Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
The public good fully coincides in both cases with the claims of
individuals. The States cannot separately make effectual provisions for
either of the cases, and most of them have anticipated the decision of
this point, by laws passed at the instance of Congress. 2. “To exercise
exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not
exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States and
the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the
United States; and to exercise like authority over all places purchased
by the consent of the legislatures of the States in which the same
shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards,
and other needful buildings. “The indispensable necessity of complete
authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it.
It is a power exercised by every legislature of the Union, I might say
of the world, by virtue of its general supremacy. Without it, not only
the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings interrupted
with impunity; but a dependence of the members of the general
government on the State comprehending the seat of the government, for
protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national
councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the
government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy.
This consideration has the more weight, as the gradual accumulation of
public improvements at the stationary residence of the government would
be both too great a public pledge to be left in the hands of a single
State, and would create so many obstacles to a removal of the
government, as still further to abridge its necessary independence. The
extent of this federal district is sufficiently circumscribed to
satisfy every jealousy of an opposite nature. And as it is to be
appropriated to this use with the consent of the State ceding it; as
the State will no doubt provide in the compact for the rights and the
consent of the citizens inhabiting it; as the inhabitants will find
sufficient inducements of interest to become willing parties to the
cession; as they will have had their voice in the election of the
government which is to exercise authority over them; as a municipal
legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will
of course be allowed them; and as the authority of the legislature of
the State, and of the inhabitants of the ceded part of it, to concur in
the cession, will be derived from the whole people of the State in
their adoption of the Constitution, every imaginable objection seems to
be obviated. The necessity of a like authority over forts, magazines,
etc., established by the general government, is not less evident. The
public money expended on such places, and the public property deposited
in them, requires that they should be exempt from the authority of the
particular State. Nor would it be proper for the places on which the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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