I had hoped, sir, that the gentleman from Connecticut, (Mr. TRACY,) from the trouble he was so good as to give himself yesterday in assisting to amend this bill, would have voted for it; but it seems he is constrained to vote to-day against it. He asks, if the United States have power to acquire and add new States to the Union, can they not also cede States? Can they not, for example, cede Connecticut to France? I answer they cannot; but for none of the reasons assigned by him. The Government of the United States cannot cede Connecticut, because, first, it would be annihilating part of that sovereignty of the nation which is whole and entire, and upon which the Government of the United States is dependent for its existence; and secondly, because the fourth section of the fourth article of the constitution forbids it. But how does it follow as a consequence, that because the United States cannot cede an existing State, they cannot acquire a new State? He admits explicitly that Congress may acquire territory and hold it as a territory, but cannot incorporate it into the Union. By this construction he admits the power to acquire territory, a modification infinitely more dangerous than the unconditional admission of a new State; for by his construction, territories and citizens are considered and held as the property of the Government of the United States, and may consequently be used as dangerous engines in the hands of the Government against the States and people. Could we not, says the same gentleman, incorporate in the Union some foreign nation containing ten millions of inhabitants--Africa, for instance--and thereby destroy our Government? Certainly the thing would be possible if Congress would do it, and the people consent to it; but it is supposing so extreme a case and is so barely possible, that it does not merit serious refutation. It is also possible and equally probable that republicanism itself may one day or other become unfashionable, (for I believe it is not without its enemies,) and that the people of America may call for a king. From such hypotheses it is impossible to deduce any thing for or against the construction contended for. The true construction must depend on the manifest import of the instrument and the good sense of the community.