contain a suitable extent of territory, not less than one hundred, nor more than one hundred and fifty miles square; the necessary expenses incurred by any State in acquiring the territory ceded, were to be reimbursed; and the lands were to be granted or settled at such times, and under such regulations, as should thereafter be agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled, or any nine or more of them.[305] The cessions were made under the guaranties of this resolve. Strictly speaking, there was no express constitutional power under which Congress could thus act, either before or after the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. Before that period, if the United States could acquire and hold lands, for any purpose, it could only be by the common attribute of sovereignty belonging to every government. Perhaps this power existed, by implication, in the revolutionary government; but the compact which was to constitute the new government contained no authority for the establishment of new States within the limits of the Union. But when, aside from the Articles of Confederation, and before they had been adopted, the Revolutionary Congress undertook, in 1780, to hold out these inducements to the States, as motives for their adoption of that instrument, and these motives were acted upon and the cessions made, it must be taken that the territory came rightfully into the possession of the United States. Whether the adoption of the Articles, containing no power for the government of such territories, or for the admission of new States into the Union, did not place the new government in a position where, if it acted at all, it would act beyond the scope of its constitutional authority, certainly admitted of grave question.[306] But the acquisition of the territory itself rested upon acts, which were so directly and expressly connected with the establishment of the new Union under the Confederation, as to make the acquisition itself part of the fundamental conditions of that Union, and the principal guaranty of its continuance. Among the declared purposes for which these acquisitions were made, was that of forming them into new States, to be admitted into the Union; and as all the States acquiesced in and embraced this purpose, they may be said to have conferred upon Congress an implied power to legislate to carry it into effect. Still, the want of an express authority in the Articles thus to deal with acquired territory was afterwards felt and insisted upon, as the Confederation drew towards the close of its career.[307]