If we recur to the condition of our country at the commencement of the Revolution, we shall see the origin and cause of these provisions.  By the charters of the several colonies limits by latitude and other descriptions were assigned to each.  In commencing the Revolution the colonies, as has already been observed, claimed by those limits, although their population extended in many instances to a small portion of the territory lying within them.  It was contended by some of the States after the declaration of independence that the vacant lands lying within any of the States should become the property of the Union, as by a common exertion they would be acquired.  This claim was resisted by the others on the principle that all the States entered into the contest in the full extent of their chartered rights, and that they ought to have the full benefit of those rights in the event of success.  Happily this controversy was settled, as all interfering claims and pretensions between the members of our Union and between the General Government and any of these members have been, in the most amicable manner and to the satisfaction of all parties.  On the recommendation of Congress the individual States having such territory within their chartered limits ceded large portions thereof to the United States on condition that it should be laid off into districts of proper dimensions, the lands to be sold for the benefit of the United States, and that the districts be admitted into the Union when they should obtain such a population as it might be thought proper and reasonable to prescribe.  This is the territory and this the property referred to in the second clause of the fourth article of the Constitution.

All the States which had made cessions of vacant territory except Georgia had made them before the adoption of the Constitution, and that State had made a proposition to Congress to that effect which was under consideration at the time the Constitution was adopted.  The cession was completed after the adoption of the Constitution.  It was made on the same principle and on similar conditions with those which had been already made by the other States.  As differences might arise respecting the right or the policy in Congress to admit new States into the Union under the new Government, or to make regulations for the government of the territory ceded in the intermediate state, or for the improvement and sale of the public lands, or to accept other cessions, it was thought proper to make special provisions for these objects, which was accordingly done by the above-recited clause in the Constitution.

Thus the power of Congress over the ceded territory was not only limited to these special objects, but was also temporary.  As soon as the territory became a State the jurisdiction over it as it had before existed ceased.  It extended afterwards only to the unsold lands, and as soon as the whole were sold it ceased in that sense also altogether.  From that moment the United States have no jurisdiction or power in the new States other than in the old, nor can it be obtained except by an amendment of the Constitution.