U.S.

Supreme Court
DOWNES v. BIDWELL, 182 U.S. 244 (1901)

182 U.S. 244

SAMUEL DOWNES, Doing Business under the Firm Name of S. B. Downes &
Company, Plff. in Err.,
v.
GEORGE R. BIDWELL.
No. 507.

Argued January 8, 9, 10, 11, 1901.

Decided May 27, 1901.

[182 U.S. 244, 247] This was an action begun in the circuit court by Downes, doing
business under the firm name of S. B. Downes & Co., against the collector of the port of
New York, to recover back duties to the amount of $659.35 exacted and paid under
protest upon certain oranges consigned to the plaintiff at New York, and brought thither
from the port of San Juan in the island of Porto Rico during the month of November,
1900, after the passage of the act temporarily providing a civil government and revenues
for ths island of Porto Rico, known as the Foraker act.

The district attorney demurred to the complaint for the want of jurisdiction in the court,
and for insufficiency of its averments. The demurrer was sustained, and the complaint
dismissed. Whereupon plaintiff sued out this writ of error.

Messrs. Frederic R. Coudert, Jr., and Paul Fuller for plaintiff in error.

Solicitor General Richards and Attorney General Griggs for defendant in error.

Statement by Mr. Justice Brown:

This case involves the question whether merchandise brought into the port of New York
from Porto Rico since the passage of the Foraker act is exempt from duty,
notwithstanding the 3d section of that act which requires the payment of '15 [182 U.S. 244,
248] per centum of the duties which are required to be levied, collected, and paid upon
like articles of merchandise imported from foreign countries.'

1. The exception to the jurisdiction of the court is not well taken. By Rev. Stat. 629, subd.
4, the circuit courts are vested with jurisdiction 'of all suits at law or in equity arising
under any act providing for revenue from imports or tonnage,' irrespective of the amount
involved. This section should be construed in connection with 643, which provides for
the removal from state courts to circuit courts of the United States of suits against
revenue officers 'on account of any act done under color of his office, or of any such
[revenue] law, or on account of any right, title, or authority claimed by such officer or
other person under any such law.' Both these sections are taken from the act of March 2,
1833 ( 4 Stat. at L. 632, chap. 57) commonly known as the force bill, and are evidently
intended to include all actions against customs officers acting under color of their office.
While, as we have held in De Lima v. Bidwell, 181 U. S. --, ante, 743, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep.
743, Actions against the collector to recover back duties assessed upon nonimportable
property are not 'customs cases' in the sense of the administrative act, they are,
nevertheless, actions arising under an act to provide for a revenue from imports, in the
sense of 629, since they are for acts done by a collector under color of his office. This
subdivision of 629 was not repealed by the jurisdictional act of 1875, or the subsequent
act of August 13, 1888, since these acts were 'not intended to interfere with the prior
statutes conferring jurisdiction upon the circuit or district courts in special cases and over
particular subjects. United States v. Mooney, 116 U.S. 104, 107 , 29 S. L. ed. 550, 552, 6
Sup. Ct. Rep. 304, 306. See also Merchants' Ins. Co. v. Ritchie, 5 Wall. 541, 18 L. ed.
540; Philadelphia v. The Collector, 5 Wall. 720, sub nom. Philadelphia v. Diehl, 18 L. ed.
614; Hornthall v. The Collector, 9 Wall. 560, sub nom. Hornthall v. Keary, 19 L. ed. 560
As the case 'involves the construction or application of the Constitution,' as well as the
constitutionality of a law of the United States, the writ of error was properly sued out
from this court.

2. In the case of De Lima v. Bidwell just decided, 181 U. S. --, ante, 743, 21 Sup. Ct.
Rep. 743, we held that, upon the ratification of the treaty of peace with Spain, Porto Rico
ceased to be a foreign country, and became a terri- [182 U.S. 244, 249] tory of the United
States, and that duties were no longer collectible upon merchandise brought from that
island. We are now asked to hold that it became a part of the United States within that
provision of the Constitution which declares that 'all duties, imposts, and excises shall be
uniform throughout the United States.' Art. 1, 8. If Porto Rico be a part of the United
States, the Foraker act imposing duties upon its products is unconstitutional, not only by
reason of a violation of the uniformity clause, but because by 9 'vessels bound to or from
one state' cannot 'be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.'

The case also involves the broader question whether the revenue clauses of the
Constitution extend of their own force to our newly acquired territories. The Constitution
itself does not answer the question. Its solution must be found in the nature of the
government created by that instrument, in the opinion of its contemporaries, in the
practical construction put upon it by Congress, and in the decisions of this court.

The Federal government was created in 1777 by the union of thirteen colonies of Great
Britain in 'certain articles of confederation and perpetual union,' the first one of which
declared that 'the stile of this confederacy shall be the United States of America.' Each
member of the confederacy was denominated a state. Provision was made for the
representation of each state by not less than two nor more than seven delegates; but no
mention was made of territories or other lands, except in article 11, which authorized the
admission of Canada, upon its 'acceding to this confederation,' and of other colonies if
such admission were agreed to by nine states. At this time several states made claims to
large tracts of land in the unsettled west, which they were at first indisposed to relinquish.
Disputes over these lands became so acrid as nearly to defeat the confederacy, before it
was fairly put in operation. Several of the states refused to ratify the articles, because the
convention had taken no steps to settle the titles to these lands upon principles of equity
and sound policy; but all of them, through fear of being accused of disloyalty, finally
yielded their claims, though Maryland held out until 1781. Most of these states in the [182
U.S. 244, 250] meantime having ceded their interests in these lands, the confederate
Congress, in 1787, created the first territorial government northwest of the Ohio river,
provided for local self-government, a bill of rights, a representation in Congress by a
delegate, who should have a seat 'with a right of debating, but not of voting,' and for the
ultimate formation of states therefrom, and their admission into the Union on an equal
footing with the original states.

The confederacy, owing to well-known historical reasons, having proven a failure, a new
Constitution was formed in 1787 by 'the people of the United States' 'for the United
States of America,' as its preamble declares. All legislative powers were vested in a
Congress consisting of representatives from the several states, but no provision was made
for the admission of delegates from the territories, and no mention was made of territories
as separate portions of the Union, except that Congress was empowered 'to dispose of and
make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging
to the United States.' At this time all of the states had ceded their unappropriated lands
except North Carolina and Georgia. It was thought by Chief Justice Taney in the Dred
Scott Case, 19 How. 393, 436, 15 L. ed. 691, 713, that the sole object of the territorial
clause was 'to transfer to the new government the property then held in common by the
states, and to give to that government power to apply it to the objects for which it had
been destined by mutual agreement among the states before their league was dissolved;'
that the power 'to make needful rules and regulations' was not intended to give the powers
of sovereignty, or to authorize the establishment of territorial governments,-in short, that
these words were used in a proprietary, and not in a political, sense. But, as we observed
in De Lima v. Bidwell, the power to establish territorial governments has been too long
exercised by Congress and acquiesced in by this court to be deemed an unsettled
question. Indeed, in the Dred Scott Case it was admitted to be the inevitable consequence
of the right to acquire territory.

It is sufficient to observe in relation to these three fundamental instruments, that it can

nowhere be inferred that the [182 U.S. 244, 251] territories were considered a part of the
United States. The Constitution was created by the people of the United States, as a union
of states, to be governed solely by representatives of the states; and even the provision
relied upon here, that all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform 'throughout the
United States,' is explained by subsequent provisions of the Constitution, that 'no tax or
duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state,' and 'no preference shall be given
by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another;
nor shall vessels bound to or from one state be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in
another.' In short, the Constitution deals with states, their people, and their
representatives.

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude
'within the United States, or in any place subject to their jurisdiction,' is also significant as
showing that there may be places within the jurisdiction of the United States that are no
part of the Union. To say that the phraseology of this amendment was due to the fact that
it was intended to prohibit slavery in the seceded states, under a possible interpretation
that those states were no longer a part of the Union, is to confess the very point in issue,
since it involves an admission that, if these states were not a part of the Union, they were
still subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

Upon the other hand, the 14th Amendment, upon the subject of citizenship, declares only
that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the state wherein they reside.' Here there
is a limitation to persons born or naturalized in the United States, which is not extended
to persons born in any place 'subject to their jurisdiction.'

The question of the legal relations between the states and the newly acquired territories
first became the subject of public discussion in connection with the purchase of Louisiana
in 1803. This purchase arose primarily from the fixed policy of Spain to exclude all
foreign commerce from the Mississippi. This restriction became intolerable to the large
number of immigrants who were leaving the eastern states to settle in the fertile val- [182
U.S. 244, 252] ley of that river and its tributaries. After several futile attempts to secure the
free navigation of that river by treaty, advantage was taken of the exhaustion of Spain in
her war with France, and a provision inserted in the treaty of October 27, 1795, by which
the Mississippi river was opened to the commerce of the United States. 8 Stat. at L. 138,
140, art. 4. In October, 1800, by the secret treaty of San Ildefonso, Spain retroceded to
France the territory of Louisiana. This treaty created such a ferment in this country that
James Monroe was sent as minister extraordinary with discretionary powers to co-operate
with Livingston, then minister to France, in the purchase of New Orleans, for which
Congress appropriated $2,000,000. To the surprise of the negotiators, Bonaparte invited
them to make an offer for the whole of Louisiana at a price finally fixed at $15,000,000.
It is well known that Mr. Jefferson entertained grave doubts as to his power to make the
purchase, or, rather, as to his right to annex the territory and make it part of the United
States, and had instructed Mr. Livingston to make no agreement to that effect in the
treaty, as he believed it could not be legally done. Owing to a new war between England
and France being upon the point of breaking out, there was need for haste in the
negotiations, and Mr. Livingston took the responsibility of disobeying his instructions,
and, probably owing to the insistence of Bonaparte, consented to the 3d article of the
treaty, which provided that 'the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in
the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the
principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and
immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the meantime they shall be maintained
and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they
profess.' [8 Stat. at L. 202.] This evidently committed the government to the ultimate, but
not to the immediate, admission of Louisiana as a state, and postponed its incorporation
into the Union to the pleasure of Congress. In regard to this, Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to
Senator Breckinridge of Kentucky, of August 12, 1803, used the following language:
'This treaty must, of course, be laid before both Houses, because [182 U.S. 244, 253] both
have important functions to exercise respecting it. They, I presume, will see their duty to
their country in ratifying and paying for it, so as to secure a good which would otherwise
probably be never again in their power. But I suppose they must then appeal to the nation
for an additional article to the Constitution approving and confirming an act which the
nation had not previously authorized. The Constitution has made no provision for holding
foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union. The
Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of our
country, have done an act beyond the Constitution.'

To cover the questions raised by this purchase Mr. Jefferson prepared two amendments to
the Constitution, the first of which declared that 'the province of Louisiana is
incorporated with the United States and made part thereof;' and the second of which was
couched in a little different language, viz.: 'Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United
States, is made a part of the United States. Its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and
stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing as other citizens in analogous
situations.' But by the time Congress assembled, October 17, 1803, either the argument of
his friends or the pressing necessity of the situation seems to have dispelled his doubts
regarding his power under the Constitution, since in his message to Congress he referred
the whole matter to that body, saying that 'with the wisdom of Congress it will rest to
take those ulterior measures which may be necessary for the immediate occupation and
temporary government of the country; for its incorporation into the Union.' Jefferson's
Writings, vol. 8, p. 269.

The raising of money to provide for the purchase of this territory, and the act providing a
civil government, gave rise to an animated debate in Congress, in which two questions
were prominently presented: First, whether the provision for the ultimate incorporation of
Louisiana into the Union was constitutional; and, second, whether the 7th article of the
treaty admitting the ships of Spain and France for the next twelve years 'into the ports of
New Orleans, and in all other legal ports of entry within the ceded territory, in the same
manner as the ships of [182 U.S. 244, 254] the United States coming directly from France
or Spain, or any of their colonies, without being subject to any other or greater duty on
merchandise or other or greater tonnage than that paid by the citizens of the United
States' [8 Stat. at L. 204], was an unlawful discrimination in favor of those ports and an
infringement upon art. 1, 9, of the Constitution, that no preference shall be given by any
regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another.' This
article of the treaty contained the further stipulation that 'during the space of time above
mentioned to other nation shall have a right to the same privileges in the ports of the
ceded territory; . . . and it is well understood that the object of the above article is to favor
the manufactures, commerce, freight, and navigation of France and Spain.'

It is unnecessary to enter into the details of this debate. The arguments of individual
legislators are no proper subject for judicial comment. They are so often influenced by
personal or political considerations, or by the assumed necessities of the situation, that
they can hardly be considered even as the deliberate views of the persons who make
them, much less as dictating the construction to be put upon the Constitution by the
courts. United States v. Union P. R. Co. 91 U.S. 72, 79 , 23 S. L. ed, 224, 228. Suffice it
to say that the administration party took the ground that, under the constitutional power to
make treaties, there was ample power to acquire territory, and to hold and govern it under
laws to be passed by Congress; and that as Louisiana was incorporated into the Union as
a territory, and not as a state, a stipulation for citizenship became necessary; that as a
state they would not have needed a stipulation for the safety of their liberty, property, and
religion, but as territory this stipulation would govern and restrain the undefined powers
of Congress to 'make rules and regulations' for territories. The Federalists admitted the
power of Congress to acquire and hold territory, but denied its power to incorporate it
into the Union under the Constitution as it then stood.

