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I call your attention, next, sir, to the fact that this message presents unfairly the relative structures and characters of the Federal Union and of the States. The President says:

"Are we not too prone to target that the Federal Union is the creature of the States, and not they of the Federal Union?"

And again he says that

"The independent and sovereign States united themselves for certain specified objects and purposes, and for those only."

Thereby implying that the States are still entirely sovereign, while the Federal Government is a mere Confederation, and not equally sovereign within its sphere. Now, no one ever thought that the States were creatures of the Federal Union; but it is equally true, in my judgment, that the Federal Union is not the creature of the States. Both are States connected with and yet independent of each other. Each of them was established directly by the people -- the several State governments by the people of the States, respectively, and the Federal Union by the people of all the States. Each is shorn of some attributes of sovereignty, and each is supreme within its sphere.

Once more: the message is unfair in drawing into the discussion and discussing a question whether a power to pass the bill can be derived from the eighth section of the Constitution, which gives Congress the authority "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and welfare of the United States." No member of Congress has advocated that principle since this bill was inaugurated, half a dozen years ago. The principle is obsolete, if it ever had advocates. No statesman has advocated it, in or out of Congress, for a period of forty years.

While, therefore, the President's expositions of that subject may serve to raise prejudices against the bill, it is quite certain that they are altogether foreign from consideration of its merits.

If it shall seem to you, Mr. President, that the criticisms I have offered might have been spared, I hope it will be a sufficient defense to say that those criticisms dispose of two thirds of the entire message of the President, and leave only two or three points in the whole case to be examined. In the manner I have described, the President reaches at last the principal question, viz: whether Congress has power to pass this bill by virtue of the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution, which is as follows:

"The Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting, the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State."

The President denies that this section contains the power claimed by Congress. Now, it is apparent, first, that the land appropriated by the bill is a part of "the territory or other property of the United States;" and, secondly, that the term "to dispose of" includes any way and every way by which Congress can divest the United States of those lands, whether by sales to States or individuals, or by gifts to States or individuals.

The bill apportions and bestows the lands among and upon the States, and is therefore constitutional, unless it can be shown that the absolute power contained in that section is limited by some other provision of the Constitution, which inhibits the proposed disposal of them. The President says that there is such an inhibition, and he finds it in the last clause of the section collated with the sixth article, which is as follows, to wit:

"All debts contracted, and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States as under the Confederation."

The President brings into this connection also a provision contained in the deed by which Virginia ceded her share of the public domain of the United States, to wit:

"All the lands within the territory acceded to the United States, and not reserved for, or appropriated to, any of the beforementioned purposes, or disposed of in bounties to the officers and soldiers of the American Army, shall be considered a common fund for the use and benefit of such of the United States as have become or shall become members of the Confederation or Federal Alliance of the said State, Virginia included, according to their usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure, and shall be faithfully and bona fide disposed of for that purpose, and for no other purpose whatever."

The President adds:

"Here the object for which those lands are to be disposed of are clearly set forth."

And he adds that

"The provisions recited not only contain no implication in favor of the contemplated grant, but furnish the strongest authority against it."

I proceed to examine this argument, and remark, first, that the words quoted from the third section of the fourth article of the Constitution, viz: "And nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State," have no application here.