Speech #560028681

I do not think the courts have held that Congress derives its power to legislate for people in a Territory from that clause in the Constitution. The idea is that the Constitution was ordained. among other things. to secure the blessings of liberty to the framers of the Constitution and their posterity. meaning by that the people of the United States. whether native born or naturalized. and their posterity. and wherever that people might go. in a State or in a Territory. this Constitution was to be their heritage. and for them it was to be the supreme law of the land wherever the political jurisdiction of the Union extended. Such has been the interpretation. Ithink. of the Supreme Court and the practice of this Government from the foundation of it until the present time. the Supreme Court itself holding in a case. in 9 Howard. that the Constitution superseded the act previously passed in relation to the Northwest Territory. that the Constitution was not in conformity with its provisions. and that hence the Constitution superseded it. and that the act was only continued by virtue of the act passed by Congress August 7. after the Constitution took effect.