rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." But it goes on, and provides that "nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or any particular state." Is this a claim of the particular state of Virginia? If it be, there is no authority in the Constitution to prejudice it. If it be not, then we need not be told of it. This is a sufficient limitation and restraint. But it has been said that there is no restriction with respect to making treaties. The various contingencies which may form the object of treaties, are, in the nature of things, incapable of definition. The government ought to have power to provide for every contingency. The territorial rights of the states are sufficiently guarded by the provisions just recited. If you say that, notwithstanding the most express restriction, they may sacrifice the rights of the states, then you establish another doctrine—that the creature can destroy the creator, which is the most absurd and ridiculous of all doctrines.
The honorable gentleman has warned us from taking rash measures that may endanger the rights of that country. Sir, if this navigation be given up, the country adjacent will also be given up to Spain; for the possession of the one must be inseparable from that of the other. Will not this be a sufficient check on the general government? This you will admit to be true, unless you carry your suspicion to such an unlimited length as to imagine that they will, among their iniquitous acts, destroy and dismember the Union. As to the objection of my friend over the way, (Mr. Monroe,) that so few states could by treaty yield that navigation, it has been sufficiently answered, and its futility fully detected, by the gentleman who spoke last.
Another mistake, which my friend over the way has committed, is, that the temporary forbearance of the use of the Mississippi might lead to the absolute cession of the Chesapeake. The gentleman has a mind to make up his climax of imaginary objections, or he never would have suffered such an idea to obtrude on his mind. Were the Mississippi, as he says, in danger of being ceded,—which I deny,—yet it could not be a precedent for the relinquishment of the Chesapeake. It never can be put in such a jeopardy. All the Atlantic states will oppose a measure of this sort, lest it should destroy their commerce.
