in the Executive, the Legislative, and Judicial Departments, and the manner in which they shall be respectively constituted—securing to the President, with the consent of the Senate, the appointment of the governor, the secretary, and the judges, and to the people the election of the legislature—ordaining the qualifications of voters, the salaries of the public officers, and the daily compensation of the members of the legislature. Surely, if Congress may establish these provisions, without any interference with the rights of territorial sovereignty, it is absurd to say that it may not also prohibit slavery.
But there is in the very bill an express prohibition on the Territory, borrowed from the Ordinance of 1787, and repeated in every act organizing a Territory, or even a new State, down to the present time, wherein it is expressly declared, that "no tax shall be imposed upon the property of the United States." Now, here is a clear and unquestionable restraint upon the sovereignty of Territories and States. The public lands of the United States, situated within an organized Territory or State, cannot be regarded as the instruments and means necessary and proper to execute the sovereign powers of the nation, like fortifications, arsenals, and navy yards. They are strictly in the nature of private property of the nation, and as such, unless exempted by the foregoing prohibition, would clearly be within the field of local taxation, liable, like the lands of other
