the face of every grant under which the title to that portion of the
public land is held by the Federal Government?

In the apportionment of the remaining seven-eighths of the proceeds this
bill, in a manner equally undisguised, violates the conditions upon
which the United States acquired title to the ceded lands. Abandoning
altogether the ratio of distribution according to the general charge and
expenditure provided by the compacts, it adopts that of the Federal
representative population. Virginia and other States which ceded their
lands upon the express condition that they should receive a benefit from
their sales in proportion to their part of the general charge are by the
bill allowed only a portion of seven-eighths of their proceeds, and that
not in the proportion of general charge and expenditure, but in the
ratio of their Federal representative population.

The Constitution of the United States did not delegate to Congress the
power to abrogate these compacts. On the contrary, by declaring that
nothing in it "_shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the
United States or of any particular State_," it virtually provides that
these compacts and the rights they secure shall remain untouched by
the legislative power, which shall only make all "_needful rules and
regulations_" for carrying them into effect. All beyond this would seem
to be an assumption of undelegated power.

These ancient compacts are invaluable monuments of an age of virtue,
patriotism, and disinterestedness. They exhibit the price that great
States which had won liberty were willing to pay for that union without
which they plainly saw it could not be preserved. It was not for
territory or state power that our Revolutionary fathers took up arms;
it was for individual liberty and the right of self-government. The