Having proved, sir, that the United States may constitutionally acquire, hold, dispose of, and regulate territory, the other objection to be considered is, whether the third article of the treaty does stipulate that Louisiana shall be erected into a State? It is conceded that the treaty-making power cannot, by treaty, erect a new State, however they may stipulate for it. I premise, that in the construction of this article, it is proper to recollect that the negotiators must be supposed to have understood our constitution. It became very particularly their duty to do so, because, in this article itself, they have recited “the principles of the constitution” as their guide. Hence, it is obvious, they did not intend to infringe, but to adhere to those principles; and therefore, if the article will admit of a construction consistent with this presumable knowledge and intention of the negotiators, the probability of its accuracy will be greater than one formed in a supposition that the negotiators were either ignorant of that which they ought to have known, or that they fraudulently professed a purpose which they really intended to defeat. The following construction is reconcilable with what the negotiators ought to have known, and with what they professed to intend.
Recollect, sir, that it has been proved that the United States may acquire territory. Territory, so acquired, becomes from the acquisition itself a portion of the territories of the United States, or may be united with their territories without being erected into a State. A union of territory is one thing; of States, another. Both are exemplified by an actual existence. The United States possess territory, comprised in the union of territory, and not in the union of States. Congress is empowered to regulate or dispose of territorial sections of the Union, and have exercised the power; but it is not empowered to regulate or dispose of State sections of the Union. The citizens of these territorial sections are citizens of the United States, and they have all the rights of citizens of the United States; but such rights do not include those political rights arising from State compacts or governments, which are dissimilar in different States. Supposing the General Government or treaty-making power have no right to add or unite States and State citizens to the Union, yet they have a power of adding or uniting to it territory and territorial citizens of the United States.