Mr. HOWARD. I do not say that such is the express language, but that such is the in, evitable inference from the language. How can it be otherwise? Congress “shall exercise exclusivejurisdiction in all cases over such district as may" how? “By cession of articular States and acceptance of Congress become the seat of the Government.” it is the cession and the acceptance that constitute it the seat of Government, and the cession and the acceptance both depend upon the Constitution which imparts to Congress the right and the power to perform those 2 acts, and it is, in its very nature, as permanent as the clause itself under which the power is claimed. This is not true of the 2nd clause of the same provision declaring that Congress shall have power “to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same may be for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals dock yards, and other needful buildings.” All the power that is here given to Congress'is the right to purchase, not to accept a cession merely as a cession, which implies in itself both the right of soil, if the party ceding possesses the right of soil, as well as of jnrisdiction: Under this latter clause Congress can onlyy purchase the lands of private individuals for the purpose of establishing forts, dte. That is the plain effect of the terms. congresspurchases of individuals private lands or the purpose of establishin dock yards, &c., and when this purchase has been made with the consent of the States, but not until then, the right of exclusive jurisdiction on the part of the Government accrues. Congress may undoubtedly purchase of individuals lands for these purposes lying within the limits of a State: but it does not get the right of exclusive jurisdiction over them until the assent of the Legislature of the State has been given to the grant; and thisprinciple has been held by the courts in repeated in stances; so that the title itself which the government gets in the latter case differs essentially from that which it obtains in the former case. In the former case it takes the title in trust for a specific purpose; that is, to hold the land as the seat of Government permanently, according to the Constitution; int c latter case it becomes merely a purchaser, and may, I should suppose, cede it or grant it away to any person that may consent to become the ur chaser or grantee. I see no difficulty in t at. But because it may grant away dock yards and arsenals, it by no means follows that it can grant away the seat of Government, which, by the Constitution, properly interpreted, is to be permanent and enduring. I see no force, therefore, in the somewhat piausible argument of my learned friendfrom Maryland. We must construe this article as it is written, and construe it with reference to the events transpiring at the time and the occasion which produced it, and endeavor to elicit the intention both from the text itself and from the historical events by which the Convention was actuated. Sir, can we violate a trust? Is it competent for Congress under the Constitution, having such a trust imposed upon them and having accepted it, to violate and disown it? It may be said that with the consent of the cestm‘s que trust, that is, of Maryland and Virginia, the ceding parties, Congress may grant away the District. That argument has no force. Who were the parties in interest? Who were the cestm's qua trust, the beneficiaries, under the Constitution? Were Maryland and Virginia, or the people of those 2 States, the only beneficiaries interested in it? No, sir; the whole people of the U.S. were the parties interested, one State as well as another, one citizen as well as another; and I contend it is not in the power of Congress to divest themselves of this trust without the consent of the whole people of the U.S., who, and who a one, are the parties interested as cestuis qua trust, without an amendmentof this clause giving the power. I hold, therefore, that the act of retrocession to Virginia of 1846 was absolutely void, as a violation of the trust imposed by the Constitution, and it is time for us to resume the jurisdiction. The Senfrom NewHampshire tells us that he declines to vote in the 1nterest of the rebellion; and to show that the act of 1846 was not passed in the interest of the prospective rebellion he reads from the record the names of various northern Sens&Reps who voted for it. It is not at all surprising that northern gentleman should have voted for the act of retrocession. No man need be astonished at it. It is some relief to me, and it ought to be some relief to the honorable Senfrom NewHampshire, to know that the fugitive slave act of 1850, passed only 4 years after this retrocession, and whicl no man will deny was in the minds of the leading secessionists an initiato measure to the rebellion, which no man will:Ibny was intended to fire the southern heart, and, in the language of Mr. Calhoun’s letter of 1847, intended “to force’the issue upon the North, ” was approved by a northern Chief Magistrate no less conservative than Millard Fillmore. Certainly, Mr. Fillmore did not intend that as a measure ini tiatory tb a general rebellion or that it would become such; that probably was farthest from his thouvhts; but still at this day, I take it, no man wilf deny that such was the real purpose of that wicked measure. It was drawn by James M. Mason, submitted to this body by him, was engineered through the Senate by his ersuasion. What his object really was, is best ctermined by looking at the history of that individual from that time down to the present moment. He became a rebel and is now an ] l outlaw, not daring to show his face in the country that gave him birth.