They also attacked the 7th article of the treaty, discriminating in favor of French and
Spanish ships, as a distinct violation of the Constitution against preference being given to
the [182 U.S. 244, 255] ports of one state over those of another. The administration party,
through Mr. Elliott of Vermont, replied to this that 'the states, as such, were equal and
intended to preserve that equality; and the provision of the Constitution alluded to was
calculated to prevent Congress from making any odious discrimination or distinctions
between particular states. It was not contemplated that this provision would have
application to colonial or territorial acquisitions.' Said Mr. Nicholson of Maryland,
speaking for the administration: It [Louisiana] is in the nature of a colony whose
commerce may be regulated without any reference to the Constitution. Had it been the
island of Cuba which was ceded to us, under a similar condition of admitting French and
Spanish vessels for a limited time into Havana, could it possibly have been contended
that this would be giving a preference to the ports of one state over those of another, or
that the uniformity of duties, imposts, and excises throughout the United States would
have been destroyed? And because Louisiana lies adjacent to our own territory is it to be
viewed in a different light?'

As a sequence to this debate two bills were passed, one October 31, 1803 (2 Stat. at L.
245, chap. 1), authorizing the President to take possession of the territory and to continue
the existing government, and the other November 10, 1803 (2 Stat. at L. 245, chap. 2),
making provision for the payment of the purchase price. These acts continued in force
until March 26, 1804, when a new act was passed providing for a temporary government
(2 Stat. at L. 283, chap. 38), and vesting all legislative powers in a governor and
legislative council, to be appointed by the President. These statutes may be taken as
expressing the views of Congress, first, that territory may be lawfully acquired by treaty,
with a provision for its ultimate incorporation into the Union; and, second, that a
discrimination in favor of certain foreign vessels trading with the ports of a newly
acquired territory is no violation of that clause of the Constitution (art. 1, 9) that declares
that no preference shall be given to the ports of one state over those of another. It is
evident that the constitutionality of this discrimination can only be supported upon the
theory that ports of territories are not ports of state within the meaning of the
Constitution. [182 U.S. 244, 256] The same construction was adhered to in the treaty with
Spain for the purchase of Florida (8 Stat. at L. 252) the 6th article of which provided that
the inhabitants should 'be incorporated into the Union of the United States, as soon as
may be consistent with the principles of the Federal Constitution;' and the 15th article of
which agreed that Spanish vessels coming directly from Spanish ports and laden with
productions of Spanish growth or manufacture should be admitted, for the term of twelve
years, to the ports of Pensacola and St. Augustine 'without paying other or higher duties
on their cargoes, or of tonnage, than will be paid by the vessels of the United States,' and
that 'during the said term no other nation shall enjoy the same privileges within the ceded
territories.'

So, too, in the act annexing the Republic of Hawaii, there was a provision continuing in
effect the customs relations of the Hawaiian islands with the United States and other
countries, the effect of which was to compel the collection in those islands of a duty upon
certain articles, whether coming from the United States or other countries, much greater
than the duty provided by the general tariff law then in force. This was a discrimination
against the Hawaiian ports wholly inconsistent with the revenue clauses of the
Constitution, if such clauses were there operative.

The very treaty with Spain under discussion in this case contains similar discriminative
provisions, which are apparently irreconcilable with the Constitution, if that instrument
be held to extend to these islands immediately upon their cession to the United States. By
article 4 the United States agree, for the term of ten years from the date of the exchange
of the ratifications of the present treaty, to admit Spanish ships and merchandise to the
ports of the Philippine islands on the same terms as ships and merchandise of the United
States,'-a privilege not extending to any other ports. It was a clear breach of the
uniformity clause in question, and a manifest excess of authority on the part of the
commissioners, if ports of the Philippine islands be ports of the United States.

So, too, by article 13, 'Spanish scientific, literary, and artistic works . . . shall be
continued to be admitted free of [182 U.S. 244, 257] duty in such territories for the period
of ten years, to be reckoned from the date of the exchange of the ratifications of this
treaty.' This is also a clear discrimination in favor of Spanish literary productions into
particular ports.

Notwithstanding these provisions for the incorporation of territories into the Union,
Congress, not only in organizing the territory of Louisiana by act of March 26, 1804, but
all other territories carved out of this vast inheritance, has assumed that the Constitution
did not extend to them of its own force, and has in each case made special provision,
either that their legislatures shall pass no law inconsistent with the Constitution of the
United States, or that the Constitution or laws of the United States shall be the supreme
law of such territories. Finally, in Rev. Stat. 1891, a general provision was enacted that
'the Constitution and all laws of the United States which are not locally inapplicable shall
have the same force and effect within all the organized territories, and in every territory
hereafter organized, as elsewhere within the United States.'

So, too, on March 6, 1820 (3 Stat. at L. 545, chap. 22), in an act authorizing the people of
Missouri to form a state government, after a heated debate, Congress declared that in the
territory of Louisiana north of 36 30' slavery should be forever prohibited. It is true that,
for reasons which have become historical, this act was declared to be unconstitutional in
Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 15 L. ed. 691, but it is none the less a distinct
annunciation by Congress of power over property in the territories, which it obviously did
not possess in the several states.

The researches of counsel have collated a large number of other instances in which
Congress has in its enactments recognized the fact that provisions intended for the states
did not embrace the territories, unless specially mentioned. These are found in the laws
prohibiting the slave trade with 'the United States or territories thereof;' or equipping
ships 'in any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States;' in the internal
revenue laws, in the early ones of which no provision was made for the collection of
taxes in the territory not included within the boundaries of the existing states, and others
of which extended them expressly to the territories, or 'within [182 U.S. 244, 258] the
exterior boundaries of the United States;' and in the acts extending the internal revenue
laws to the territories of Alaska and Oklahoma. It would prolong this opinion
unnecessarily to set forth the provisions of these acts in detail. It is sufficient to say that
Congress has or has not applied the revenue laws to the territories, as the circumstances
of each case seemed to require, and has specifically legislated for the territories whenever
it was its intention to execute laws beyond the limits of the states. Indeed, whatever may
have been the fluctuations of opinion in other bodies (and even this court has not been
exempt from them ), Congress has been consistent in recognizing the difference between
the states and territories under the Constitution.

The decisions of this court upon this subject have not been altogether harmonious. Some
of them are based upon the theory that the Constitution does not apply to the territories
without legislation. Other cases, arising from territories where such legislation has been
had, contain language which would justify the inference that such legislation was
unnecessary, and that the Constitution took effect immediately upon the cession of the
territory to the United States. It may be remarked, upon the threshold of an analysis of
these cases, that too much weight must not be given to general expressions found in
several opinions that the power of Congress over territories is complete and supreme,
because these words may be interpreted as meaning only supreme under the Constitution;
her, upon the other hand, to general statements that the Constitution covers the territories
as well as the states, since in such cases it will be found that acts of Congress had already
extended the Constitution to such territories, and that thereby it subordinated, not only its
own acts, but those of the territorial legislatures, to what had become the supreme law of
the land. 'It is a maxim not to be disregarded that general expressions, in every opinion,
are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go
beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a
subsequent suit when the very point is presented for decision. The reason of this maxim is
obvious. The question actually [182 U.S. 244, 259] before the court is investigated with
care, and considered in its full extent. Other principles which may serve to illustrate it are
considered in their relation to the case decided, but their possible bearing on all other
cases is seldom completely investigated.' Cohen v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 399, 5 L. ed.
257, 290.

The earliest case is that of Hepburn v. Ellzey, 2 Cranch, 445, 2 L. ed. 332, in which this
court held that, under that clause of the Constitution limiting the jurisdiction of the courts
of the United States to controversies between citizens of different states, a citizen of the
District of Columbia could not maintain an action in the circuit court of the United States.
It was argued that the word 'state.' in that connection, was used simply to denote a distinct
political society. 'But,' said the Chief Justice, 'as the act of Congress obviously used the
word 'state' in reference to that term as used in the Constitution, it becomes necessary to
inquire whether Columbia is a state in the sense of that instrument. The result of that
examination is a conviction that the members of the American confederacy only are the
states contemplated in the Constitution , . . . and excludes from the term the signification
attached to it by writers on the law of nations.' This case was followed in Barney v.
Baltimore, 6 Wall. 280, 18 L. ed. 825, and quite recently in Hooe v. Jamieson, 166 U.S.
395 , 41 L. ed. 1049, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 596. The same rule was applied to citizens of
territories in New Orleans v. Winter, 1 Wheat. 91, 4 L. ed. 44, in which an attempt was
made to distinguish a territory from the District of Columbia. But it was said that 'neither
of them is a state in the sense in which that term is used in the Constitution.' In Scott v.
Jones, 5 How. 343, 12 L. ed. 181, and in Miners' Bank v. Iowa ex rel. District
Prosecuting Attorney, 12 How. 1, 13 L. ed. 867, it was held that under the judiciary act,
permitting writs of error to the supreme court of a state in cases where the validity of a
state statute is drawn in question, an act of a territorial legislature was not within the
contemplation of Congress.

Loughborough v. Blake, 5 Wheat. 317, 5 L. ed. 98, was an action of trespass or, as
appears by the original record, replevin, brought in the circuit court for the District of
Columbia to try the right of Congress to impose a direct tax for general purposes on that
District. 3 Stat. at L. 216, chap. 60. It was insisted that Congress could act in a double
capacity: in one as legislating [182 U.S. 244, 260] for the states; in the other as a local
legislature for the District of Columbia. In the latter character, it was admitted that the
power of levying direct taxes might be exercised, but for District purposes only, as a state
legislature might tax for state purposes; but that it could not legislate for the District
under art. 1, 8, giving to Congress the power 'to lay and collect taxes, imposts, and
excises,' which 'shall be uniform throughout the United States,' inasmuch as the District
was no part of the United States. It was held that the grant of this power was a general
one without limitation as to place, and consequently extended to all places over which the
government extends; and that it extended to the District of Columbia as a constituent part
of the United States. The fact that art. 1 , 2, declares that 'representatives and direct taxes
shall be apportioned among the several states . . . according to their respective numbers'
furnished a standard by which taxes were apportioned, but not to exempt any part of the
country from their operation. 'The words used do not mean that direct taxes shall be
imposed on states only which are represented, or shall be apportioned to representatives;
but that direct taxation, in its application to states, shall be apportioned to numbers.' That
art. 1, 9, 4, declaring that direct taxes shall be laid in proportion to the census, was
applicable to the District of Columbia, 'and will enable Congress to apportion on it its just
and equal share of the burden, with the same accuracy as on the respective states. If the
tax be laid in this proportion, it is within the very words of the restriction. It is a tax in
proportion to the census or enumeration referred to.' It was further held that the words of
the 9th section did not 'in terms require that the system of direct taxation, when resorted
to, shall be extended to the territories, as the words of the 2d section require that it shall
be extended to all the states. They therefore may, without violence, be understood to give
a rule when the territories shall be taxed, without imposing the necessity of taxing them.'

There could be no doubt as to the correctness of this conclusion, so far, at least, as it

applied to the District of Columbia. This District had been a part of the states of
Maryland and [182 U.S. 244, 261] Virginia. It had been subject to the Constitution, and was
a part of the United States. The Constitution had attached to it irrevocably. There are
steps which can never be taken backward. The tie that bound the states of Maryland and
Virginia to the Constitution could not be dissolved, without at least the consent of the
Federal and state governments to a formal separation. The mere cession of the District of
Columbia to the Federal government relinquished the authority of the states, but it did not
take it out of the United States or from under the aegis of the Constitution. Neither party
had ever consented to that construction of the cession. If, before the District was set off,
Congress had passed an unconstitutional act affecting its inhabitants, it would have been
void. If done after the District was created, it would have been equally void; in other
words, Congress could not do indirectly, by carving out the District, what it could not do
directly. The District still remained a part of the United States, protected by the
Constitution. Indeed, it would have been a fanciful construction to hold that territory
which had been once a part of the United States ceased to be such by being ceded directly
to the Federal government.

In delivering the opinion, however, the Chief Justice made certain observations which
have occasioned some embarrassment in other cases. 'The power,' said he, 'to lay and
collect duties, imposts, and excises may be exercised, and must be exercised, throughout
the United States. Does this term designate the whole, or any particular portion of the
American empire? Certainly this question can admit but of one answer. It is the name
given to our great Republic which is composed of states and territories. The District of
Columbia, or the territory west of the Missouri, is not less within the United States than
Maryland or Pennsylvania; and it is not less necessary, on the principles of our
Constitution, that uniformity in the imposition of imposts, duties, and excises should be
observed in the one than in the other. Since, then, the power to lay and collect taxes,
which includes direct taxes, is obviously coextensive with the power to lay and collect
duties, imposts, and excises, and since the latter extends throughout the United States, it
follows that the power to impose direct taxes also extends through- [182 U.S. 244, 262] out
the United States.' So far as applicable to the District of Columbia, these observations are
entirely sound. So far as they apply to the territories, they were not called for by the
exigencies of the case.

