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ceding, surrender to the States receiving, not to a general
government, distinct in its capacities and powers, or to a
congress, but to the States, for their use as States; free,
sovereign and independent communities, not as particles of
one blended mass. Had the surrenders been otherwise
made, there would have been no necessity for specifically
including the State ceding within the express terms of
cession: for the cession to a general power, having control
over the whole, would, without specific enumeration, have
included all. Then, whether we consider the claims of
those States not possessing within their limits any portion
of the public territory, as originating in conquest, confirm-
ed by treaty with Great Britain, or resulting from the ces-
sions of the States possessing it, the same conclusion is
necessarily reached, that the claims exist in the. States, as
such, and not in the General Government; and that unless
after or during the formation of the federal constitution,
the States parted with all these acquired rights to the Gen-
eral Government, they remain still residing in the States,
subject to the action of their common agent.
In this view of the subject, your committee cannot ac-
knowledge either of the positions assumed by His Excel-
lency: first, the cessions and acceptance of the public
lands "formed a compact between the General Govern-
ment and the States; " secondly, that by this means "all
the States secure the benefit of having a common fund
provided for discharging the debts and defraying the ex-
penses of the General Government. " Still less are we
convinced of the accuracy of another argument of His
Excellency, "that the States evidently intended that the
territory, and the revenue arising from it, should be surren-
dered to the United States, as a common fund, tor paying
the general charge and expenditure; or, in other words,
for paying the debts and defraying the expenses of the
General Government. " Apart from the (act previously
urged by your committee, that the cessions were from
States to States, for their use and benefit, and that as no gen-
eral government, properly so called, existed at the period
to constitute a distinct, deliberate party to the supposed
"compact, " there could have been no such compact as His
Excellency argues upon. Your committee would observe,
that the claims of the several States (not possessing within
their limits the territory) to these lands, were based, not
upon the duty of the Congress to provide a general fund
for ordinary expenses of government, but upon the assump-
tion of an absolute right, on the part of all the States, to
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