[293] The cession by South Carolina of all its "right, title, interest, jurisdiction, and claim" to the "territory or tract of country" lying, within certain northern and southern limits, between the western boundary of that State and the river Mississippi, was in fact made and accepted in Congress, August 9-10, 1787, twenty days before the territorial clause was finally settled in the Convention, which took place August 30. (Journals of the Old Congress, XII. 129-139. Madison, Elliot, V. 494-497.) On the 20th of October of the same year, the Congress passed a resolution urging the States of North Carolina and Georgia to cede their Western claims. This request was not complied with until after the Constitution had gone into operation. The cession of North Carolina was made February 25, 1790; that of Georgia, April 24, 1802. [294] It is not my purpose to enter into the argument on this question. I have recently had occasion professionally to maintain that the territorial clause is applicable to all territorial cessions made to the United States, whether by States of the Union or by foreign States, and that it clothes the government with a full legislative power over such territories and their inhabitants, which is subject only to the particular restrictions enumerated in the Constitution. Perhaps it is needless for me to add that I entertain this opinion. But it is rejected by others, and, in the present state of judicial interpretation of this part of the Constitution, by the supreme tribunal, it is not easy to determine what will finally become the settled construction. [295] Constitution, Art. I. § 9, cl. 2. [296] See Elliot, V. 484. The three States were North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. [297] Elliot, V. 462, 463. [298] Elliot, V. 488. [299] Ibid. 467. Constitution, Art. I. § 9, cl. 8. [300] Articles XII., XIII. of the first draft, Elliot, V. 381. [301] Elliot, V. 484, 485. [302] Elliot, V. 484, 485. [303] The Ordinance, which was passed July 13, was published at length in "The Pennsylvania Herald," a newspaper printed at Philadelphia, on the 25th of July (1787). Mr. King's motion was made August 28, and is described by Mr. Madison as a motion "to add, in the words used in the Ordinance of Congress establishing new States, a prohibition on the States to interfere in private contracts." Elliot, V. 485. [304] See the clause of the Ordinance, cited _ante_, Vol. I. p. 452, note 2. [305] Elliot, V. 485, 488, 545, 546. [306] Elliot, V. 479, 484, 486, 502, 538, 539, 540, 545, 548. [307] By a vote of six States against four. Elliot, V. 548. [308] Elliot, V. 548. CHAPTER XII. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF DETAIL, CONTINUED.--SUPREMACY OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.--DEFINITION AND PUNISHMENT OF TREASON.