In line with Loughborough v. Blake is the case of Callan v. Wilson, 127 U.S. 540 , 32 L.
ed. 223, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1301, in which the provisions of the Constitution relating to trial
by jury were held to be in force in the District of Columbia. Upon the other hand, in De
Geofroy v. Riggs 133 U.S. 258 , 33 L. ed. 642, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 295, the District of
Columbia, as a political community, was held to be one of 'the states of the Union' within
the meaning of that term as used in a consular convention of February 23, 1853, with
France. The 7th article of that convention provided that in all the states of the Union
whose existing laws permitted it Frenchmen should enjoy the right of holding, disposing
of, and inheriting property in the same manner as citizens of the United States; and as to
the states of the Union by whose existing laws aliens were not permitted to hold real
estate the President engaged to recommend to them the passage of such laws as might be
necessary for the purpose of conferring this right. The court was of opinion that if these
terms, 'states of the Union,' were held to exclude the District of Columbia and the
territories, our government would be placed in the inconsistent position of stipulating that
French citizens should enjoy the right of holding, disposing of, and inheriting property in
like manner as citizens of the United States, in states whose laws permitted it, and
engaging that the President should recommend the passage of laws conferring that right
in states whose laws did not permit aliens to hold real estate, while at the same time
refusing to citizens of France holding property in the District of Columbia and in some of
the territories, where the power of the United States is in that respect unlimited, a like
release from the disabilities of alienage, 'thus discriminating against them in favor of
citizens of France holding property in states having similar legislation. No plausible
motive can be assigned for such discrimination. A right which the government of the
United States apparently desires that citizens of France should enjoy in all the states it
would hardly refuse to them in the district [182 U.S. 244, 263] embracing its capital, or in
any of its own territorial dependencies.'

This case may be considered as establishing the principle that, in dealing with foreign
sovereignties, the term 'United States' has a broader meaning than when used in the
Constitution, and includes all territories subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal
government, wherever located. In its treaties and conventions with foreign nations this
government is a unit. This is so, not because the territories comprised a part of the
government established by the people of the states in their Constitution, but because the
Federal government is the only authorized organ of the territories, as well as of the states,
in their foreign relations. By art. 1, 10, of the Constitution, 'no state shall enter into any
treaty, alliance, or confederation, . . . [or] enter into any agreement or compact with
another state, or with a foreign power.' It would be absurd to hold that the territories,
which are much less independent than the states, and are under the direct control and
tutelage of the general government, possess a power in this particular which is thus
expressly forbidden to the states.

It may be added in this connection, that to put at rest all doubts regarding the applicability
of the Constitution to the District of Columbia, Congress by the act of February 21, 1871
(16 Stat. at L. 419, 426, chap. 62, 34), specifically extended the Constitution and laws of
the United States to this District.

The case of American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 511, 7 L. ed. 242, originated
in a libel filed in the district court for South Carolina, for the possession of 356 bales of
cotton which had been wrecked on the coast of Florida, abandoned to the insurance
companies, and subsequently brought to Charleston. Canter claimed the cotton as bona
fide purchaser at a marshal's sale at Key West, by virtue of a decree of a territorial court
consisting of a notary and five jurors, proceeding under an act of the governor and
legislative council of Florida. The case turned upon the question whether the sale by that
court was effectual to devest the interest of the underwriters. The district judge
pronounced the proceedings a nullity, and rendered a decree from which both parties
appealed to the circuit court. The circuit court [182 U.S. 244, 264] reversed the decree of
the district court upon the ground that the proceedings of the court at Key West were
legal, and transferred the property to Canter, the alleged purchaser.

The opinion of the circuit court was delivered by Mr. Justice Johnson, of the Supreme
Court, and is published in full in a note in Peters's Reports. It was argued that the
Constitution vested the admiralty jurisdiction exclusively in the general government; that
the legislature of Florida had exercised an illegal power in organizing this court, and that
its decrees were void. On the other hand, it was insisted that this was a court of separate
and distinct jurisdiction from the courts of the United States, and as such its acts were not
to be reviewed in a foreign tribunal, such as was the court of South Carolina; 'that the
district of Florida was no part of the United States, but only an acquisition or
dependency, and as such the Constitution per se had no binding effect in or over it.' 'It
becomes,' said the court 'indispensable to the solution of these difficulties that we should
conceive a just idea of the relation in which Florida stands to the United States. . . . And,
first, it is obvious that there is a material distinction between the territory now under
consideration and that which is acquired from the aborigines ( whether by purchase or
conquest) within the acknowledged limits of the United States, as also that which is
acquired by the establishment of a disputed line. As to both these there can be no
question that the sovereignty of the state or territory within which it lies, and of the
United States, immediately attached, producing a complete subjection to all the laws and
institutions of the two governments, local and general, unless modified by treaty. The
question now to be considered relates to territories previously subject to the
acknowledged jurisdiction of another sovereign, such as was Florida to the Crown of
Spain. And on this subject we have the most explicit proof that the understanding of our
public functionaries is that the government and laws of the United States do not extend to
such territory by the mere act of cession. For in the act of Congress of March 30, 1822, 9,
we have an enumeration of the acts of Congress which are to be held in force in the
territory; and in the 10th section an enumeration, in the nature of a bill [182 U.S. 244, 265]
of rights, of privileges and immunities which could not be denied to the inhabitants of the
territory if they came under the Constitution by the mere act of cession. . . . These states,
this territory, and future states to be admitted into the Union are the sole objects of the
Constitution; there is no express provision whatever made in the Constitution for the
acquisition or government of territories beyond those limits.' He further held that the right
of acquiring territory was altogether incidental to the treaty-making power; that their
government was left to Congress; that the territory of Florida did 'not stand in the relation
of a state to the United States;' that the acts establishing a territorial government were the
Constitution of Florida; that while, under these acts, the territorial legislature could enact
nothing inconsistent with what Congress had made inherent and permanent in the
territorial government, it had not done so in organizing the court at Key West.

From the decree of the circuit court the underwriters appealed to this court, and the
question was argued whether the circuit court was correct in drawing a distinction
between territories existing at the date of the Constitution and territories subsequently
acquired. The main contention of the appellants was that the superior courts of Florida
had been vested by Congress with exclusive jurisdiction in all admiralty and maritime
cases; that salvage was such a case, and therefore any law of Florida giving jurisdiction in
salvage cases to any other court was unconstitutional. On behalf of the purchaser it was
argued that the Constitution and laws of the United States were not per se in force in
Florida, nor the inhabitants citizens of the United States; that the Constitution was
established by the people of the United States for the United States; that if the
Constitution were in force in Florida it was unnecessary to pass an act extending the laws
of the United States to Florida. 'What is Florida?' said Mr. Webster. 'It is no part of the
United States. How can it be? How is it represented? Do the laws of the United States
reach Florida? Not unless by particular provisions.'

The opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in this case should be read in connection with
art. 3, 1 and 2, of the Con- [182 U.S. 244, 266] stitution, vesting 'the judicial power of the
United States' in 'one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may
from time to time ordain and establish. The judges both of the Supreme and inferior
courts shall hold their offices during good behavior,' etc. He held that the court 'should
take into view the relation in which Florida stands to the United States;' that territory
ceded by treaty 'becomes a part of the nation to which it is annexed, either on the terms
stipulated in the treaty of cession, or on such as its new master shall impose.' That
Florida, upon the conclusion of the treaty, became a territory of the United States and
subject to the power of Congress under the territorial clause of the Constitution. The acts
providing a territorial government for Florida were examined in detail. He held that the
judicial clause of the Constitution, above quoted, did not apply to Florida; that the judges
of the superior courts of Florida held their office for four years; that 'these courts are not,
then, constitutional courts in which the judicial power conferred by the Constitution on
the general government can be deposited;' that 'they are legislative courts, created in
virtue of the general right of sovereignty which exists in the government,' or in virtue of
the territorial clause of the Constitution; that the jurisdiction with which they are invested
is not a part of judicial power of the Constitution, but is conferred by Congress in the
exercise of those general powers which that body possesses over the territories of the
United States; and that in legislating for them Congress exercises the combined powers of
the general and of a state government. The act of the territorial legislature creating the
court in question was held not to be 'inconsistent with the laws and Constitution of the
United States,' and the decree of the circuit court was affirmed.

As the only judicial power vested in Congress is to create courts whose judges shall hold
their offices during good behavior, it necessarily follows that, if Congress authorizes the
creation of courts and the appointment of judges for a limited time, it must act
independently of the Constitution and upon territory which is not part of the United States
within the meaning of the Constitution. In delivering his opinion in this [182 U.S. 244, 267]
case Mr. Chief Justice Marshall made no reference whatever to the prior case of
Loughborough v. Blake, 5 Wheat. 317, 5 L. ed. 98, in which he had intimated that the
territories were part of the United States. But if they be a part of the United States, it is
difficult to see how Congress could create courts in such territories, except under the
judicial clause of the Constitution. The power to make needful rules and regulations
would certainly not authorize anything inconsistent with the Constitution if it applied to
the territories. Certainly no such court could be created within a state, except under the
restrictions of the judicial clause. It is sufficient to say that this case has ever since been
accepted as authority for the proposition that the judicial clause of the Constitution has no
application to courts created in the territories, and that with respect to them Congress has
a power wholly unrestricted by it. We must assume as a logical inference from this case
that the other powers vested in Congress by the Constitution have no application to these
territories, or that the judicial clause is exceptional in that particular.

This case was followed in Benner v. Porter, 9 How. 235, 13 L. ed. 119, in which it was
held that the jurisdiction of these territorial courts ceased upon the admission of Florida
into the Union, Mr. Justice Nelson remarking of them (p. 242, L. ed. p. 122), that 'they
are not organized under the Constitution, nor subject to its complex distribution of the
powers of government, as the organic law; but are the creations, exclusively, of the
legislative department, and subject to its supervision and control. Whether or not there
are provisions in that instrument which extend to and act upon these territorial
governments, it is not now material to examine. We are speaking here of those provisions
that refer particularly to the distinction between Federal and state jurisdiction . . . . (p.
244, L. ed. p. 123). Neither were they organized by Congress under the Constitution, as
they were invested with powers and jurisdiction which that body were incapable of
conferring upon a court within the limits of a state.' To the same effect are Clinton v.
Englebrecht, 13 Wall. 434, 20 L. ed. 659; Good v. Martin, 95 U.S. 90, 98 , 24 S. L. ed.
341, 344; and McAllister v. United States, 141 U.S. 174 , 35 L. ed. 693, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep.
949.

That the power over the territories is vested in Congress [182 U.S. 244, 268] without
limitation, and that this power has been considered the foundation upon which the
territorial governments rest, was also asserted by Chief Justice Marshall in M'Culloch v.
Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 422, 4 L. ed. 579, 605, and in United States v. Gratiot, 14 Pet.
526, 10 L. ed. 573. So, too, in Church of Jesus Christ of L. D. S. v. United States, 136
U.S. 1 , 34 L. ed. 478, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 792, in holding that Congress had power to repeal
the charter of the church, Mr. Justice Bradley used the following forceful language: 'The
power of Congress over the territories of the United States is general and plenary, arising
from and incidental to the right to acquire the territory itself, and from the power given
by the Constitution to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or
other property belonging to the United States. It would be absurd to hold that the United
States has power to acquire territory, and no power to govern it when acquired. The
power to acquire territory, other than the territory northwest of the Ohio river (which
belonged to the United States at the adoption of the Constitution), is derived from the
treaty-making power and the power to declare and carry on war. The incidents of these
powers are those of national sovereignty and belong to all independent governments. The
power to make acquisitions of territory by conquest, by treaty, and by cession is an
incident of national sovereignty. The territory of Louisiana, when acquired from France,
and the territories west of the Rocky mountains, when acquired from Mexico, became the
absolute property and domain of the United States, subject to such conditions as the
government, in its diplomatic negotiations, had seen fit to accept relating to the rights of
the people then inhabiting those territories. Having rightfully acquired said territories, the
United States government was the only one which could impose laws upon them, and its
sovereignty over them was complete. . . . Doubtless Congress, in legislating for the
territories, would be subject to those fundamental limitations in favor of personal rights
which are formulated in the Constitution and its amendments, but those limitations would
exist rather by inference and the general spirit of the Constitution, from which Congress
derives all its powers, than by any express and direct application of its provisions.' See
also, to the same [182 U.S. 244, 269] effect First Nat. Bank v. Yankton County, 101 U.S.
129 , 25 L. ed. 1046; Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15 , 29 L. ed. 47, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 747.

In Webster v. Reid, 11 How. 437, 13 L. ed. 761, it was held that a law of the territory of
Iowa, which prohibited the trial by jury of certain actions at law founded on contract to
recover payment for services, was void; but the case is of little value as bearing upon the
question of the extension of the Constitution to that territory, inasmuch as the organic law
of the territory of Iowa, by express provision and by reference, extended the laws of the
United States, including the ordinance of 1787 (which provided expressly for jury trials),
so far as they were applicable; and the case was put upon this ground. 5 Stat. at L. 235,
239, chap. 96, 12.

In Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 , 25 L. ed. 244, a law of the territory of Utah,
providing for grand juries of fifteen persons, was held to be constitutional, though Rev.
Stat. 808, required that a grand jury impaneled before any circuit or district court of the
United States shall consist of not less than sixteen nor more than twenty-three persons.
Section 808 was held to apply only to the circuit and district courts. The territorial courts
were free to act in obedience to their own laws.

In Ross's Case, 140 U.S. 453 , sub nom. Ross v. McIntyre, 35 L. ed. 581, 11 Sup. Ct.
Rep. 897, petitioner had been convicted by the American consular tribunal in Japan, of a
murder committed upon an American vessel in the harbor of Yokohama, and sentenced to
death. There was no indictment by a grand jury, and no trial by a petit jury. This court
affirmed the conviction, holding that the Constitution had no application, since it was
ordained and established 'for the United States of America,' and not for countries outside
of their limits. 'The guaranties it affords against accusation of capital or infamous crimes,
except by indictment or presentment by a grand jury, and for an impartial trial by a jury
when thus accused, apply only to citizens and others within the United States, or who are
brought there for trial for alleged offenses committed elsewhere, and not to residents or
temporary sojourners abroad.'

