To secure to the Government of the United States forever the power to
execute these compacts in good faith the Congress of the Confederation,
as early as July 13, 1787, in an ordinance for the government of the
territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, prescribed
to the people inhabiting the Western territory certain conditions which
were declared to be "articles of compact between the original States and
the people and States in the said territory," which should "forever
remain unalterable, unless by common consent." In one of these articles
it is declared that--


The legislatures of those districts, or new States, shall never
interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States in
Congress assembled, nor with any regulations Congress may find necessary
for securing the title in such soil to the _bona fide purchasers_.


This condition has been exacted from the people of all the new
territories, and to put its obligation beyond dispute each new State
carved out of the public domain has been required explicitly to
recognize it as one of the conditions of admission into the Union. Some
of them have declared through their conventions in separate acts that
their people "forever disclaim all right and title to the waste and
unappropriated lands lying within this State, and that the same shall
be and remain at the sole and entire disposition of the United States."

With such care have the United States reserved to themselves, in all
their acts down to this day, in legislating for the Territories and