or cession of sovereignty as to a mere transfer of
rights of property is altogether erroneous.

 Observe, again, the inconsistency of this
argument. It considers, on the one hand, that so
vital is the question of incorporation that no alien
territory may be acquired by a cession without
absolutely endowing the territory with incorporation
and the inhabitants with resulting citizenship,
because, under our system of government, the
assumption that a territory and its inhabitants may
be held by any other title than one incorporating is
impossible to be thought of. And yet, to avoid the
evil consequences which must follow from
accepting this proposition, the argument is that all
citizenship of the United States is precarious and
fleeting, subject to be sold at any moment like any
other property. That is to say, to protect a newly
acquired people in their presumed rights, it is
essential to degrade the whole body of American
citizenship.

 The reasoning which has sometimes been
 indulged in by those who asserted that the
 Constitution was not at all operative in the territories
 is that, as they were acquired by purchase, the right
 to buy included the right to sell. This has been met
 by the proposition that if the country purchased
 and its inhabitants became incorporated into the
 United States, it came under the shelter of the
 Constitution, and no power existed to sell American
 citizens. In conformity to the principles which I have
 admitted it is impossible for me to say at one and
 the same time that territory is an integral part of the
 United States protected by the Constitution, and
 yet the safeguards, privileges, rights, and
 immunities which a rise from this situation are so
 ephemeral in their character that by a mere act of
 sale they may be destroyed. And applying this
 reasoning to the provisions of the treaty under
 consideration, to me it seems indubitable that if the
 treaty with Spain incorporated all the territory ceded
 into the United States, it resulted that the millions of
 people to whom that treaty related were, without
 the consent of the American people as expressed
 by Congress, and without any hope of relief,
 indissolubly made a part of our common country.

 Undoubtedly, the thought that under the
 Constitution power to dispose of people and
 territory, and thus to annihilate the rights of
 American citizens, was contrary to the conceptions
 of the Constitution entertained by Washington and
 Jefferson. In the written suggestions of Mr.


Jefferson, when Secretary of State, reported to
President Washington in March, 1792, on the
subject of proposed negotiations between the
United States and Spain, which were intended to
be communicated by way of instruction to the
commissioners of the United States appointed to
manage such negotiations, it was observed, in
discussing the possibility as to compensation being
demanded by Spain "for the ascertainment of our
right" to navigate the lower part of the Mississippi,
as follows:

 "We have nothing else" (than a relinquishment
of certain claims on Spain) "to give in exchange. For
as to territory, we have neither the right nor the
disposition to alienate an inch of what belongs to
any member of our Union. Such a proposition
therefore is totally inadmissible, and not to be
treated for a moment." Ford's Writings of Jefferson,
vol. 5, p. 476.

 The rough draft of these observations was
 submitted to Mr. Hamilton, then Secretary of the
 Treasury, for suggestions, previously to sending it
 to the President, some time before March 5, and
 Hamilton made the following (among other) notes
 upon it:

 "Page 25. Is it true that the United States have
 no right to alienate an inch of the territory in
 question, except in the case of necessity intimated
 in another place? Or will it be useful to avow the
 denial of such a right? It is apprehended that the
 doctrine which restricts the alienation of territory to
 cases of extreme necessity is applicable rather to
 peopled territory than to waste and uninhabited
 districts. Positions restraining the right of the
 United States to accommodate to exigencies which
 may arise ought ever to be advanced with great
 caution." Ford's Writings of Jefferson, vol. 5, p.
 443.

 Respecting his note, Mr. Jefferson
 commented as follows:

 "The power to alienate the unpeopled
 territories of any state is not among the
 enumerated powers given by the Constitution to
 the general government, and if we may go out of
 that instrument and accommodate to exigencies
 which may arise by alienating the unpeopled
 territory of a state, we may accommodate ourselves
 a little more by alienating that which is peopled, and
 still a little more by selling the people themselves. A