In Springville v. Thomas, 166 U.S. 707 , 41 L. ed. 1172, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 717, it was
held that a verdict returned by less than the whole number of jurors was invalid because
in contravention of the 7th Amendment to the Constitution and the act of Congress of
April 7, 1874 [182 U.S. 244, 270] (18 Stat. at L. 27, chap. 80), which provide 'that no party
has been or shall be deprived of the right of trial by jury in cases cognizable at common
law.' It was also intimated that Congress 'could not impart the power to change the
constitutional rule,' which was obviously true with respect to Utah, since the organic act
of that territory (9 Stat. at L. 458, chap. 51, 17) had expressly extended to it the
Constitution and laws of the United States. As we have already held, that provision, once
made, could not be withdrawn. If the Constitution could be withdrawn directly, it could
be nullified indirectly by acts passed inconsistent with it. The Constitution would thus
cease to exist as such, and become of no greater authority than an ordinary act of
Congress. In American Pub. Co. v. Fisher, 166 U.S. 464 , 41 L. ed. 1079, 17 Sup. Ct.
Rep. 618, a similar law providing for majority verdicts was put upon the express ground
above stated, that the organic act of Utah extended the Constitution over that territory.
These rulings were repeated in Thompson v. Utah, 170 U.S. 343 , 42 L. ed. 1061, 18 Sup.
Ct. Rep. 620, and applied to felonies committed before the territory became a state,
although the state Constitution continued the same provision.

Eliminating, then, from the opinions of this court all expressions unnecessary to the
disposition of the particular case, and gleaning therefrom the exact point decided in each,
the following propositions may be considered as established:

1. That the District of Columbia and the territories are not states within the judicial clause
of the Constitution giving jurisdiction in cases between citizens of different states;

2. That territories are not states within the meaning of Rev. Stat. 709, permitting writs of
error from this court in cases where the validity of a state statute is drawn in question;

3. That the District of Columbia and the territories are states as that word is used in
treaties with foreign powers, with respect to the ownership, disposition, and inheritance
of property;

4. That the territories are not within the clause of the Constitution providing for the
creation of a supreme court and such inferior courts as Congress may see fit to establish;

5. That the Constitution does not apply to foreign countries or to trials therein conducted,
and that Congress may lawfully [182 U.S. 244, 271] provide for such trials before consular
tribunals, without the intervention of a grand or petit jury;

6. That where the Constitution has been once formally extended by Congress to
territories, neither Congress nor the territorial legislature can enact laws inconsistent
therewith.

The case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 15 L. ed. 691, remains to be
considered. This was an action of trespass vi et armis brought in the circuit court for the
district of Missouri by Scott, alleging himself to be a citizen of Missouri, against
Sandford, a citizen of New York. Defendant pleaded to the jurisdiction that Scott was not
a citizen of the state of Missouri, because a negro of African descent, whose ancestors
were imported as negro slaves. Plaintiff demurred to this plea and the demurrer was
sustained; whereupon, by stipulation of counsel and with leave of the court, defendant
pleaded in bar the general issue, and specially that the plaintiff was a slave and the lawful
property of defendant, and, as such, he had a right to restrain him. The wife and children
of the plaintiff were also involved in the suit.
The facts in brief were that plaintiff had been a slave belonging to Dr. Emerson, a
surgeon in the army; that in 1834 Emerson took the plaintiff from the state of Missouri to
Rock Island, Illinois, and subsequently to Fort Snelling, Minnesota (then known as Upper
Louisiana), and held him there until 1838. Scott married his wife there, of whom the
children were subsequently born. In 1838 they returned to Missouri.

Two questions were presented by the record: First, whether the circuit court had
jurisdiction; and, second, if it had jurisdiction, was the judgment erroneous or not? With
regard to the first question, the court stated that it was its duty 'to decide whether the facts
stated in the plea are or are not sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as
a citizen in a court of the United States,' and that the question was whether 'a negro
whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold as slaves became a member of
the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the
United States, and as such became entitled to all the rights and privileges and immunities
guaranteed by that instrument to the citizen, one of which rights is the privilege of suing
in a court [182 U.S. 244, 272] of the United States.' It was held that he was not, and was not
included under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and therefore could claim 'none of
the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the
United States;' that it did not follow, because he had all the rights and privileges of a
citizen of a state, he must be a citizen of the United States; that no state could by any law
of its own 'introduce a new member into the political community created by the
Constitution;' that the African race was not intended to be included, and formed no part
of the people who framed and adopted the Declaration of Independence. The question of
the status of negroes in England and the several states was considered at great length by
the Chief Justice, and the conclusion reached that Scott was not a citizen of Missouri, and
that the circuit court had no jurisdiction of the case.

This was sufficient to dispose of the case without reference to the question of slavery;
but, as the plaintiff insisted upon his title to freedom and citizenship by the fact that he
and his wife, though born slaves, were taken by their owner and kept four years in Illinois
and Minnesota, they thereby became and upon their return to Missouri became citizens of
that state, the Chief Justice proceeded to discuss the question whether Scott was still a
slave. As the court had decided against his citizenship upon the plea in abatement, it was
insisted that further decision upon the question of his freedom or slavery was
extrajudicial and mere obiter dicta. But the Chief Justice held that the correction of one
error in the court below did not deprive the appellate court of the power of examining
further into the record and correcting any other material error which may have been
committed; that the error of an inferior court in actually pronouncing judgment for one of
the parties, in a case in which it had no jurisdiction, can be looked into or corrected by
this court, even though it had decided a similar question presented in the pleadings.

Proceeding to decide the case upon the merits, he held that the territorial clause of the
Constitution was confined to the territory which belonged to the United States at the time
the Con- [182 U.S. 244, 273] stitution was adopted, and did not apply to territory
subsequently acquired from a foreign government.
In further examining the question as to what provision of the Constitution authorizes the
Federal government to acquire territory outside of the original limits of the United States,
and what powers it may exercise therein over the person or property of a citizen of the
United States, he made use of the following expressions, upon which great reliance is
placed by the plaintiff in this case (p. 446, L. ed. p. 718): 'There is certainly no power
given by the Constitution to the Federal government to establish or maintain colonies
bordering on the United States or at a distance, to be ruled and governed at its own
pleasure ; . . . and if a new state is admitted, it needs no further legislation by Congress,
because the Constitution itself defines the relative rights and powers and duties of the
state, and the citizens of the state, and the Federal government. But no power is given to
acquire a territory to be held and governed permanently in that character.'

He further held that citizens who migrate to a territory cannot be ruled as mere colonists,
and that, while Congress had the power of legislating over territories until states were
formed from them, it could not deprive a citizen of his property merely because he
brought it into a particular territory of the United States, and that this doctrine applied to
slaves as well as to other property. Hence, it followed that the act of Congress which
prohibited a citizen from holding and owning slaves in territories north of 36 30' (known
as the Missouri Compromise) was unconstitutional and void, and the fact that Scott was
carried into such territory, referring to what is now known as Minnesota, did not entitle
him to his freedom.

He further held that whether he was made free by being taken into the free state of
Illinois and being kept there two years depended upon the laws of Missouri, and not those
of Illinois, and that by the decisions of the highest court of that state his status as a slave
continued, notwithstanding his residence of two years in Illinois.

It must be admitted that this case is a strong authority in favor of the plaintiff, and if the
opinion of the Chief Justice be [182 U.S. 244, 274] taken at its full value it is decisive in his
favor. We are not, however, bound to overlook the fact, that, before the Chief Justice
gave utterance to his opinion upon the merits, he had already disposed of the case
adversely to the plaintiff upon the question of jurisdiction, and that, in view of the excited
political condition of the country at the time, it is unfortunate that he felt compelled to
discuss the question upon the merits, particularly so in view of the fact that it involved a
ruling that an act of Congress which had been acquiesced in for thirty years was declared
unconstitutional. It would appear from the opinion of Mr. Justice Wayne that the real
reason for discussing these constitutional questions was that 'there had become such a
difference of opinion' about them 'that the peace and harmony of the country required the
settlement of them by judicial decision.' p. 455, L. ed. p. 721. The attempt was not
successful. It is sufficient to say that the country did not acquiesce in the opinion, and that
the Civil War, which shortly thereafter followed, produced such changes in judicial, as
well as public, sentiment as to seriously impair the authority of this case.

While there is much in the opinion of the Chief Justice which tends to prove that he
thought all the provisions of the Constitution extended of their own force to the territories
west of the Mississippi, the question actually decided is readily distinguishable from the
one involved in the cause under consideration. The power to prohibit slavery in the
territories is so different from the power to impose duties upon territorial products, and
depends upon such different provisions of the Constitution, that they can scarcely be
considered as analogous, unless we assume broadly that every clause of the Constitution
attaches to the territories as well as to the states,-a claim quite inconsistent with the
position of the court in the Canter Case. If the assumption be true that slaves are
indistinguishable from other property, the inference from the Dred Scott Case is
irresistible that Congress had no power to prohibit their introduction into a territory. It
would scarcely be insisted that Congress could with one hand invite settlers to locate in
the territories of the United States, and with the other deny them the right to take their
property and belongings with them. The two [182 U.S. 244, 275] are so inseparable from
each other that one could scarcely be granted and the other withheld without an exercise
of arbitrary power inconsistent with the underlying principles of a free government. It
might indeed be claimed with great plausibility that such a law would amount to a
deprivation of property within the 14th Amendment. The difficulty with the Dred Scott
Case was that the court refused to make a distinction between property in general and a
wholly exceptional class of property. Mr. Benton tersely stated the distinction by saying
that the Virginian might carry his slaves into the territories, but he could not carry with
him the Virginian law which made him a slave.

In his history of the Dred Scott Case, Mr. Benton states that the doctrine that the
Constitution extended to territories as well as to states first made its appearance in the
Senate in the session of 1848-1849, by an attempt to amend a bill giving territorial
government to California, New Mexico, and Utah (itself 'hitched on' to a general
appropriation bill), by adding the words 'that the Constitution of the United States and all
and singular the several acts of Congress (describing them) be and the same hereby are
extended and given full force and efficacy in said territories.' Says Mr. Benton: 'The
novelty and strangeness of this proposition called up Mr. Webster, who repulsed as an
absurdity and as an impossibility the scheme of extending the Constitution to the
territories, declaring that instrument to have been made for states, not territories; that
Congress governed the territories independently of the Constitution and incompatibly
with it; that no part of it went to a territory but what Congress chose to send; that it could
not act of itself anywhere, not even in the states for which it was made, and that it
required an act of Congress to put it in operation before it had effect anywhere Mr. Clay
was of the same opinion and added: 'Now, really, I must say the idea that eo instanti upon
the consummation of the treaty, the Constitution of the United States spread itself over
the acquired territory and carried along with it the institution of slavery is so
irreconcilable with my comprehension, or any reason I possess, that I hardly know how to
meet it.' Upon the other hand, Mr. Cal- [182 U.S. 244, 276] houn boldly avowed his intent
to carry slavery into them under the wing of the Constitution, and denounced as enemies
of the south all who opposed it.'

The amendment was rejected by the House, and a contest brought on which threatened
the loss of the general appropriation bill in which this amendment was incorporated, and
the Senate finally receded from its amendment. 'Such,' said Mr. Benton, 'were the
portentous circumstances under which this new doctrine first revealed itself in the
American Senate, and then as needing legislative sanction requiring an act of Congress to
carry the Constitution into the territories and to give it force and efficacy there.' Of the
Dred Scott Case he says: 'I conclude this introductory note with recurring to the great
fundamental error of the court (father of all the political errors), that of assuming the
extension of the Constitution to the territories. I call it assuming, for it seems to be a
naked assumption without a reason to support it, or a leg to stand upon, condemned by
the Constitution itself and the whole history of its formation and administration. Who
were the parties to it? The states alone. Their delegates framed it in the Federal
convention; their citizens adopted it in the state conventions. The Northwest Territory
was then in existence and it had been for three years; yet it had no voice either in the
framing or adopting of the instrument, no delegate at Philadelphia, no submission of it to
their will for adoption. The preamble shows it made by states. Territories are not alluded
to in it.'

Finally, in summing up the results of the decisions holding the invalidity of the Missouri
Compromise and the self-extension of the Constitution to the territories, he declares 'that
the decisions conflict with the uniform action of all the departments of the Federal
government from its foundation to the present time, and cannot be received as rules
governing Congress and the people without reversing that action, and admitting the
political supremacy of the court, and accepting an altered Constitution from its hands and
taking a new and portentous point of departure in the working of the government.'

To sustain the judgment in the case under consideration, it by no means becomes

necessary to show that none of the articles [182 U.S. 244, 277] of the Constitution apply to
the island of Porto Rico. There is a clear distinction between such prohibitions as go to
the very root of the power of Congress to act at all, irrespective of time of place, and such
as are operative only 'throughout the United States' or among the several states.

Thus, when the Constitution declares that 'no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be
passed,' and that 'no title of nobility shall be granted by the United States,' it goes to the
competency of Congress to pass a bill of that description. Perhaps the same remark may
apply to the 1st Amendment, that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peacefully assemble and
to petition the government for a redress of grievances.' We do not wish, however, to be
understood as expressing an opinion how far the bill of rights contained in the first eight
amendments is of general and how far of local application.

