The debate upon this motion is not fully reported in the annals of Congress, but it is sufficiently reported to give a correct idea of the constitutional questions involved. The discussion proceeded from the two points of view of constitutional powers and public policy. Of course the first point for the restrictionists, as those who favored the amendment were termed, to establish was the constitutionality of the power of Congress to impose this restriction in erecting a Territory into a Commonwealth. If Congress has, or had, no such power, the question of policy need not have been considered. They claimed the power, and based it upon that paragraph of Article IV. section three, which reads: "New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." It will be readily seen that this is a very loose statement concerning the powers of Congress in establishing this most fundamental relation. Taken apart from all connections, its most natural meaning is that foreign states may become politically joined with the United States by an Act of Congress, in so far as this country is concerned. On the other hand, taken with the context, it appears to mean that Congress may establish Commonwealth governments, or, in the language {68} of the Constitution, "States," upon the territory belonging to the United States, or to some "State" or "States" already within the Union. This is, without any reasonable doubt, its only meaning. For if it had any reference to the connection of foreign states with the United States, it would confer the most important diplomatic power of the United States Government upon the Congress, while the Constitution certainly confers the whole of this class of powers upon the President and the Senate. [Sidenote: The exact question at issue in the first debate on the Missouri question.] This was not, however, the point at issue in the Missouri question. That point was, whether, in the creation of new Commonwealths by Congress upon territory already within the Union, and subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the general Government, Congress had the constitutional power to impose restrictions upon the new Commonwealths thus created, which the Constitution did not impose upon the original Commonwealths. The restrictionists, led by Mr. Tallmadge and Mr. Taylor, of New York, and Mr. Fuller, of Massachusetts, contended that Congress possessed this power. Their argument, reduced to a pair of propositions, was, that the Constitution did not _require_ Congress to "admit new States into this Union," but only _empowered_ Congress to do so at its discretion; that therefore Congress could _refuse_ to admit at its discretion, and that if Congress could admit or refuse to admit at its own discretion, it could admit upon conditions, upon such conditions as it might deem wise to impose, and could make the continued existence of the new Commonwealth, as a Commonwealth, depend upon the continued observance by it of these conditions.