The power is "to admit new States into this Union," and it may be safely conceded that here is discretion to admit or refuse. The question is, what must we do if we do anything? What must we admit, and into what? The answer is a State--and into this Union. The distinction between Federal rights and local rights, is an idle distinction. Because the new State acquires Federal rights, it is not, therefore, in this Union. The Union is a compact; and is it an equal party to that compact, because it has equal Federal rights? How is the Union formed? By equal contributions of power. Make one member sacrifice more than another, and it becomes unequal. The compact is of two parts: 1. The thing obtained--Federal rights. 2. The price paid--local sovereignty. You may disturb the balance of the Union, either by diminishing the thing acquired, or increasing the sacrifice paid. What were the purposes of coming into the Union among the original States? The States were originally sovereign without limit, as to foreign and domestic concerns. But being incapable of protecting themselves singly, they entered into the Union to defend themselves against foreign violence. The domestic concerns of the people were not, in general, to be acted on by it. The security of the power, of managing them by domestic legislature, is one of the great objects of the Union. The Union is a means, not an end. By requiring greater sacrifices of domestic power, the end is sacrificed to the means. Suppose the surrender of all, or nearly all, the domestic powers of legislation were required; the means would there have swallowed up the end. The argument that the compact may be enforced, shows that the Federal predicament changed. The power of the Union not only acts on persons or citizens, but on the faculty of the government, and restrains it in a way which the Constitution nowhere authorizes. This new obligation takes away a right which is expressly "reserved to the people or the States," since it is nowhere granted to the government of the Union. You cannot do indirectly what you cannot do directly. It is said that this Union is competent to make compacts. Who doubts it? But can you make this compact? I insist that you cannot make it, because it is repugnant to the thing to be done. The effect of such a compact would be to produce that inequality in the Union, to which the Constitution, in all its provisions, is adverse. Everything in it looks to equality among the members of the Union. Under it you cannot produce inequality. Nor can you get before-hand of the Constitution, and do it by anticipation. Wait until a State is in the Union, and you cannot do it; yet it is only upon the State in the Union that what you do begins to act.