character.

And, indeed, the power exercised by Congress to acquire territory and establish a government there, according to its own unlimited discretion, was viewed with great jealousy by the leading statesmen of the day. And in the Federalist (No. 38), written by Mr. Madison, he speaks of the acquisition of the Northwestern Territory by the Confederated States, by the cession from Virginia, and the establishment of a government there, as an exercise of power not warranted by the Articles of Confederation, and dangerous to the liberties of the people. And he urges the adoption of the Constitution as a security and safeguard against such an exercise of power.

We do not mean, however, to question the power of Congress in this respect. The power to expand the territory of the United States by the admission of new States is plainly given; and in the construction of this power by all the departments of the Government it has been held to authorize the acquisition of territory not fit for admission at the time but to be admitted as soon as its population and situation would entitle it to admission. It is acquired to become a State and not to be held as a colony and governed by Congress with absolute authority; and as the propriety of admitting a new State is committed to the sound discretion of Congress the power to acquire territory for that purpose to be held by the United States until it is in a suitable condition to become a State upon an equal footing with the other States, must rest upon the same discretion.

I have stated that the nine justices of the Supreme Court acquiesced in that portion of the Dred Scott opinion, and I assert now, and challenge contradiction, that not one tribunal, Federal nor State, and not one public man of eminence in this country, has ever contradicted that portion of the Dred Scott decision until within the last six months, when the craze of expansion seems to have taken possession of a large portion of the American people.

Justice McLean, whose opinion was held, together with that of Justice Curtis, to have represented the opinion of the Northern people in regard to the power of a slaveholder to carry his slaves into a Territory, not only acquiesced in that portion of the Dred Scott decision which has been read, but proceeded to emphasize it in the elaborate and exhaustive opinion which he filed. I will now read extracts from the opinions of those two eminent lawyers.

In organizing the government of a Territory Congress is limited to means appropriate to the attainment of the constitutional object. No powers can be exercised which are prohibited by the Constitution or which are contrary to its spirit; so that, whether the object may be the protection of the persons and property of purchasers of the public lands or of communities who have been annexed to the Union by conquest or purchase, they are initiatory to the establishment of State governments, and no more power can be claimed or exercised than is necessary to the attainment of the end. This is the limitation of all the Federal powers.-Mr. Justice McLean.

Since, then, this power was manifestly conferred to enable the United States to dispose of its public lands to settlers and to admit them into the Union as States, when, in the judgment of Congress, they should be fitted therefor, since these were the needs provided for, since it is confessed that government is indispensable to provide for those needs, and the power is to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory, I can not doubt that this is a power to govern the inhabitants of the territory, by such laws as Congress deems needful, until they obtain admission as States.-Mr. Justice Curtis.

I call attention to the fact that in these two dissenting opinions as to the introduction of slavery into the Territories, but concurring opinions as to the want of power in this Government to hold colonies as colonies not to be admitted as States and with no prospect of becoming States, the fundamental idea is conveyed that all the power of Congress in regard to the Territories is to be exercised as an initiatory process to their becoming States of the American. Union.

The Articles of Confederation-to show how sensitive were our fathers in regard to new territory to be added to this country-made no provision at all for the acquisition of new territory. As Chief Justice Taney said in delivering the opinion in the Dred Scott

case, Mr. Madison in the thirty-eighth paper of the Federalist, over the signature of Publius, criticised the action of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation in admitting the Northwestern Territory when donated to the United States by Virginia, and in dividing that Territory into States, first forming Territorial governments; and he used the unconstitutional action, the unauthorized action of the Congress of the Confederation as an argument why a remedy should be applied in the provisions of the new Constitution of 1789 then pending, and for the adoption of which he was contending.

What are the provisions of this Constitution of 1789, for the first time alluding to the acquisition and government of new territory? There are but two provisions in that Constitution pertinent to the present discussion-first, "That Congress shall have power to dispose of and to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property of the United States." That is the first provision. Then follows, as a conclusion, that "new States may be admitted by Congress into the Union." What lawyer, what intelligent layman, will not admit that these two provisions are to be taken and construed. together?

The Supreme Court of the United States has again and again decided, as Justice McLean and Justice Curtis said in their opinion in the Dred Scott case, that "needful rules and regulations" means that Congress shall prepare the Territory for admission into the Union as a State. I repeat, who can believe that there could be any other meaning, taking the history of the Revolution, the arguments of Mr. Madison, and the sensitiveness of the American people at that time to the addition of territory under any circumstances to the Union as it then existed?