MR. GRISWOLD IN THE HOUSE.

567

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"Although I am unwilling to detain the Committee at this late hour, and desire not to delay the wishes of the majority, yet I must be permitted again to refer the Committee to the 7th article of the treaty. This article declares, that the ships of France and Spain, together with their cargoes, being the produce or manufacture of those countries, shall be admitted into the ports of the ceded territory on the same terms, in regard to duties, with American ships. It is certainly worth the consideration of the Committee, whether this article is consistent with the provisions of the Constitution. As our laws now stand, the ships of France and Spain are liable to an extra tonnage duty, and their cargoes to a duty of ten per cent. advance, when arriving in the Atlantic ports. The treaty declares that, in the ports of the ceded territory, this extra duty of import and tonnage shall cease. The treaty does not, and probably cannot, repeal the law which lays this extra duty in the Atlantic States, but those duties must still be collected. The constitution, however, declares in the 8th section of the First Article that: all duties, imposts, and excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States,' and in the 9th section of the same Article, it is said that: 'no preference shall be given, by any regulation of commerce, or revenue, to the ports of one State over those of another. By the treaty, however, the uniformity of duties is destroyed, and, by this regulation of commerce contained in the treaty, a preference is certainly given to the ports of the ceded territory over those of the other States. Gentlemen who advocate the constitutionality of the treaty will scarcely say that the ceded territory is no part of the United States, and not embraced by the provisions of the Constitution, because such an assertion, while it avoided one difficulty, would plunge them into another

equally fatal, and prove that the third Article is void, and, of course, that the cession itself is a nullity."

Another gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Dana), declared that if the inhabitants of the ceded territory were now, or should hereafter be, admitted into the Union, it would be a violation of that clause of the Constitution which relates to the establishment of an uniform rule of naturalization, since those people would be converted from foreigners to citizens, not in the mode prescribed by the naturalization laws.

Mr. Gaylord Griswold, from New York, denied that there existed in the United States, as such, a capacity to acquire territory, and contended that, by the constitution, they were restricted to the limits which existed at the time of its adoption. He said: "In the 3d section of the 4th article of the Constitution we read: ' New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.' Congress therefore may admit new States, but, according to my construction of this article, this power is confined to the territory belonging to the United States at the forma tion of the Constitution-to the territory then within the United States. Existing territory, not within the limits of any particular States, may be incorporated in the Union. I maintain, therefore, that the power to incorporate new territory does not exist; and that, if it did exist, it belonged to the Legislature, and not the Execu tive, to incorporate it in the Union. If this were the case, it was the duty of the House to resist the usurped power by the Executive."

The other speakers on this side of the question travelled over the same ground, and paraphrased the same arguments, asserting that if the United States could acquire territory, it was not to make it a part of the Confederacy as a State, but to hold it as a colony for ever, or as a sort of subordinate dependency.

MR. THOMAS RANDOLPH IN REPLY.

569

In reply, Mr. Thomas Randolph, from Virginia, said: "That not only did the Constitution not describe any particular boundary, beyond which the United States could not extend, but that their boundary was unsettled on their north-eastern, southern and north-western frontiers at the time of its adoption-nay, that they were without limits beyond the sources of the Mississippi; that the United States had the undeniable power of setting limits, and therefore of extending them; that, in proof of that power, the recent acquisitions on the side of Canada and at the Natchez could be cited; that Congress had expressed, in their own acts, a solemn recognition of the principle, that the United States in their federative capacity might acquire, and that they had acquired, territory; that there had been no usurpation of power by the Executive on this occasion; that if the Government of the United States possessed the constitutional power to acquire territory from foreign States, the Executive, as the organ by which the Union communicates with such States, must be the prime agent in negotiating such an acquisition, and then initiate the business to Congress by message; that he had so done in the present instance, and therefore had not been guilty of any invasion of the privileges of that body; that if the United States could acquire territory by conquest, which could not be denied, they could by purchase, as that power was a necessary appendage to all independent governments; that the alleged preference given to New Orleans over the other parts of the Union did not present a constitutional difficulty, because it must be considered as the price paid for the ceded territory; that by the treaty no preference was given to one State over another, because Louisiana was a Territory and not a State; that a complete discretion was left to the United States as to the time and manner of incorporat

ing that territory into the Union, and that it was not necessary to do so within the twelve years during which France and Spain were to enjoy the privileges granted by the treaty; that the preference of American ships over foreign ships was a legal regulation; and that those who were so tender with regard to the Constitution might have it in their power entirely to get rid of the constitutional difficulty, by taking off from the ships of Spain and France such duties as were higher than the duties paid by American vessels, so as to put all the American ports on the same level with New Orleans.

"When I say this," continued Mr. Thomas Randolph, "I speak for them, and not for myself; nor shall I move to take off these heavy duties, as I do not feel the force of the constitutional objections urged by gentlemen. The article of the treaty, so often quoted, shows that no preference is given to one port over another. Yet, by turning to our statute books, it will be perceived that, at present, there are some ports entitled to benefits which other ports do not enjoy; that they are set apart for particular objects; and particularly for the entry of articles brought from beyond the Cape of Good Hope. According, therefore, to the doctrine of this day, this is a violation of the Constitution."

Mr. Smilie, from Pennsylvania, thought that the right of annexing territory was incidental to all governments; that such a power must be vested in some of the departments of the government of the United States; that clearly it was not vested in the States individually, as they were expressly divested of that right by being deprived of the power of forming treaties and making war; but that it could reside in the General Government only.

Mr. Rodney, from Delaware, said: "That, by the Constitution, Congress had power to lay and collect

JOHN RANDOLPH IN THE HOUSE.

571

taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; and that within the fair meaning of this general provision was included the power of increasing our territory, if necessary for the general welfare or common defence."

Mr. John Randolph, from Virginia, said that a sense of duty alone could have induced him to rise at that late hour. But he wished to call the attention of the Committee to a stipulation in the treaty of London. Here Mr. Randolph read an extract from the 3rd article of that treaty, whereby the United States were pledged not to impose on imports in British vessels from the British territories in America, adjacent to the United States, any higher duties than would be paid upon such imports, if brought into the American Atlantic ports in American bottoms. "In this case," he said, "gentlemen could not avail themselves of the distinction taken by his friend from Maryland (Mr. Nicholson), between a territory and a state, even if they were so disposed-since the ports in question were ports of a state. The ports of New York on the Lakes were as much parts of that State as the city of New York itself; they had their customhouse officers, were governed by the same regulations as other ports, and duties were exacted at them; yet, under the article of the British treaty which had just been read, British bottoms would and did enter them subject to no higher duties than were paid by American bottoms in the Atlantic ports. Mr. Randolph said that he did not mean to affirm that this exemption made by the treaty of London was constitutional, so long as a distinction prevailed between American and British bottoms in other ports. He had never given a vote to carry that treaty into effect-but he hoped the gentlemen from Connecticut (Mr. Griswold and Mr. Dana), both of whom he believed