48 AVES ISLAND. 



making power can be appealed to, to uphold an acquisition by purchase 

 and cession, or by conquest. 



So can the power to admit new States be invoked, and there is no 

 distinction in the Constitution between new States formed out of Ter- 

 ritories ultra mare, on an isle or island on the high seas, and such 

 states created out of adjoining portions of this continent. The power 

 can be exercised as legitimately with respect to all the Antilles, or the 

 Sandwich Islands, as with respect to- Canada, or Mexico, or New 

 Albion. 



Besides, the federal government of the United States, in its dispute 

 with Great Britain respecting the possessions claimed by both on the 

 Pacific, (Oregon,) j^resented and urged in the diplomatic correspond- 

 ence, in executive documents, and in the debates in Congress, our 

 prior discovery by Captain Gray, master of a merchant vessel of Boston 

 in 1*792, and Lewis and Clarke's explorations in 1805-6, and occupa^ 

 tion under them of that region. 



And in no American document on that subject, nor in any speech in 

 Congress, has any denial of this power of acquisition by discovery 

 been found. — (See Wheat. Int. Law, p. 229 ; Greenhow's Oregon, pp. 

 418, 427, 449, 466, app ; I Phill., p. 250, § 233, lb., p. 24t ; British 

 State Papers, vol. xiii, pp. 506 to 509; Cong. Doc, 1st sess. 20th 

 Cong., No. 189.) 



Voyages and expeditions for discovery have been several times under- 

 taken by the federal government ; sometimes by previous authority 

 of Congress, by special appropriations for such objects, and sometimes 

 by the executive department alone, in the exercise of its authority 

 over the Army and Navy, without the previous express sanction of 

 Congress. Amongst them may be mentioned Lewis and Clarke's 

 expedition to the Columbia river ; Pike's expedition ; and Colonel S. H. 

 Long's expeditions ; and Colonel Fremont's expeditions ; Lynch's 

 expedition to the Dead Sea ; Strain's expedition ; Herndon's and Gib- 

 bon's expeditions; and Wilke's exploring expedition; Ringgold's sur- 

 veying and exploring expedition ; and Commodore Perry's expedition ; 

 and the aid afforded by the government to different expeditions to the 

 north pole region. The history of our government is replete with such 

 examples. 



Some of these expeditions were essentially voyages for discovery or 

 exploration out of the limits of the United States. 



It is absurd to concede to the executive government constitutional 

 power to undertake them, and that such prerogative is a mere naked, 

 impotent or barren right, which can be productive of no results, beget 

 no direct advantages, and which is utterly barren of any fruits beyond 

 the credit of making such discoveries for the benefit of some other 

 nation. 



The framers of our glorious Constitution did not certainly, in our 

 humble judgment, intend thus to emasculate the federal government, 

 and make us the only eunuch nation on the face of the earth. 



History furnishes some rare examples, such as in China and Japan, 

 and the Germanic confederation, of the abnegation of sovereign rights, 

 but Yattel says "that a nation ought to act agreeably to its nature," 

 &c., p. 3, §§ 13, 14, et seq. (Droit des Gens.) 



