Accordingly, we find in the plan of government presented by Governor Randolph at the opening of the Convention, a resolution declaring "that provision ought to be made for the admission of States lawfully arising within the limits of the United States, whether from a voluntary junction of government and territory or otherwise, with the consent of a number of voices in the national legislature less than the whole."[282] This resolution remained the same in phraseology and in purpose through all the stages to which the several propositions that formed the outline of the new government were subjected, down to the time when they were sent to the committee of detail for the purpose of having the Constitution drawn out. Looking to the manifest want of power in the Confederation to admit new States into the Union; to the probability that Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee (then called Franklin), and Maine,--none of which were embraced in any cessions that had then been made to the United States,--might become separate States; and to the prospective legislation of the Ordinance of 1787 concerning the admission of States that were to be formed in the territory northwest of the Ohio, which had been ceded to the Union;--it seems quite certain that the purpose of the resolution was to supply a power to admit new States, whether formed from the territory of one of the existing States, or from territory that had become the exclusive property of the United States. The resolution contained, however, no positive restriction, which would require the assent of any existing State to the separation of a part of its territory; but as the States to be admitted were to be those "lawfully arising," it is apparent that the original intention was that no present State should be dismembered without its consent. But in order to make this the more certain, the committee of detail, in the article in which they carried out the resolution, gave effect to its provisions in these words:--"New States lawfully constituted or established within the limits of the United States may be admitted, by the legislature, into this government; but to such admission the consent of two thirds of the members present in each house shall be necessary. If a new State shall arise within the limits of any of the present States, the consent of the legislatures of such States shall be also necessary to its admission. If the admission be consented to, the new States shall be admitted on the same terms with the original States. But the legislature may make conditions with the new States concerning the public debt which shall be then subsisting."[283]