Upon the other hand, when the Constitution declares that all duties shall be uniform
'throughout the United States,' it becomes necessary to inquire whether there be any
territory over which Congress has jurisdiction which is not a part of the 'United States,'
by which term we understand the states whose people united to form the Constitution,
and such as have since been admitted to the Union upon an equality with them. Not only
did the people in adopting the 13th Amendment thus recognize a distinction between the
United States and 'any place subject to their jurisdiction,' but Congress itself, in the act of
March 27, 1804 (2 Stat. at L. 298, chap. 56), providing for the proof of public records,
applied the provisions of the act, not only to 'every court and office within the United
States,' but to the 'courts and offices of the respective territories of the United States and
countries subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,' as to the courts and offices of
the several states. This classification, adopted by the Eighth Congress, is carried into the
Revised Statutes as follows:

'Sec. 905. The acts of the legislature of any state or terri- [182 U.S. 244, 278] tory,
or of any country subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, shall be
authenticated,' etc.
'Sec. 906. All records and exemplifications of books which may be kept in any
public office of and state or territory, or of any country subject to the jurisdiction
of the United States,' etc.

Unless these words are to be rejected as meaningless, we must treat them as a recognition
by Congress of the fact that there may be teritories subject to the jurisdiction of the
United States, which are not of the United States.

In determining the meaning of the words of article 1, section 8, 'uniform throughout the
United States,' we are bound to consider, not only the provisions forbidding preference
being given to the ports of one state over those of another (to which attention has already
been called), but the other clauses declaring that no tax or duty shall be laid on articles
exported from any state, and that no state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any
imposts or duties upon imports or exports, nor any duty on tonnage. The object of all of
these was to protect the states which united in forming the Constitution from
discriminations by Congress, which would operate unfairly or injuriously upon some
states and not equally upon others. The opinion of Mr. Justice White in Knowlton v.
Moore, 178 U.S. 41 , 44 L. ed. 969, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 747, contains an elaborate historical
review of the proceedings in the convention, which resulted in the adoption of these
different clauses and their arrangement, and he there comes to the conclusion (p. 105, L.
ed. p. 995, Sup. Ct. Rep. p. 772) that 'although the provision as to preference between
ports and that regarding uniformity of duties, imposts, and excises were one in purpose,
one in their adoption,' they were originally placed together, and 'became separated only in
arranging the Constitution for the purpose of style.' Thus construed together, the purpose
is irresistible that the words 'throughout the United States' are indistinguishable from the
words 'among or between the several states,' and that these prohibitions were intended to
apply only to commerce between ports of the several states as they then existed or should
thereafter be admitted to the Union.

Indeed, the practical interpretation put by Congress upon the Constitution has been long
continued and uniform to the effect [182 U.S. 244, 279] that the Constitution is applicable
to territories acquired by purchase or conquest, only when and so far as Congress shall so
direct. Notwithstanding its duty to 'guarantee to every state in this Union a republican
form of government' (art. 4, 4), by which we understand, according to the definition of
Webster, 'a government in which the supreme power resides in the whole body of the
people, and is exercised by representatives elected by them,' Congress did not hesitate, in
the original organization of the territories of Louisiana, Florida, the Northwest Territory,
and its subdivisions of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin and still more
recently in the case of Alaska, to establish a form of government bearing a much greater
analogy to a British Crown colony than a republican state of America, and to vest the
legislative power either in a governor and council, or a governor and judges, to be
appointed by the President. It was not until they had attained a certain population that
power was given them to organize a legislature by vote of the people. In all these cases,
as well as in territories subsequently organized west of the Mississippi, Congress thought
it necessary either to extend to Constitution and laws of the United States over them, or to
declare that the inhabitants should be entitled to enjoy the right of trial by jury, of bail,
and of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, as well as other privileges of the bill of
rights.

We are also of opinion that the power to acquire territory by treaty implies, not only the
power to govern such territory, but to prescribe upon what terms the United States will
receive its inhabitants, and what their status shall be in what Chief Justice Marshall
termed the 'American empire.' There seems to be no middle ground between this position
and the doctrine that if their inhabitants do not become, immediately upon annexation,
citizens of the United States, their children thereafter born, whether savages or civilized,
are such, and entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities of citizens. If such be
their status, the consequences will be extremely serious. Indeed, it is doubtful if Congress
would ever assent to the annexation of territory upon the condition that its inhabitants,
however foreign they may be to our habits, traditions, and modes [182 U.S. 244, 280] of
life, shall become at once citizens of the United States. In all its treaties hitherto the
treaty-making power has made special provision for this subject; in the cases of
Louisiana and Florida, by stipulating that 'the inhabitants shall be incorporated into the
Union of the United States and admitted as soon as possible . . . to the enjoyment of all
the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States;' in the case of
Mexico, that they should 'be incorporated into the Union, and be admitted at the proper
time (to be judged of by the Congress of the United States) to the enjoyment of all the
rights of citizens of the United States;' in the case of Alaska, that the inhabitants who
remained three years, 'with the exception of uncivilized native tribes, shall be admitted to
the enjoyment of all the rights,' etc; and in the case of Porto Rico and the Philippines,
'that the civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants . . . shall be determined
by Congress.' In all these cases there is an implied denial of the right of the inhabitants to
American citizenship until Congress by further action shall signify its assent thereto.

Grave apprehensions of danger are felt by many eminent men,-a fear lest an unrestrained
possession of power on the part of Congress may lead to unjust and oppressive legislation
in which the natural rights of territories, or their inhabitants, may be engulfed in a
centralized despotism. These rears, however, find no justification in the action of
Congress in the past century, nor in the conduct of the British Parliament towards its
outlying possessions since the American Revolution. Indeed, in the only instance in
which this court has declared an act of Congress unconstitutional as trespassing upon the
rights of territories (the Missouri Compromise), such action was dictated by motives of
humanity and justice, and so far commanded popular approval as to be embodied in the
13th Amendment to the Constitution. There are certain principles of natural justice
inherent in the Anglo-Saxon character, which need no expression in constitutions or
statutes to give them effect or to secure dependencies against legislation manifestly
hostile to their real interests. Even in the Foraker act itself, the constitutionality of which
is so vigorously assailed, power [182 U.S. 244, 281] was given to the legislative assembly
of Porto Rico to repeal the very tariff in question in this case, a power it has not seen fit
to exercise. The words of Chief Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 6 L.
ed. 23, with respect to the power of Congress to regulate commerce, are pertinent in this
connection: 'This power,' said he, 'like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself,
may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are
prescribed in the Constitution. . . . The wisdom and discretion of Congress, their identity
with the people, and the influence which their constituents possess at elections, are in
this, as in many other instances.-as that, for example, of declaring war,-the sole restraints
on which they have relied to secure them from its abuse. They are the restraints on which
the people must often rely solely in all representative governments.'

So too, in Johnson v. M'Intosh, 8 Wheat. 543, 583, 5 L. ed. 681, 691, it was said by him:

'The title by conquest is acquired and maintained by force. The conqueror

prescribes its limits. Humanity, however, acting on public opinion, has
established, as a general rule, that the conquered shall not be wantonly oppressed,
and that their condition shall remain as eligible as is compatible with the objects
of the conquest. Most usually they are incorporated with the victorious nation and
become subjects or citizens of the government with which they are connected.
The new and old members of the society mingle with each other; the distinction
between them is gradually lost, and they make one people. Where this
incorporation is practicable humanity demands, and a wise policy requires, that
the rights of the conquered to property should remain unimpaired; that the new
subjects should be governed as equitably as the old; and that confidence in their
security should gradually banish the painful sense of being separated from their
ancient connections and united by force to strangers.
'When the conquest is complete, and the conquered inhabitants can be blended
with the conquerors, or safely governed as a distinct people, public opinion,
which not even the conqueror can disregard, imposes these restraints upon him;
and he can- [182 U.S. 244, 282] not neglect them without injury to his fame and
hazard to his power.'

The following remarks of Mr. Justice White in the case of Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U.S.
109 , 44 L. ed. 996, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 774, in which the court upheld the progressive
features of the legacy tax, are also pertinent:

'The grave consequences which it is asserted must arise in the future if the right to
levy a progressive tax be recognized involves in its ultimate aspect the mere
assertion that free and representative government is a failure, and that the grossest
abuses of power are foreshadowed unless the courts usurp a purely legislative
function. If a case should ever arise where an arbitrary and confiscatory exaction
is imposed, bearing the guise of a progressive or any other form of tax, it will be
time enough to consider whether the judicial power can afford a remedy by
applying inherent and fundamental principles for the protection of the individual,
even though there be no express authority in the Constitution to do so.'

It is obvious that in the annexation of outlying and distant possessions grave questions
will arise from differences of race, habits, laws, and customs of the people, and from
differences of soil, climate, and production, which may require action on the part of
Congress that would be quite unnecessary in the annexation of contiguous territory
inhabited only by people of the same race, or by scattered bodies of native Indians.

We suggest, without intending to decide, that there may be a distinction between certain
natural rights enforced in the Constitution by prohibitions against interference with them,
and what may be termed artificial or remedial rights which are peculiar to our own
system of jurisprudence. Of the former class are the rights to one's own religious opinions
and to a public expression of them, or, as sometimes said, to worship God according to
the dictates of one's own conscience; the right to personal liberty and individual property;
to freedom of speech and of the press; to free access to courts of justice, to due process of
law, and to an equal protection of the laws; to immunities from unreasonable searches
and seizures, as well as cruel and unusual punishments; and to such other immunities as
are in- [182 U.S. 244, 283] dispensable to a free government. Of the latter class are the
rights to citizenship, to suffrage (Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 22 L. ed. 627 ), and
to the particular methods of procedure pointed out in the Constitution, which are peculiar
to Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, and some of which have already been held by the states to
be unnecessary to the proper protection of individuals.

Whatever may be finally decided by the American people as to the status of these islands
and their inhabitants,-whether they shall be introduced into the sisterhood of states or be
permitted to form independent governments,-it does not follow that in the meantime, a
waiting that decision, the people are in the matter of personal rights unprotected by the
provisions of our Constitution and subject to the merely arbitrary control of Congress.
Even if regarded as aliens, they are entitled under the principles of the Constitution to be
protected in life, liberty, and property. This has been frequently held by this court in
respect to the Chinese, even when aliens, not possessed of the political rights of citizens
of the United States. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 , 30 L. ed. 220, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep.
1064; Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698 , 37 L. ed. 905, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep.
1016; Lem Moon Sing, 158 U.S. 538, 547 , 39 S. L. ed. 1082, 1085, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep.
962; Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228 , 41 L. ed. 140, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 977.
We do not desire, however, to anticipate the difficulties which would naturally arise in
this connection, but merely to disclaim any intention to hold that the inhabitants of these
territories are subject to an unrestrained power on the part of Congress to deal with them
upon the theory that they have no rights which it is bound to respect.

Large powers must necessarily be intrusted to Congress in dealing with these problems,
and we are bound to assume that they will be judiciously exercised. That these powers
may be abused is possible. But the same may be said of its powers under the Constitution
as well as outside of it. Human wisdom has never devised a form of government so
perfect that it may not be perverted to bad purposes. It is never conclusive to argue
against the possession of certain powers from possible abuses of them. It is safe to say
that if Congress should venture upon legislation manifestly dictated by selfish interests, it
would receive quick rebuke at the hands of the people. Indeed, it is scarcely possible that
Congress could do a greater injustice [182 U.S. 244, 284] to these islands than would be
involved in holding that it could not impose upon the states taxes and excises without
extending the same taxes to them. Such requirement would bring them at once within our
internal revenue system, including stamps, licenses, excises, and all the paraphernalia of
that system, and apply it to territories which have had no experience of this kind, and
where it would prove an intolerable burden.

This subject was carefully considered by the Senate committee in charge of the Foraker
bill, which found, after an examination of the facts, that property in Porto Rico was
already burdened with a private debt amounting probably to $30,000,000; that no system
of property taxation was or ever had been in force in the island, and that it probably
would require two years to inaugurate one and secure returns from it; that the revenues
had always been chiefly raised by duties on imports and exports, and that our internal
revenue laws, if applied in that island, would prove oppressive and ruinous to many
people and interests; that to undertake to collect our heavy internal revenue tax, far
heavier than Spain ever imposed upon their products and vocations, would be to invite
violations of the law so innumerable as to make prosecutions impossible, and to almost
certainly alienate and destroy the friendship and good will of that people for the United
States.

