Mr. Chesnut read from the "Opinions of the Attorneys-General," vol. vii,
page 575:
"The Supreme Court has determined that the United States never held any
municipal sovereignty, jurisdiction, or right of soil in the territory
of which any of the new States have been formed, except for temporary
purposes, and to execute the trusts created by the deeds of cession....
"By the force of the same principle, and in the same line of
adjudications, the Supreme Court would have had to decide that the
provision of the act of March 6, 1820, which undertakes to determine in
advance the municipal law of all that portion of the original province
of Louisiana which lies north of the parallel 36 deg. 30' north latitude,
was null and void _ab incepto_, if it had not been repealed by a recent
act of Congress. (Compare iv, Statutes at Large, p. 848, and x, Statutes
at Large, p. 289.) For an act of Congress which pretends of right, and
without consent or compact, to impose on the municipal power of any new
State or States limitations and restrictions not imposed on all, is
contrary to the fundamental condition of the Confederation, according to
which there is to be equality of right between the old and new States
'in all respects whatsoever.'"
Mr. Davis: It was not long after this official opinion of the
Attorney-General before the case arose on which the decision was made
which has so agitated the country.
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