senators tell us, Maryland and Virginia did verily travail with such
abounding _faith_, why brought they forth no _works_?

It is as true in legislation as in religion, that the only evidence of
"faith" is works, and that "faith" _without_ works is _dead_, i.e. has
no _power_. But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing
_expressed_, an "implied" faith without works, is omnipotent! Mr. Clay
is lawyer enough to know that Maryland and Virginia notions of
constitutional power, _abrogate no grant_, and that to plead them in a
court of law, would be of small service, except to jostle "their
Honors'" gravity! He need not be told that the Constitution gives
Congress "power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever over such District;" nor that Maryland and Virginia
constructed their acts of cession with this clause _before their eyes_,
and declared those acts made "in _pursuance_" of it. Those states knew
that the U.S. Constitution had left nothing to be "_implied_" as to the
power of Congress over the District; an admonition quite sufficient, one
would think, to put them on their guard, and lead them to eschew vague
implications, and to resort to _stipulations_. They knew, moreover, that
those were times when, in matters of high import, _nothing_ was left to
be "implied." The colonies were then panting from a twenty years'
conflict with the mother country, about bills of rights, charters,
treaties, constitutions, grants, limitations, and _acts of cession_. The
severities of a long and terrible discipline had taught them to guard at
all points _legislative grants_, that their exact import and limit might
be self-evident--leaving no scope for a blind "faith" that _somehow_ in
the lottery of chances, every ticket would turn up a prize. Toil,
suffering, blood, and treasure outpoured like water over a whole
generation, counselled them to make all sure by the use of explicit
terms, and well chosen words, and just enough of them. The Constitution