In passing upon the questions involved in this and kindred cases, we ought not to
overlook the fact that, while the Constitution was intended to establish a permanent form
of government for the states which should elect to take advantage of its conditions, and
continue for an indefinite future, the vast possibilities of that future could never have
entered the minds of its framers. The states had but recently emerged from a war with one
of the most powerful nations of Europe, were disheartened by the failure of the
confederacy, and were doubtful as to the feasibility of a stronger union. Their territory
was confined to a narrow strip of land on the Atlantic coast from Canada to Florida, with
a somewhat indefinite claim to territory beyond the Alleghanies, where their sovereignty
was disputed by tribes of hostile Indians supported, as was popularly believed, by the
British, who had never formally delivered possession [182 U.S. 244, 285] under the treaty
of peace. The vast territory beyond the Mississippi, which formerly had been claimed by
France, since 1762 had belonged to Spain, still a powerful nation and the owner of a great
part of the Western Hemisphere. Under these circumstances it is little wonder that the
question of annexing these territories was not made a subject of debate. The difficulties
of bringing about a union of the states were so great, the objections to it seemed so
formidable, that the whole thought of the convention centered upon surmounting these
obstacles. The question of territories was dismissed with a single clause, apparently
applicable only to the territories then existing, giving Congress the power to govern and
dispose of them.
Had the acquisition of other territories been contemplated as a possibility, could it have
been foreseen that, within little more than one hundred years, we were destined to
acquire, not only the whole vast region between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but the
Russian possessions in America and distant islands in the Pacific, it is incredible that no
provision should have been made for them, and the question whether the Constitution
should or should not extend to them have been definitely settled. If it be once conceded
that we are at liberty to acquire foreign territory, a presumption arises that our power with
respect to such territories is the same power which other nations have been accustomed to
exercise with respect to territories acquired by them. If, in limiting the power which
Congress was to exercise within the United States, it was also intended to limit it with
regard to such territories as the people of the United States should thereafter acquire, such
limitations should have been expressed. Instead of that, we find the Constitution speaking
only to states, except in the territorial clause, which is absolute in its terms, and
suggestive of no limitations upon the power of Congress in dealing with them. The states
could only delegate to Congress such powers as they themselves possessed, and as they
had no power to acquire new territory they had none to delegate in that connection. The
logical inference from this is that if Congress had power to acquire new territory, which
is conceded, that power was not hampered by the constitutional provisions. If, upon the
other hand, we assume [182 U.S. 244, 286] that the territorial clause of the Constitution was
not intended to be restricted to such territory as the United States then possessed, there is
nothing in the Constitution to indicate that the power of Congress in dealing with them
was intended to be restricted by any of the other provisions.

There is a provision that 'new states may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.'
These words, of course, carry the Constitution with them, but nothing is said regarding
the acquisition of new territories or the extension of the Constitution over them. The
liberality of Congress in legislating the Constitution into all our contiguous territories has
undoubtedly fostered the impression that it went there by its own force, but there is
nothing in the Constitution itself, and little in the interpretation put upon it, to confirm
that impression. There is not even an analogy to the provisions of an ordinary mortgage,
for its attachment to after-acquired property, without which it covers only property
existing at the date of the mortgage. In short, there is absolute silence upon the subject.
The executive and legislative departments of the government have for more than a
century interpreted this silence as precluding the idea that the Constitution attached to
these territories as soon as acquired, and unless such interpretation be manifestly contrary
to the letter or spirit of the Constitution, it should be followed by the judicial department.
Cooley, Const. Lim. 81-85. Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53, 57 ,
28 S. L. ed. 349, 351, 4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 279; Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649,
691 , 36 S. L. ed. 294, 309, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 495.

Patriotic and intelligent men may differ widely as to the desireableness of this or that
acquisition, but this is solely a political question. We can only consider this aspect of the
case so far as to say that no construction of the Constitution should be adopted which
would prevent Congress from considering each case upon its merits, unless the language
of the instrument imperatively demand it. A false step at this time might be fatal to the
development of what Chief Justice Marshall called the American empire. Choice in some
cases, the natural gravitation of small bodies towards large ones in others, the result of a
successful war in still others, may bring about conditions which would render the
annexation of distant posses- [182 U.S. 244, 287] sions desirable. If those possessions are
inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation,
and modes of thought, the administration of government and justice, according to Anglo-
Saxon principles, may for a time be impossible; and the question at once arises whether
large concessions ought not to be made for a time, that ultimately our own theories may
be carried out, and the blessings of a free government under the Constitution extended to
them. We decline to hold that there is anything in the Constitution to forbid such action.

We are therefore of opinion that the island of Porto Rico is a territory appurtenant and
belonging to the United States, but not a part of the United States within the revenue
clauses of the Constitution; that the Foraker act is constitutional, so far as it imposes
duties upon imports from such island, and that the plaintiff cannot recover back the duties
exacted in this case.

The judgment of the Circuit Court is therefore affirmed.

Mr. Justice White, with whom concurred Mr. Justice Shiras and Mr. Justice McKenna,
uniting in the judgment of affirmance:

Mr. Justice Brown, in announcing the judgment of affirmance, has in his opinion stated
his reasons for his concurrence in such judgment. In the result I likewise concur. As,
however, the reasons which cause me to do so are different from, if not in conflict with,
those expressed in that opinion, if its meaning is by me not misconceived, it becomes my
duty to state the convictions which control me.

The recovery sought is the amount of duty paid on merchandise which came into the
United States from Porto Rico after July 1, 1900. The exaction was made in virtue of the
act of Congress approved April 12, 1900, entitled 'An Act Temporarily to Provide
Revenue and a Civil Government for Porto Rico, and for Other Purposes.' 31 Stat. at L.
77. The right to recover is predicated on the assumption that Porto Rico, by the
ratification of the treaty with Spain, became incorporated into the [182 U.S. 244, 288]
United States, and therefore the act of Congress which imposed the duty in question is
repugnant to article 1, 8, clause 1, of the Constitution providing that 'the Congress shall
have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and
provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties,
imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.' Subsidiarily, it is
contended that the duty collected was also repugnant to the export and preference clauses
of the Constitution. But as the case concerns no duty on goods going from the United
States to Porto Rico, this proposition must depend also on the hypothesis that the
provisions of the Constitution referred to apply to Porto Rico because that island has been
incorporated into the United States. It is hence manifest that this latter contention is
involved in the previous one, and need not be separately considered.
The arguments at bar embrace many propositions which seem to me to be irrelevant, or,
if relevant, to be so contrary to reason and so in conflict with previous decisions of this
court as to cause them to require but a passing notice. To eliminate all controversies of
this character, and thus to come to the pivotal contentions which the case involves, let me
state and concede the soundness of some principles, referring, in doing so, in the margin
to the authorities by which they are sustained, and making such comment on some of
them as may to me appear necessary.

First. The government of the United States was born of the Constitution, and all powers
which it enjoys or may exercise must be either derived expressly or by implication from
that instrument. Ever then, when an act of any department is challenged because not
warranted by the Constitution, the existence of the authority is to be ascertained by
determining whether the power has been conferred by the Constitution, either in express
terms or by lawful implication, to be drawn from the express authority conferred, or
deduced as an attribute which legitimately inheres in the nature of the powers given, and
which flows from the character of the government established by the Constitution. In
other words, while confined to its constitu- [182 U.S. 244, 289] tional orbit, the government
of the United States is supreme within its lawful sphere. 1

Second. Every function of the government being thus derived from the Constitution, it
follows that that instrument is everywhere and at all times potential in so far as its
provisions are applicable. 2

Third. Hence it is that wherever a power is given by the Constitution, and there is a
limitation imposed on the authority, such restriction operates upon and confines every
action on the subject within its constitutional limits. 3

Fourth. Consequently it is impossible to conceive that, where conditions are brought

about to which any particular provision of the Constitution applies, its controlling
influence may be frustrated by the action of any or all of the departments of the
government. Those departments, when discharging, within the limits of their
constitutional power, the duties which rest on them, may of course deal with the subjects
committed to them in such a way as to cause the matter dealt with to come under the
control of provisions of the Constitution which may not have been previously applicable.
But this does not conflict with the doctrine just stated, or presuppose that the Constitution
may or may not be applicable at the election of any agency of the government.

Fifth. The Constitution has undoubtedly conferred on Congress the right to create such
municipal organizations as it may deem best for all the territories of the United States,
whether they have been incorporated or not, to give to the inhabitants as respects the local
governments such degree of representation as may be conducive to the public well-being,
to deprive such [182 U.S. 244, 290] territory of representative government if it is
considered just to do so, and to change such local governments at discretion. 4

The plenitude of the power of Congress as just stated is conceded by both sides to this
controversy. It has been manifest from the earliest days, and so many examples are
afforded of it that to refer to them seems superfluous. However, there is an instance
which exemplifies the exercise of the power substantially in all its forms, in such an apt
way that reference is made to it. The instance referred to is the District of Columbia,
which has had from the beginning different forms of government conferred upon it by
Congress, some largely representative, others only partially so, until, at the present time,
the people of the District live under a local government totally devoid of local
representation, in the elective sense, administered solely by officers appointed by the
President, Congress, in which the District has no representative in effect, acting as the
local legislature.

In some adjudged cases the power to locally govern at discretion has been declared to
arise as an incident to the right to acquire territory. In others it has been rested upon the
clause of 3, article 4, of the Constitution, which vests Congress with the power to dispose
of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property of
the United States. 5 But this divergence, if not conflict of opinion, does not imply that the
authority of Congress to govern the territories is outside of the Constitution, since in
either case the right is founded on the Constitution, although referred to different
provisions of that instrument.

While, therefore, there is no express or implied limitation on Congress in exercising its

power to create local governments for [182 U.S. 244, 291] any and all of the territories, by
which that body is restrained from the widest latitude of discretion, it does not follow that
there may not be inherent, although unexpressed, principles which are the basis of all free
government which cannot be with impunity transcended. 6 But this does not suggest that
every express limitation of the Constitution which is applicable has not force, but only
signifies that even in cases where there is no direct command of the Constitution which
applies, there may nevertheless be restrictions of so fundamental a nature that they cannot
be transgressed, although not expressed in so many words in the Constitution.

Sixth. As Congress in governing the territories is subject to the Constitution, it results that
all the limitations of the Constitution which are applicable to Congress in exercising this
authority necessarily limit its power on this subject. It follows, also, that every provision
of the Constitution which is applicable to the territories is also controlling therein. To
justify a departure from this elementary principle by a criticism of the opinion of Mr.
Chief Justice Taney in Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 15 L. ed. 691, appears to me to be
unwarranted. Whatever may be the view entertained of the correctness of the opinion of
the court in that case, in so far as it interpreted a particular provision of the Constitution
concerning slavery, and decided that as so construed it was in force in the territories, this
in no way affects the principle which that decision announced, that the applicable
provisions of the Constitution were operative. That doctrine was concurred in by the
dissenting judges, as the following excerpts demonstrate. Thus Mr. Justice McLean, in
the course of his dissenting opinion, said (19 How. 542, 15 L. ed. 757):

'In organizing the government of a territory, Congress is limited to means

appropriate to the attainment of the constitutional object. No powers can be
exercised which are prohibited by the Constitution, or which are contrary to its
spirit.' [182 U.S. 244, 292] Mr. Justice Curtis, also, in the dissent expressed by him,
said (p. 614, L. ed. p. 787):
'If, then, this clause does contain a power to legislate respecting the territory, what
are the limits of that power?
'To this I answer that, in common with all other legislative powers of Congress, it
finds limits in the express prohibitions on Congress not to do certain things; that,
in the exercise of the legislative power, Congress cannot pass an ex post facto law
or bill of attainder; and so in respect to each of the other prohibitions contained in
the Constitution.'

Seventh. In the case of the territories, as in every other instance, when a provision of the
Constitution is invoked, the question which arises is, not whether the Constitution is
operative, for that is self-evident, but whether the provision relied on is applicable.

Eighth. As Congress derives its authority to levy local taxes for local purposes within the
territories, not from the general grant of power to tax as expressed in the Constitution, it
follows that its right to locally tax is not to be measured by the provision empowering
Congress 'to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises,' and is not restrained by
the requirement of uniformity throughout the United States. But the power just referred
to, as well as the qualification of uniformity, restrains Congress from imposing an impost
duty on goods coming into the United States from a territory which has been incorporated
into and forms a part of the United States. This results because the clause of the
Constitution in question does not confer upon Congress power to impose such an impost
duty on goods coming from one part of the United States to another part thereof, and such
duty, besides, would be repugnant to the requirement of uniformity throughout the United
States. 7

To question the principle above stated on the assumption that the rulings on this subject
of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in Loughborough borough v. Blake were mere dicta seems
to me to be entirely inadmissible. And, besides, if such view was justified, [182 U.S. 244,
293] the principle would still find support in the decision in Woodruff v. Parham, and
that decision, in this regard, was affirmed by this court in Brown v. Houston, 114 U.S.
622 , 29 L. ed. 257, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1091 and Fairbank v. United States, 181 U.S. 283 ,
ante, 648, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 648.

From these conceded propositions it follows that Congress in legislating for Porto Rico
was only empowered to act within the Constitution and subject to its applicable
limitations, and that every provision of the Constitution which applied to a country
situated as was that island was potential in Porto Rico.

And the determination of what particular provision of the Constitution is applicable,

generally speaking, in all cases, involves an inquiry into the situation of the territory and
its relations to the United States. This is well illustrated by some of the decisions of this
court which are cited in the margin. 8 Some of these decisions hold on the one hand that,
growing out of the presumably ephemeral nature of a territorial government, the
provisions of the Constitution relating to the life tenure of judges is inapplicable to courts
created by Congress, even in territories which are incorporated into the United States, and
some, on the other hand, decide that the provisions as to common-law juries found in the
Constitution are applicable under like conditions; that is to say, although the judge
presiding over a jury need not have the constitutional tenure, yet the jury must be in
accordance with the Constitution. And the application of the provision of the Constitution
relating to juries has been also considered in a different aspect, the case being noted in
the margin. 9

The question involved was the constitutionality of the statutes of the United States
conferring power on ministers and consuls [182 U.S. 244, 294] to try American citizens for
crimes committed in certain foreign countries. Rev. Stat. 4083-4086. The court held the
provisions in question not to be repugnant to the Constitution, and that a conviction for a
felony without a previous indictment by a grand jury, or the summoning of a petty jury,
was valid.

