A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 5, part 4: James Buchanan
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 5, part 4: James Buchanan
Buchanan, James, 1791-1868; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
It is unnecessary to refer to the history of the times to establish the
known fact that this statement of the Chief Justice is perfectly well
founded. That it never was intended by the framers of the Constitution
that these lands should be given away by Congress is manifest from the
concluding portion of the same clause. By it Congress has power not only
"to dispose of" the territory, but of the "other property of the United
States." In the language of the Chief Justice (p. 437):
And the same power of making needful rules respecting the territory is
in precisely the same language applied to the other property of the
United States, associating the power over the territory in this respect
with the power over movable or personal property; that is, the ships,
arms, or munitions of war which then belonged in common to the State
sovereignties.
The question is still clearer in regard to the public lands in the
States and Territories within the Louisiana and Florida purchases.
These lands were paid for out of the public Treasury from money raised
by taxation. Now if Congress had no power to appropriate the money with
which these lands were purchased, is it not clear that the power over
the lands is equally limited? The mere conversion of this money into
land could not confer upon Congress new power over the disposition of
land which they had not possessed over money. If it could, then a
trustee, by changing the character of the fund intrusted to his care for
special objects from money into land, might give the land away or devote
it to any purpose he thought proper, however foreign from the trust.
The inference is irresistible that this land partakes of the very same
character with the money paid for it, and can be devoted to no objects
different from those to which the money could have been devoted. If this
were not the case, then by the purchase of a new territory from a
foreign government out of the public Treasury Congress could enlarge
their own powers and appropriate the proceeds of the sales of the land
thus purchased, at their own discretion, to other and far different
objects from what they could have applied the purchase money which had
been raised by taxation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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