The Federalists immediately objected that the powers conferred on the President by this bill were unconstitutional. The Republicans replied, in effect, that the Constitution was made for States, not for territories. Rodney explained the whole intent of his party in advocating the bill: “It shows that Congress have a power in the territories which they cannot exercise in the States, and that the limitations of power found in the Constitution are applicable to States and not to territories.”[82] John Randolph defended the assumption of power on the ground of necessity, and maintained that the government of the United States, with respect to this territory, possessed the powers of European sovereignty: “Gentlemen will see the necessity of the United States taking possession of this country in the capacity of sovereigns, in the same extent as that of the existing government of the province.” The Bill passed Congress by a party vote, and was approved by Jefferson, October 31,[83] without delay. The Act of October 31 was a temporary measure rather for taking possession of the territory than for governing it. Four weeks later, Senator Breckenridge moved for a committee to prepare a territorial form of government for Louisiana. Two senators of the State-rights school,--Jackson and Baldwin of Georgia,--besides Breckenridge and J. Q. Adams, were appointed on this committee; and they reported, December 30, a Bill that settled the principle on which the new territory should be governed. Breckenridge’s Bill divided the purchased country at the 33d parallel, the line which afterward divided the State of Arkansas from the State of Louisiana. The country north of that line was named the District of Louisiana, and, after some dispute, was subjected to the territorial government of the Indiana Territory, consisting of a governor, secretary, and judges without a legislature, all controlled by the Ordinance of 1787. This arrangement implied that Congress considered the new territory as assimilated to the old, and “disposed of” it by the same constitutional power. The northern district contained few white inhabitants, and its administrative arrangements chiefly concerned Indians; but the southern district, which received the name “Territory of Orleans,” included an old and established society, numbering fifty thousand persons. The territory of Ohio numbered only forty-five thousand persons by the census of 1800, while the States of Delaware and Rhode Island contained less than seventy thousand. The treaty guaranteed that “the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the mean time they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess.”