[Clause 3.] "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into anotner, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due."

§ 550. No such provision as the above was contained in the Articles of Confederation, and the want of it was considered to be a great inconvenience, especially by the States containing a numerous slave population. The preceding clause relates to fugitives from justice; the present clause relates to fugitives from service or labour.

§ 551. Under this clause the citizens of a slave-holding State are allowed to reclaim their slaves when they escape into other States. So it has been held in some cases, that masters may reclaim apprentices. Fugitives from service or from labour, are not, in consequence of any laws of the State into which they have fled, to be freed from such service or labour, but are to be delivered up on claim of the party entitled to their service or labour.

§ 552. By the general law of nations it seems that no nation is bound to recognise the condition of slavery, with respect to foreign slaves found within its territory, in opposition to its own policy and institutions. Without this clause of the Constitution, the States in which slavery does not exist, might, perhaps, have declared free, all slaves coming within their borders, and thus protected them against the claim of their masters, which at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, when there were slaves in all the States, would have been deemed great injustice.

SECTION. 3. [Clause 1.] "New States may be admitted

by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress."

§ 553. Congress, by this clause, has power to admit new States into the Union. At the adoption of the Constitution the number of original States was thirteen; since then, the power to admit new States has been exercised in the admission of eighteen new States, so that the number of States now is thirty-one.

California, the last of the new States, was admitted into the Union, September 9, 1850.

§ 554. Inasmuch as the United States guarantee to every State a republican form of government, the people asking to be admitted as a new State, have, in practice, been required, before their admission, to submit to Congress a draft of their proposed State Constitution, in order that it may be ascertained whether it is of a republican character. When any of the territories of the United States become sufficiently populous to elect a representative in Congress, they are erected into States, and admitted into the Union as such, on an equal footing with the original States.

$555. Congress has not only admitted new States into the Union by virtue of this clause, but it has exercised the right to acquire additional territory by purchase, and by cession or grant.

§ 556. The latter part of the clause was intended to quiet the fears which the large States might entertain, of having their territory divided, so as to form other States, without their assent; and also to allay the apprehensions

which the small States might feel, of being merged into adjoining States, or of being united so as to compose larger States. No new States have as yet been formed by the junction of the whole, or of parts, of other States; but States have been admitted into the Union since the adoption of the Constitution, which have been formed from the territory of other States.

[Clause 2.] "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."

§ 557. This clause gives to Congress. the right to dispose of, and to regulate, the territory or other public property belonging to the United States. The care of the public property which belongs to all the people of the Union, is entrusted to Congress, because it represents all the people. § 558. The title of the United States to the public land may be said to be derived from three sources:

(1.) Treaties with foreign nations, as far as they relate to the acquisition of territory or to the boundaries of the United States.

By the treaty with Great Britain in 1783, certain boundaries of the United States were defined, within which the title of the United States was recognised. By the treaty with France, April 30, 1803, the Territories of Orleans and Louisiana were acquired by the United States, which included the portion of the States of Alabama and Mississippi, south of the thirty-first degree of latitude; the whole of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and

that portion of Minnesota west of the Mississippi river, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oregon. The territory forming the State of Florida was ceded by Spain to the United States, by treaty of February 22d, 1819. California, Utah, and New Mexico, are formed out of territory ceded to the United States by Mexico, by a treaty concluded at Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2d, 1848.

§ 559. (2.) Cessions of territory to the United States by the individual States.

The States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and that part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi river, have been formed out of the North-western Territory, which was ceded and relinquished to the United States, under certain restrictions, by New York, March 1, 1781; by Virginia, March 1, 1784; by Massachusetts, April 19, 1785, and by Connecticut, September 14, 1786.

§ 560. While the Articles of Confederation were pending for adoption, several of the States refused to ratify them, unless those States which had claims to the extensive tract of country lying westward of the frontiers of the United States, and extending to, and beyond the Mississippi river, would abandon their claims in favour of the United States. That region, it was contended, being unsettled at the commencement of the Revolutionary war, was won from England, and from the native Indians, by the blood and treasure of all the States, and should therefore be a common property, to be granted out on terms beneficial to the United States.

§ 561. This subject created the most serious hindrance to the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. Congress on the 6th of September, 1780, earnestly recommended to those States who had claims to the western country, to pass such laws, and give their delegates in Congress

such power, as would effectually remove this, the only obstacle to a final ratification of the Articles of Confederation.

§ 562. On the 10th of October, 1780, Congress resolved that the unappropriated lands that may be ceded or relinquished to the United States by any particular State, should be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States, and be settled and formed into distinct republican States, to become members of the Federal Union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, as other States; also that the expenses incurred by any State since the commencement of the war, in subduing any British posts, or in maintaining forts or garrisons, for the defence or acquisition of any part of the territory thus ceded or relinquished to the United States, should be reimbursed.

§ 563. It was in pursuance of this resolution that the cessions above mentioned were made by the States. Other cessions of territory were also made by South Carolina in 1787, North Carolina in 1790, and Georgia in 1802, forming parts of the States of Mississippi and Alabama.

(3.) Treaties with the Indians, so far as they relate to the extinguishment of the Indian title to the public lands. Although the United States, in consequence of the treaties and cessions above referred to, own the soil of, and exercise jurisdiction over, the lands inhabited by the Indians, yet it has been conceded that the Indians have a right of occupancy, or a possessory right, as natives. This right of occupancy, or of possession, has been, from time to time, extinguished or purchased by the United States, by treaties made with the Indian tribes.

§ 564. It is under this clause of the Constitution that Congress exercises the power to dispose of the public lands by sale or grant. All public lands, before being offered for