Debates in the Several State Conventions/Volume 4/Missouri
Missouri Question.
House of Representatives, December 13, 1821.
Mr. LOWNDES. The Constitution gives to Congress the power to admit states in the broadest terms. The high privileges which it is authorized to impart may commence instantly, and extend through all future time. When the convenience of a territory required that it should become a member of the Union at a future day, what principle of the Constitution was opposed to this prospective admission? Congress may raise armies: has any man ever suspected that this power could not be executed by giving a prospective, and even a contingent authority? Congress may lay taxes: may they not be limited to take effect some time after the passage of the law? Congress may institute inferior courts: would such an act be void, because its operation was to commence from a future day? void because it was not inconvenient and absurd? Run your eye along the whole list of powers which are given to the federal legislature, and you will find no countenance for the doctrine which would require that, at the very moment when their will is pronounced, the object which they are empowered to effect should be instantly executed. The power of making treaties, too, although given to another depository, is supposed to be pursued, although the convention with a foreign state may take effect from a future day. There is nothing plausible in the assertion which denies to Congress the power of admitting states by an act which shall not go into operation for some time after its passage. The house would see, in his subsequent observations, the importance of determining whether Congress had the constitutional right of admitting states by a prospective law. He need not say that this question of right was distinct from that of expediency.