And as the powers of legislation, granted in the
Constitution of the United States to Congress, do not embrace a
case of the admission of a foreign state or foreign territory,
by legislation, into the Union, such an act of admission _would
have no binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts_.
"3. _Resolved_, That the power, _never having been granted by
the people of Massachusetts_, to admit into the Union States and
Territories not within the same when the Constitution was
adopted, _remains with the people, and can only be exercised in
such way and manner as the people shall hereafter designate and
appoint_."[107]
To these stanch declarations of principles--with regard to which
(leaving out of consideration the particular occasion that called them
forth) my only doubt would be whether they do not express too decided a
doctrine of nullification--may be added the avowal of one of the most
distinguished sons of Massachusetts, John Quincy Adams, in his discourse
before the New York Historical Society, in 1839:
"Nations" (says Mr. Adams) "acknowledge no judge between them
upon earth; and their governments, from necessity, must, in
their intercourse with each other, decide when the failure of
one party to a contract to perform its obligations absolves the
other from the reciprocal fulfillment of its own. But this last
of earthly powers is not necessary to the freedom or
independence of States connected together by the immediate
action of the people of whom they consist.
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