Nothing, therefore, as it seems to me, can be clearer, than that the States making the cession expected Congress to exercise over the District precisely that power, and neither more nor less, which the Constitution had conferred upon it.  I do not know how the provision, or the intention, either of the Constitution in granting the power, or of the States in making the cession, could be expressed in a manner more absolutely free from all doubt or ambiguity.

I see, therefore, nothing in the act of cession, and nothing in the Constitution, and nothing in the history of this transaction, and nothing in any other transaction, implying any limitation upon the authority of Congress.

If the assertion contained in this resolution be true, a very strange result, as it seems to me, must follow.  The resolution affirms that the faith of Congress is pledged, indefinitely.  It makes no limitation of time or circumstance.  If this be so, then it is an obligation that binds us for ever, as much as if it were one of the prohibitions of the Constitution itself.  And at all times hereafter, even if, in the course of their history, availing themselves of events, or changing their views of policy, the States themselves should make provision for the emancipation of their slaves, the existing state of things could not be changed, nevertheless, in this District.  It does really seem to me, that, if this resolution, in its terms, be true, though slavery in every other part of the world may be abolished, yet in the metropolis of this great republic it is established in perpetuity.  This appears to me to be the result of the doctrine of plighted faith, as stated in the resolution.

In reply to Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Webster
said:—­#/

The words of the resolution speak for themselves.  They require no comment.  They express an unlimited plighted faith.  The honorable member will so see if he will look at those words.  The gentleman asks whether those who made the cession could have expected that Congress would ever exercise such a power.  To this I answer, that I see no reason to doubt that the parties to the cession were as willing to leave this as to leave other powers to the discretion of Congress.  I see not the slightest evidence of any especial fear, or any especial care or concern, on the part of the ceding States, in regard to this particular part of the jurisdiction ceded to Congress.  And I think I can ask, on the other side, a very important question for the consideration of the gentleman himself, and for that of the Senate and the country; and that is, Would Congress have accepted the cession with any such restraint upon its constitutional power, either express or understood to be implied?  I think not.  Looking back to the state of things then existing, and especially to what Congress had so recently done, when it accepted the cession of the Northwestern Territory, I entertain no doubt whatever that Congress would have refused the cession altogether, if offered with any condition or understanding that its constitutional authority to exercise exclusive legislation over the District in all cases whatsoever should be abridged.