It was decided that the provisions of the Constitution relating to grand and petty juries
were inapplicable to consular courts exercising their jurisdiction in certain countries
foreign to the United States. But this did not import that the government of the United
States in creating and conferring jurisdiction on consuls and ministers acted outside of the
Constitution, since it was expressly held that the power to call such courts into being and
to confer upon them the right to try, in the foreign countries in question, American
citizens, was deducible from the treaty- making power as conferred by the Constitution.
The court said (p. 463, L. ed. p. 585, Sup. Ct. Rep. p. 900):

'The treaty-making power vested in our government extends to all proper subjects
of negotiation with foreign governments. It can, equally with any of the former or
present governments of Europe, make treaties providing for the exercise of
judicial authority in other countries by its officers appointed to reside therein.'

In other words, the case concerned, not the question of a power outside the Constitution,
but simply whether certain provisions of the Constitution were applicable to the authority
exercised under the circumstances which the case presented.

Albeit, as a general rule, the status of a particular territory has to be taken in view when
the applicability of any provision of the Constitution is questioned, it does not follow,
when the Constitution has absolutely withheld from the government all power on a given
subject, that such an inquiry is necessary. Undoubtedly there are general prohibitions in
the Constitution in favor of the liberty and property of the citizen, which are not mere
regulations as to the form and manner in which a conceded power may be exercised, but
which are an absolute denial of all authority under any circumstances or conditions to do
particular acts. In the nature of things, limitations of this char- [182 U.S. 244, 295] acter
cannot be under any circumstances transcended, because of the complete absence of
power.

The distinction which exists between the two characters of restrictions-those which
regulate a granted power and those which withdraw all authority on a particular subject-
has in effect been always conceded, even by those who most strenuously insisted on the
erroneous principle that the Constitution did not apply to Congress in legislating for the
territories, and was not operative in such districts of country. No one had more broadly
asserted this principle than Mr. Webster. Indeed, the support which that proposition
receives from expressions of that illustrious man have been mainly relied upon to sustain
it, and yet there can be no doubt that, even while insisting upon such principle, it was
conceded by Mr. Webster that those positive prohibitions of the Constitution which
withhold all power on a particular subject were always applicable. His views of the
principal proposition and his concession as to the existence of the qualification are clearly
shown by a debate which took place in the Senate on February 24, 1849, on an
amendment offered by Mr. Walker extending the Constitution and certain laws of the
United States over California and New Mexico. Mr. Webster, in support of his
conception that the Constitution did not, generally speaking, control Congress in
legislating for the territories or operate in such districts, said as follows (20 Cong. Globe,
App. p. 272):

'Mr. President, it is of importance that we should seek to have clear ideas and
correct notions of the question which this amendment of the member from
Wisconsin has presented to us; and especially that we should seek to get some
conception of what is meant by the proposition, in a law, to 'extend the
Constitution of the United States to the territories.' Why, sir, the thing is utterly
impossible. All the legislation in the world, in this general form, could not
accomplish it. There is no cause for the operation of the legislative power in such
a matter as that. The Constitution, what is it-we extend the Constitution of the
United States by law to a territory? What is the Constitution of the United States?
Is not its very first principle that all within its influence and comprehension shall
[182 U.S. 244, 296] be represented in the legislature which it establishes, with not
only the right of debate and the right to vote in both Houses of Congress, but a
right to partake in the choice of the President and Vice President? And can we by
law extend these rights, or any of them, to a territory of the United States?
Everybody will see that it is altogether impracticable.'

Thereupon, the following colloquy ensued between Mr. Underwood and Mr. Webster
(Ibid. 281-282):

'Mr. Underwood: 'The learned Senator from Massachusetts says, and says most
appropriately and forcibly, that the principles of the Constitution are obligatory
upon us even while legislating for the territories. That is true, I admit, in its fullest
force, but if it is obligatory upon us while legislating for the territories, is it
possible that it will not be equally obligatory upon the officers who are appointed
to administer the laws in these territories?'
'Mr. Webster: 'I never said it was not obligatory upon them. What I said was, that
in making laws for these territories it was the high duty of Congress to regard
those great principles in the Constitution intended for the security of personal
liberty and for the security of property.'
'Mr. Underwood: '. . . Suppose we provide by our legislation that nobody shall be
appointed to an office there who professes the Catholic religion. What do we do
by an act of this sort?'
'Mr. Webster: 'We violate the Constitution, which says that no religious test shall
be required as qualification for office."

And this was the state of opinion generally prevailing in the Free Soil and Republican
parties, since the resistance of those parties to the extension of slavery into the territories,
while in a broad sense predicated on the proposition that the Constitution was not
generally controlling in the territories, was sustained by express reliance upon the 5th
Amendment to the Constitution forbidding Congress from depriving any person of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law. Every platform adopted by those parties
down to and including 1860, while propounding the general doctrine, also in effect
declared [182 U.S. 244, 297] the rule just stated. I append in the margin an excerpt from the
platform of the Free Soil party adopted in 1842.10

The conceptions embodied in these resolutions were in almost identical language

reiterated in the platform of the Liberty party in 1843, in that of the Free Soil party in
1852, and in the platform of the Republican party in 1856. Stanwood, Hist. of Presidency,
pp. 218, 253, 254, and 271. In effect, the same thought was repeated in the declaration of
principles made by the Republican party convention in 1860, when Mr. Lincoln was
nominated, as will be seen from an excerpt therefrom set out in the margin. 11

The doctrine that those absolute withdrawals of power which [182 U.S. 244, 298] the
Constitution has made in favor of human liberty are applicable to every condition or
status has been clearly pointed out by this court in Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. McGlinn
(1885) 114 U.S. 542 , 29 L. ed. 270, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1005, where, speaking through Mr.
Justice Field, the court said (p. 546, L. ed. p. 271, Sup. Ct. Rep. p. 1006):

'It is a general rule of public law, recognized and acted upon by the United States,
that whenever political jurisdiction and legislative power over any territory are
transferred from one nation of sovereign to another the municipal laws of the
country-that is, laws which are intended for the protection of private rights-
continue in force until abrogated or changed by the new government or sovereign.
By the cession, public property passes from one government to the other, but
private property remains as before, and with it those municipal laws which are
designed to secure its peaceful use and enjoyment. As a matter of course, all laws,
ordinances, and regulations in conflict with the political character, institutions,
and constitution of the new government are at once displaced. Thus, upon a
cession of political jurisdiction and legislative power-and the latter is involved in
the former-to the United States, the laws of the country in support of an
established religion, or abridging the freedom of the press, or authorizing cruel
and unusual punishments, and the like, would at once cease to be of obligatory
force, without any declaration to that effect; and the laws of the country on other
subjects would necessarily be superseded by existing laws of the new government
upon the same matters. But with respect to other laws affecting the possession,
use, and transfer of property, and designed to secure good order and peace in the
community, and promote its health and prosperity, which are strictly of a
municipal character, the rule is general that a change of government leaves them
in force until, by direct action of the new government, they are altered or
repealed. American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 542, 7 L. ed. 255;
Halleck, International Law, chap. 34, 14.'

There is in reason, then, no room in this case to contend that Congress can destroy the
liberties of the people of Porto Rico by exercising in their regard powers against freedom
and justice which the Constitution has absolutely denied. There can [182 U.S. 244, 299]
also be no controversy as to the right of Congress to locally govern the island of Porto
Rico as its wisdom may decide, and in so doing to accord only such degree of
representative government as may be determined on by that body. There can also be no
contention as to the authority of Congress to levy such local taxes in Porto Rico as it may
choose, even although the amount of the local burden so levied be manifold more
onerous than is the duty with which this case is concerned. But as the duty in question
was not a local tax, since it was levied in the United States on goods coming from Porto
Rico, it follows that, if that island was a part of the United States, the duty was repugnant
to the Constitution, since the authority to levy an impost duty conferred by the
Constitution on Congress does not, as I have conceded, include the right to lay such a
burden on goods coming from one to another part of the United States. And, besides, if
Porto Rico was a part of the United States the exaction was repugnant to the uniformity
clause.

The sole and only issue, then, is not whether Congress has taxed Porto Rico without
representation,-for, whether the tax was local or national, it could have been imposed
although Porto Rico had no representative local government and was not represented in
Congress,-but is whether the particular tax in question was levied in such form as to
cause it to be repugnant to the Constitution. This is to be resolved by answering the
inquiry, Had Porto Rico, at the time of the passage of the act in question, been
incorporated into and become an integral part of the United States?

On the one hand, it is affirmed that, although Porto Rico had been ceded by the treaty
with Spain to the United States, the cession was accompanied by such conditions as
prevented that island from becoming an integral part of the United States, at least
temporarily and until Congress had so determined. On the other hand, it is insisted that by
the fact of cession to the United States alone, irrespective of any conditions found in the
treaty, Porto Rico became a part of the United States and was incorporated into it. It is
incompatible with the Constitution, it is argued, for the government of the United States
to accept a cession of territory from a foreign country without [182 U.S. 244, 300] complete
incorporation following as an immediate result, and therefore it is contended that it is
immaterial to inquire what were the conditions of the cession, since if there were any
which were intended to prevent incorporation they were repugnant to the Constitution
and void. The result of the argument is that the government of the United States is
absolutely without power to acquire and hold territory as property or as appurtenant to the
United States. These conflicting contentions are asserted to be sanctioned by many
adjudications of this court and by various acts of the executive and legislative branches of
the government; both sides, in many instances, referring to the same decisions and to the
like acts, but deducing contrary conclusions from them. From this it comes to pass that it
will be impossible to weigh the authorities relied upon without ascertaining the subject-
matter to which they refer, in order to determine their proper influence. For this reason, in
the orderly discussion of the controversy, I propose to consider the subject from the
Constitution itself, as a matter of first impression, from that instrument as illustrated by
the history of the government, and as construed by the previous decisions of this court.
By this process, if accurately carried out, it will follow that the true solution of the
question will be ascertained, both deductively and inductively, and the result, besides,
will be adequately proved.

It may not be doubted that by the general principles of the law of nations every
government which is sovereign within its sphere of action possesses as an inherent
attribute the power to acquire territory by discovery, by agreement or treaty, and by
conquest. It cannot also be gainsaid that, as a general rule, wherever a government
acquires territory as a result of any of the modes above stated, the relation of the territory
to the new government is to be determined by the acquiring power in the absence of
stipulations upon the subject. These general principles of the law of nations are thus
stated by Halleck in his treatise on International Law, page 126:

'A state may acquire property or domain in various ways; its title may be acquired
originally by mere occupancy, and confirmed by the presumption arising from the
lapse of time; [182 U.S. 244, 301] or by discovery and lawful possession; or by
conquest, confirmed by treaty or tacit consent; or by grant, cession, purchase, or
exchange; in fine, by any of the recognized modes by which private property is
acquired by individuals. It is not our object to enter into any general discussion of
these several modes of acquisition, any further than may be necessary to
distinguish the character of certain rights of property which are the peculiar
objects of international jurisprudence. Wheaton, International Law, pt. 2, chap. 4,
1, 4, 5; 1 Phillimore, International Law, 221- 227; Grotius, de Jur. Bel. ac. Pac.,
lib. 2, chap. 4; Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. 2, chaps. 7 and 11; Rutherford, Inst. b.
1, chap. 3, b. 2, chap. 9; Puffendorf, de Jur. Nat. et. Gent., lib. 4, chaps. 4-6;
Moser, Versuch, etc., b. 5, chap. 9; Martens, Precis du Droit des Gens. 35 et seq.;
Schmaltz, Droit des Gens, liv. 4, chap. 1; Kluber, Droit des Gens, 125, 126;
Heffter, Droit International, 76; Ortolan, Domaine International, 53 et seq.;
Bowyer, Universal Public Law, chap. 28; Bello, Derecho Internacional, pt. 1,
chap. 4; Riquelme, Derecho, Pub. Int., lib. 1, title 1, chap. 2; Burlamaqui, Droit de
la Nat. et des Gens, tome 4, pt. 3, chap. 5.'

Speaking of a change of sovereignty, Halleck says (pp. 76, 814):

'Chap. 3, 23. The sovereignty of a state may be lost in various ways. It may be
vanquished by a foreign power, and become incorporated into the conquering
state as a province or as one of its component parts; or it may voluntarily unite
itself with another in such a way that its independent existence as a state will
entirely cease.

... * *

'Chap. 33, 3. If the hostile nation be subdued and the entire state conquered, a
question arises as to the manner in which the conqueror may treat it without
transgressing the just bounds established by the rights of conquest. If he simply
replaces the former sovereign, and, on the submission of the people, governs them
according to the laws of the state, they can have no cause of complaint. Again, if
he incorporate them with his former states, giving to them the rights, privileges,
and immunities of his own subjects, he does for them all that is due [182 U.S. 244,
302] from a humane and equitable conqueror to his vanquished foes. But if the
conquered are a fierce, savage, and restless people, he may, according to the
degree of their indocility, govern them with a tighter rein, so as to curb their
'impetuosity, and to keep them under subjection.' Moreover, the rights of conquest
may, in certain cases, justify him in imposing a tribute or other burthen, either a
compensation for the expenses of the war or as a punishment for the injustice he
has suffered from them . . . Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. 3, ch. 13, 201; 2 Curtius,
History, etc., liv. 7, cap. 8; Grotius, de Bel. ac Pac. lib. 3, caps. 8, 15; Puffendorf,
de Jur. Nat. et Gent. lib. 8, cap. 6, 24; Real, Science du Gouvernement, tome 5,
ch. 2, 5; Heffter, Droit International, 124; Abegg. Untersuchungen, etc., p. 86.'

In American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 511, 7 L. ed. 242, the general doctrine
was thus summarized in the opinion delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall (p. 542, L.
ed. p. 255):

'If it [conquered territory] be ceded by the treaty, the acquisition is confirmed, and
the ceded territory becomes a part of the nation to which it is annexed, either on
the terms stipulated in the treaty of cession or on such as its new master shall
impose.'

