The domain and population, before the organization of
the Territory into one of the United States, are subject to the
United States, inseparably attached to the domain of the Union,
and under its sovereignty. The Territory so remains, organized
or unorganized, under a Territorial Government created by
Congress. Congress, by an enabling act, permits it to organize
as a State, to call a convention to form a State constitution, to
elect under it, in such way as the convention ordains, State
officers, a State legislature, and, in the way prescribed by the
Constitution of the United States, senators and representatives
in Congress. Here is a complete organization as a State, yet,
though called a State, it is no State at all, and is simply
territory, without a single particle of political power. To be a
State it must be recognized and admitted by Congress as a State
in the Union, and when so recognized and admitted it possesses,
in union with the other United States, supreme political
sovereignty, jointly in all general matters, and individually in
all private and particular matters.
The Territory gives up no sovereign powers by coming into the
Union, for before it came into the Union it had no sovereignty,
no political rights at all. All the rights and powers it holds
are held by the simple fact that it has become a State in the
Union.
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