Madison's commentary in the Federalist, from the above quoted section relating to the admission of new states, and from the situation of our country at the time. The United States of America, the style of the old Confederacy, was continued and no provision was made for adding any foreign territory, state or empire to our republic. And as if to render this matter certain, the power to admit new states is conferred on Congress, and not on the President and Senate. As the Presi dent and Senate have exclusive charge of our foreign relations, this power thus conferred on Congress, is obviously a domestic power, and has no reference to the acquisition of foreign territory. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, members of the Convention, support this view of the subject in their exposition of the Constitution in the Federalist. (See Washington edition of 1818, p. 81, 82, 83, 84, 271, 272, 293, 467.) Mr. Jefferson says, that it was made for the territory embraced in the limits "fixed by the treaty of 1783, that the Constitution expressly declares itself to be made for the United States." He says it was not intended to give power to receive England, Ireland, Holland, &c. And he denies the power to annex a foreign territory or state by treaty to the United States. (See his works, vol. 3d, p. 512, and vol. 4th, p. 1, 2, 3.) The purchase of Louis

iana by himself, by treaty, he declared an act of high necessity "beyond the Constitution," as it had "no provision for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union." In his letter to Mr. Lincoln, (vol. 4th, p. 1,) the President proposed an amendment to ratify by a constitutional act this purchase in these words: "Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States is made part of the United States, its white inhabitants shail be citizens and stand as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of the United States, in analogous situations." This exposition of Mr. Jefferson of the power of Congress to admit new states, supported as it is, ought to settle this question. But no amendment to the Constitution was made, and in 1819, Florida, all important to compact our territory and give us a continuous coast frontier, was obtained by treaty after the Louisiana precedent. Here are two acts of high necessity done "beyond the Constitution," in the emphatic language of Jefferson.

It is now said by some that these two acts so admitted originally to be "beyond the Constitution," have sealed by precedent the power of the President and Senate or of Congress to admit any foreign state or territory within our Union. That these precedents do not establish the first is clear

from the contemporaneous exposition given as above by President Jefferson, who denies to the treaty-making power all constitutional authority to admit a foreign state or territory. Nor does Congress possess this power, as the power of negotiation and of contracting with foreign nations by the Constitution is confined exclusively to the President and Senate. Besides its powers are all express and written down in that instrument, and no power to annex a foreign state or territory is given to Congress. By the 10th amendment all powers not expressly granted are reserved to the people and the states respectively, and hence the conclusion follows irresistably that the power in question resides in the people, the fountain of sovereignty, and must be exercised by amendment of our Constitution in the mode provided by it. By this rule of construction the people can maintain the control of their own government; national consolidation will be prevented and the limitations of the powers of the national administration, wisely adjusted by the Constitution, will be preserved. The people of the United States can safely be trusted to decide in the mode pointed out in the Constitution upon the admission of foreign territory or states, and as they alone have the power they alone must exercise it.

But the sound policy of our republic is to listen

to the warning voice of Washington and avoid all ambitious schemes of aggrandizement. If the American people lend an ear to projects for extending the territory of our republic now, when we possess a thousand millions of acres of wild land and space enough for the population of China in addition to our own, where is this wild ambition to end? Some Pericles or Alcibiades, aspiring to the supreme power of the republic, will be constantly urging plans of expansion and aggrandizement, the result of which may be fatal to our Union and destructive to our liberties. No man can foresee the result of such a system. Again the hostility of other nations would soon be excited by the exhibition of such a grasping spirit and our peace would be endangered. Our unparalleled progress has been owing to our just and pacific policy. We have heretofore relied on American industry and enterprise, on commerce, agriculture and manufactures, and on the mental and moral improvement of our people, and we have found the rich fruits of this wise policy in a great, intelligent and moral people moving on rapidly to the first rank among nations. Shall we exchange this wise, just and pacific plan for untried and dangerous schemes of grasping ambition? Wisdom forbids it. Our discovery that education gives to one man the industrial and ac

cumulative power of ten ignorant men, points to the territory over which we should seek to extend our jurisdiction. Let us improve and enlarge the means of making our people more intelligent and moral, raise the standard of education and diffuse its blessings, and we shall lay securely the foundations of our national power and glory. This is the true policy of our republic.

Our remarks are purely elementary, and so far as they may be deemed to bear on an existing question, they are adverse to our private pecuniary interest. On this and all other subjects we have regarded principle only, and not any temporary interest of ourselves or others. Those who differ from us will not fail to see that we disregard all private and party interests, and look only to what seems to be the deductions of right reason.

The explanation which we have given shows why our national government can not reach slavery within the states. This question within each state belongs to it alone, and there is no constitutional power beyond a state to annul it. The state legislatures alone can do this, and to this solemn duty they are called by the warning voice of Washington, of Jefferson, of Monroe and other presidents and statesmen, as well as by humanity