It is as true in legislation as in religion, that the only evidence of "faith" is works, and that "faith" _without_ works is _dead_, i.e. has no _power_. But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing _expressed_, an "implied" faith without works, is omnipotent! Mr. Clay is lawyer enough to know that Maryland and Virginia notions of constitutional power, _abrogate no grant_, and that to plead them in a court of law, would be of small service, except to jostle "their Honors'" gravity! He need not be told that the Constitution gives Congress "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District;" nor that Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with this clause _before their eyes_, and declared those acts made "in _pursuance_" of it. Those states knew that the U.S. Constitution had left nothing to be "_implied_" as to the power of Congress over the District; an admonition quite sufficient, one would think, to put them on their guard, and lead them to eschew vague implications, and to resort to _stipulations_. They knew, moreover, that those were times when, in matters of high import, _nothing_ was left to be "implied." The colonies were then panting from a twenty years' conflict with the mother country, about bills of rights, charters, treaties, constitutions, grants, limitations, and _acts of cession_. The severities of a long and terrible discipline had taught them to guard at all points _legislative grants_, that their exact import and limit might be self-evident--leaving no scope for a blind "faith" that _somehow_ in the lottery of chances, every ticket would turn up a prize. Toil, suffering, blood, and treasure outpoured like water over a whole generation, counselled them to make all sure by the use of explicit terms, and well chosen words, and just enough of them. The Constitution of the United States, with its amendments, those of the individual states, the national treaties, and the public documents of the general and state governments at that period, show the universal conviction of legislative bodies, that nothing should be left to be "implied," when great public interests were at stake.