While, therefore, in the formal instrument under which the Congress was organized, and by which the United States became a corporate body, there was no article which looked to the admission of new States into that body, formed out of territory thus acquired, and no power was conferred to dispose of such lands or govern such territory, there were, outside of that instrument, and closely collateral to it, certain great compacts between the States, arising out of deeds of cession and the formal guaranties by which those cessions had been invited, and with which they had been received, which proceeded as if there were a competent authority in the United States in Congress to provide for the formation of the States contemplated, and for their admission into the Union. Strictly speaking, however, there was no such authority. It was to be gathered, if at all, from public acts and general acquiescence, and could not be found in the instrument that formed the charter and established the powers of the Congress. It was an authority, therefore, liable to be doubted and denied; it was one for the exercise of which the Congress was neither well fitted nor well situated; and it was moreover so delicate, so extensive, and so different from all the other powers and duties of the government, as to make it eminently necessary to have it expressly stated and conferred in the instrument under which all the other functions of the government were to be exercised.[280] Such was the state of things at the period of the formation of the Constitution; and as we are to look for the germ of every power embraced in that instrument in some stage of the proceedings which took place in the course of its preparation, it is important at once to resort to the first suggestion of any authority over these subjects. In doing so, we are to remember that the United States had accepted cessions of the Northwestern Territory, impressed with two distinct trusts: first, that the country should be settled and formed into distinct republican States, which should be admitted into the Union; secondly, that the lands should be disposed of for the common benefit of all the States.[281]