Mr. TAYLOR.--There have been, Mr. President, two objections made against the treaty; one that the United States cannot constitutionally acquire territory; the other, that the treaty stipulates for the admission of a new State into the Union; a stipulation which the treaty-making power is unable to comply with. To these objections I shall endeavor to give answers not heretofore urged.
Before a confederation, each State in the Union possessed a right, as attached to sovereignty, of acquiring territory, by war, purchase, or treaty. This right must be either still possessed, or forbidden both to each State and to the General Government, or transferred to the General Government. It is not possessed by the States separately, because war and compacts with foreign powers and with each other are prohibited to a separate State; and no other means of acquiring territory exist. By depriving every State of the means of exercising the right of acquiring territory, the constitution has deprived each separate State of the right itself. Neither the means nor the right of acquiring territory are forbidden to the United States; on the contrary, in the fourth article of the constitution, Congress is empowered “to dispose of and regulate the territory belonging to the United States.” This recognizes the right of the United States to hold territory. The means of acquiring territory consist of war and compact; both are expressly surrendered to Congress and forbidden to the several States; and no right in a separate State to hold territory without its limits is recognized by the constitution, nor any mode of effecting it possible, consistent with it. The means of acquiring and the right of holding territory, being both given to the United States, and prohibited to each State, it follows that these attributes of sovereignty once held by each State are thus transferred to the United States; and that, if the means of acquiring and the right of holding, are equivalent to the right of acquiring territory, then this right merged from the separate States to the United States, as indispensably annexed to the treaty-making power, and the power of making war; or, indeed, is literally given to the General Government by the constitution.