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tional. This measure is not adopted to aid the revenue of the United States. It is adopted for the purpose of aiding the revenue of the City of Washingfor effecting objects which the revenue of the City should effect, but which the ordinary revenue is unequal to. It is to raise an extraordinary revenue for the City of Washington. Virginia, in which State it has been attempted to raise a part of this extraordinary revenue, has no more interest in the penitentiaries and city halls of Washington than in those of Baltimore.

Our opponents must maintain that this is an act of Congress authorizing the sale of lottery tickets in Virginia For if it is not, the question is at an end. I call upon them to show a power granted to Congress, which the sale of lottery tickets in a State is an appropriate means of executing. Suppose that Congress had passed an act expressly authorizing P. & M. Cohen to vend lottery tickets in Virginia, for the purpose of raising a fund to diminish the taxes laid by the Corporation of Washington on the inhabitants, for their own benefit: would such an act have been constitutional? Which of the enumerated powers of Congress would such an act have been an appropriate means of carrying into effect? Suppose that Congress had considered lotteries as pernicious gambling could they have prohibited the sale of lottery tickets in the States? It will be admitted that they could not. And if they cannot prohibit the sale of tickets in a State, it is contended that they cannot authorize such a sale. Let us suppose that Congress have passed an act authorizing the sale of lottery

tickets in the States, for the purpose of raising money to build a city hall in the City of Washington: Is such an act within the constitutional powers of Congress? Is it a mode of laying and collecting taxes? Or is it a mode of borrowing money? And is it for the purpose of paying the debts or providing for the general welfare of the United States? Should it even be said that this lottery is a tax, or a mode of borrowing money, yet the tax is laid, or the money borrowed, not by and for the United States, but by the Corporation for the City of Washington.

Congress have two kinds or grades of power: (1.) Power to legislate over the States in certain enumerated cases. (2.) Power to legislate over the ten miles square, and the sites of forts and arsenals, in all cases whatsoever. These powers, so very dissimilar, should be kept separate and distinct. The advocates of the Corporation confound them. They pass the act of Congress by the power to legislate over the ten miles square, unlimited as to objects, but confined within the lines of the District, and they extend its operations over the States, by the power to legislate over them, limited as to objects, but co-extensive with the Union. The act incorporating the City of Washington was certainly not passed to carry into execution any power of Congress, other than the power to legislate over the District of Columbia. If the clause conferring power to legislate in all cases over the ten miles square, had been omitted, could Congress establish lotteries? Could an act establishing a lottery be ascribed to any of the specific

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powers,

in the execution of which Congress may legislate over all the States?

If the act authorizing a lottery is justified by the powers which extend to the States, there is no occasion to rest it on the power to legislate in all cases over Columbia. And if it is not justified by the powers which extend to the States, it cannot be justified by that power which, being limited to the District, does not extend to the States. If the act of Congress has effect in Virginia, it is a law over the States, and must have been passed by a power to legislate over the States. Now, a law over the States cannot be passed by a power to legislate over Columbia. But it is. the power to legislate over Columbia that has been exercised. Therefore, no law has been passed over the States. Consequently, no law has been passed having effect in the States. It is, then, by the power to legislate over the ten miles square that the authority to sell lottery tickets in the States must be defended.

The power to legislate over the ten miles square, is strictly confined to its limits, and does not authorize the passage of a law for the sale of lottery tickets in the States." When Congress legislate exclusively for Columbia, they are restrained to objects within the District. An act of Congress, passed by the authority to legislate over the District, cannot be the supreme law in a State; for if, by the power to legislate, in all cases whatsoever, over the District, Congress may legislate over the States, it will ne

a Virginia Debates in Convention, vol. 2. p. 21. 29.

cessarily follow, that Congress may legislate over the States in all cases whatsoever.

The constitution gives to Congress power to exercise exclusive legislation over the ten miles square, in all cases whatsoever. In the case of Loughborough v. Blake, the Court said, that "on the extent of these terms, according to the common understanding of mankind, there can be no difference of opinion.""" What is the opinion in which all mankind will unite as to the extent of those terms? Not an opinion that the laws passed in legislating over the District, shall operate in the States. The opinion in which it is presumed that mankind generally will unite, is, that all acts of Congress, not contrary to reason or the restrictions of the constitution, passed in legislating over the District, shall operate exclusively within its limits, but not at all beyond them. The power given to Congress, is power to legislate exclusively in all cases over the District. What are the appropriate means of executing that power? To frame a code of laws having effect within the District only; to establish Courts having jurisdiction within the District only, &c. But what are the powers claimed? Power to repeal the penal laws of a State; power to pass laws "that know no locality in the Union;" laws "that can encounter no geographical impediments;" laws "whose march is through the Union." I admit, that all the powers of Congress, except this of exclusive legislation in all cases, extend throughout the Union; but this, by

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the most express words, and from its nature, is local. Yet, in this case, by a power to legislate for a District ten miles square, Congress is made to assume a power to legislate over the whole Union; and because an act is authorized to be done in Columbia, over which Congress may legislate in all cases whatsoever, it is, therefore, to be a legal act when done in a State, the laws of such State notwithstanding.

The power given to Congress to legislate over the District in all cases whatsoever, is precisely of the same extent as if this had been the only power conferred on them. Now, had it been the only power conferred on Congress, could there have arisen any doubt about its extent? When Congress legislate for the District of Columbia, they are a local legislature. The authority to legislate over the District in all cases whatsoever, is as strictly limited as is that of the legislature of Delaware to legislate only over Delaware. The acts of the local legislature have no operation beyond the limits of the place for which they legislate.

If this clause confers on Congress any legislative power over the States, it must be of the kind granted. But the power granted is exclusive, and no one will contend, that an exclusive power to legislate over the States is conferred on Congress. The power given extends to all cases whatsoever, and no one will contend, that Congress have power to legislate over the States in all cases whatsoever. The grant is of an exclusive power in all cases over ten miles square. The claim set up is a claim of paramount power over the whole United States.