When our forefathers threw off their allegiance to Great Britain and established a
republican government, assuredly they deemed that the nation which they called into
being was endowed with those general powers to acquire territory which all independent
governments in virtue of their sovereignty enjoyed. This is demonstrated by the
concluding paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, which reads as follows:

'As free and independent states, they [the United States of America] have full
power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to
do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.'

That under the Confederation it was considered that the government of the United States
had authority to acquire territory like any other sovereignty is clearly established by the
11th of the Articles of Confederation.
The decisions of this court leave no room for question that, under the Constitution, the
government of the United States, [182 U.S. 244, 303] in virtue of its sovereignty, supreme
within the sphere of its delegated power, has the full right to acquire territory enjoyed by
every other sovereign nation.

In American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 511, 7 L. ed. 242, the court, by Mr.
Chief Justice Marshall, said (p. 542, L. ed. p. 255):

'The Constitution confers absolutely on the government of the Union the powers
of making war and of making treaties; consequently, that government possesses
the power of acquiring territory, either by conquest or by treaty.'

In United States v. Huckabee (1872) 16 Wall. 414, 21 L. ed. 457, the court speaking
through Mr. Justice Clifford, said (p. 434, L. ed. p. 464):

'Power to acquire territory either by conquest or treaty is vested by the

Constitution in the United States. Conquered territory, however, is usually held as
a mere military occupation until the fate of the nation from which it is conquered
is determined; but if the nation is entirely subdued, or in case it be destroyed and
ceases to exist, the right of occupation becomes permanent, and the title vests
absolutely in the conqueror. American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 511,
7 L. ed. 242; 30 Hogsheads of Sugar v. Boyle, 9 Cranch, 195, 3 L. ed. 702;
Shanks v. Dupont, 3 Pet. 246, 7 L. ed. 668; United States v. Rice, 4 Wheat. 254, 4
L. ed. 564; The Amy Warwick, 2 Sprague, 143, Fed. Cas. No. 342; Johnson v.
M'Intosh, 8 Wheat. 588, 5 L. ed. 692. Complete conquest, by whatever mode it
may be perfected, carries with it all the rights of the former government; or, in
other words, the conqueror, by the completion of his conquest, becomes the
absolute owner of the property conquered from the enemy nation or state. His
rights are no longer limited to mere occupation of what he has taken into his
actual possession, but they extend to all the property and rights of the conquered
state, including even debts as well as personal and real property. Halleck,
International Law, 839; Elphinstone v. Bedreechund, 1 Knapp, P. C. C. 329;
Vattel, 365; 3 Phillimore, International Law, 505.'

In Church of Jesus Christ of L. D. S. v. United States (1889) 136 U.S. 1 , 34 L. ed. 478,
10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 792, Mr. Justice Bradley, announcing the opinion of the court declared
(p. 42, L. ed. p. 491, Sup. Ct. Rep. p. 802):

'The power to acquire territory, other than the territory northwest of the Ohio river
(which belonged to the United States at the adoption of the Constitution), is
derived from the treaty-making power and the power to declare and carry [182 U.S.
244, 304] on war. The incidents of these powers are those of national sovereignty,
and belong to all independent governments. The power to make acquisitions of
territory by conquest, by treaty, and by cession is an incident of national
sovereignty. The territory of Louisiana, when acquired from France, and the
territories west of the Rocky mountains, when acquired from Mexico, became the
absolute property and domain of the United States, subject to such conditions as
the government, in its diplomatic negotiations, had seen fit to accept relating to
the rights of the people then inhabiting those territories.'

Indeed, it is superfluous to cite authorities establishing the right of the government of the
United States to acquire territory, in view of the possession of the Northwest Territory
when the Constitution was framed and the cessions to the general government by various
states subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution, and in view also of the vast
extension of the territory of the United States brought about since the existence of the
Constitution by substantially every form of acquisition known to the law of nations.
Thus, in part at least, 'the title of the United States to Oregon was founded upon original
discovery and actual settlement by citizens of the United States, authorized or approved
by the government of the United States.' Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 50 , 38 L. ed. 349,
14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 566. The province of Louisiana was ceded by France in 1803; the
Floridas were transferred by Spain in 1819; Texas was admitted into the Union by
compact with Congress in 1845; California and New Mexico were acquired by the treaty
with Mexico of 1848, and other western territory from Mexico by the treaty of 1853;
numerous islands have been brought within the dominion of the United States under the
authority of the act of August 18, 1856, chap. 164, usually designated as the Guano
islands act, re-enacted in Revised Statutes, 5570-5578; Alaska was ceded by Russia in
1867; Medway island, the western end of the Hawaiian group, 1,200 miles from
Honolulu, was acquired in 1867, and $50,000 was expended in efforts to make it a naval
station; on the renewal of a treaty with Hawaii November 9, 1887, Pearl harbor was
leased for a permanent naval station; by joint resolution of Congress the Hawaiian islands
came un- [182 U.S. 244, 305] der the sovereignty of the United States in 1898; and on April
30, 1900, an act for the government of Hawaii was approved, by which the Hawaiian
islands were given the status of an incorporated territory; on May 21, 1890, there was
proclaimed by the President an agreement, concluded and signed with Germany and
Great Britain, for the joint administration of the Samoan islands (26 Stat. at L. 1497); and
on February 16, 1900 (31 Stat. at L. --, there was proclaimed a convention between the
United States, Germany, and Great Britain, by which Germany and Great Britain
renounced in favor of the United States all their rights and claims over and in respect to
the island of Tutuilla and all other islands of the Samoan group east of longitude 171
west of Greenwich. And finally the treaty with Spain which terminated the recent war
was ratified.

It is worthy of remark that, beginning in the administration of President Jefferson, the

acquisition of foreign territory above referred to were largely made while that political
party was in power which announced as its fundamental tenet the duty of strictly
construing the Constitution, and it is true to say that all shades of political opinion have
admitted the power to acquire and lent their aid to its accomplishment. And the power has
been asserted in instances where it has not been exercised. Thus, during the
administration of President Pierce, in 1854, a draft of a treaty for the annexation of
Hawaii was agreed upon, but, owing to the death of the King of the Hawaiian islands,
was not executed. The 2d article of the proposed treaty provided as follows (Ex. Doc.
Senate, 55th Congress, 2d sess., Report No. 681, Calendar No. 747, p. 91):
Article 2.

The Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands shall be incorporated into the American Union as a
state, enjoying the same degree of sovereignty as other states, and admitted as such as
soon as it can be done in consistency with the principles and requirements of the Federal
Constitution, to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of a state as aforesaid, on a
perfect equality with the other states of the Union.

It is insisted, however, conceding the right of the gov- [182 U.S. 244, 306] ernment of the
United States to acquire territory, as all such territory when acquired becomes absolutely
incorporated into the United States, every provision of the Constitution which would
apply under that situation is controlling in such acquired territory. This, however, is but
to admit the power to acquire, and immediately to deny its beneficial existence.

The general principle of the law of nations, already stated, is that acquired territory, in the
absence of agreement to the contrary, will bear such relation to the acquiring government
as may be by it determined. To concede to the government of the United States the right
to acquire, and to strip it of all power to protect the birthright of its own citizens and to
provide for the well being of the acquired territory by such enactments as may in view of
its condition be essential, is, in effect, to say that the United States is helpless in the
family of nations, and does not possess that authority which has at all times been treated
as an incident of the right to acquire. Let me illustrate the accuracy of this statement.
Take a case of discovery. Citizens of the United States discover an unknown island,
peopled with an uncivilized race, yet rich in soil, and valuable to the United States for
commercial and strategic reasons. Clearly, by the law of nations, the right to ratify such
acquisition and thus to acquire the territory would pertain to the government of the
United States. Johnson v. M'Intosh, 8 Wheat. 543, 595, 5 L. ed. 681, 694; Martin v.
Waddell, 16 Pet. 367, 409, 10 L. ed. 997, 1012; Jones v. United States, 137 U.S. 202, 212
, 34 S. L. ed. 691, 695, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 80; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 50 , 38 S. L.
ed. 331, 349, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 548. Can it be denied that such right could not be
practically exercised if the result would be to endow the inhabitants with citizenship of
the United States and to subject them, not only to local, but also to an equal proportion of
national, taxes, even although the consequence would be to entail ruin on the discovered
territory, and to inflict grave detriment on the United States, to arise both from the
dislocation of its fiscal system and the immediate bestowal of citizenship on those
absolutely unfit to receive it?

The practice of the government has been otherwise. As early as 1856 Congress enacted
the Guano islands act, heretofore referred to, which by 1 provided that when any [182 U.S.
244, 307] citizen of the United States shall 'discover a deposit of guano on any island,
rock, or key not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other government, and not occupied
by the citizens of any other government, and shall take peaceable possession thereof, and
occupy the same, said island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President of the
United States, be considered as appertaining to the United States.' 11 Stat. at L. 119,
chap. 164; Rev. Stat. 5570. Under the act referred to, it was stated in argument, that the
government now holds and protects American citizens in the occupation of some seventy
islands. The statute came under consideration in Jones v. United States, 137 U.S. 202 , 34
L. ed. 691, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 80, where the question was whether or not the act was valid,
and it was decided that the act was a lawful exercise of power, and that islands thus
acquired were 'appurtenant' to the United States. The court, in the course of the opinion,
speaking through Mr. Justice Gray, said (p. 212, L. ed. p. 695, Sup. Ct. Rep. p. 83):

'By the law of nations, recognized by all civilized states, dominion of new
territory may be acquired by discovery and occupation, as well as by cession or
conquest; and when citizens or subjects of one nation, in its name and by its
authority or with its assent, take and hold actual, continuous, and useful
possession (although only for the purpose of carrying on a particular business,
such as catching and curing fish or working mines) of territory unoccupied by any
other government of its citizens, the nation to which they belong may exercise
such jurisdiction and for such period as it sees fit over territory so acquired. This
principle affords ample warrant for the legislation of Congress concerning guano
islands. Vattel, lib. 1, chap. 18; Wheaton, International Law, 8th ed. 161, 165,
176, note 104; Halleck, International Law, chap. 6, 7, 15; 1 Phillimore,
International Law, 3d ed. 227, 229, 230, 232, 242; 1 Calvo, Droit International,
4th ed. 266, 277, 300; Whiton v. Albany City Ins. Co. 109 Mass. 24, 31.

And these considerations concerning discovery are equally applicable to ownership

resulting from conquest. A just war is declared, and in its prosecution the territory of the
enemy is invaded and occupied. Would not the war, even if waged successfully, be
fraught with danger if the effect of occupation was [182 U.S. 244, 308] to necessarily
incorporate an alien and hostile people into the United States? Take another illustration.
Suppose at the termination of a war the hostile government had been overthrown, and the
entire territory or a portion thereof was occupied by the United States, and there was no
government to treat with or none willing to cede by treaty, and thus it became necessary
for the United States to hold the conquered country for an indefinite period, or at least
until such time as Congress deemed that it should be either released or retained because it
was apt for incorporation into the United States. If holding was to have the effect which
is now claimed for it, would not the exercise of judgment respecting the retention be so
fraught with danger to the American people that it could not be safely exercised?

Yet again. Suppose the United States, in consequence of outrages perpetrated upon its
citizens, was obliged to move its armies or send its fleets to obtain redress, and it came to
pass that an expensive war resulted and culminated in the occupation of a portion of the
territory of the enemy, and that the retention of such territory-an event illustrated by
examples in history-could alone enable the United States to recover the pecuniary loss it
had suffered. And suppose, further, that to do so would require occupation for an
indefinite period, dependent upon whether or not payment was made of the required
indemnity. It being true that incorporation must necessarily follow the retention of the
territory, it would result that the United States must abandon all hope of recouping itself
for the loss suffered by the unjust war, and hence the whole burden would be entailed
upon the people of the United States. This would be a necessary consequence, because if
the United States did not hold the territory as security for the needed indemnity it could
not collect such indemnity, and, on the other hand, if incorporation must follow from
holding the territory the uniformity provision of the Constitution would prevent the
assessment of the cost of the war solely upon the newly acquired country. In this, as in
the case of discovery, the traditions and practices of the government demonstrate the
unsoundness of the contention. Congress on May 13, 1846, declared that [182 U.S. 244, 309]
war existed with Mexico. In the summer of that year New Mexico and California were
subdued by the American arms, and the military occupation which followed continued
until after the treaty of peace was ratified, in May, 1848. Tampico, a Mexican port, was
occupied by our forces on November 15, 1846, and possession was not surrendered until
after the ratification. In the spring of 1847 President Polk, through the Secretary of the
Treasury, prepared a tariff of duties on imports and tonnage which was put in force in the
conquered country. 1 Senate Documents, First Session, 30th Congress, pp. 562, 569. By
this tariff, duties were laid as well on merchandise, exported from the United States as
from other countries, except as to supplies for our army, and on May 10, 1847, an
exemption from tonnage duties was accorded to 'all vessels chartered by the United States
to convey supplies of any and all descriptions to our army and navy, and actually laden
with supplies.' Ibid. 583. An interesting debate respecting the constitutionality of this
action of the President is contained in 18 Cong. Globe, First Session, 30th Congress, at
pp. 478, 479, 484-489, 495, 498, etc.

In Fleming v. Page, 9 How. 603, 13 L. ed. 276, it was held that the revenue officials
properly treated Tampico as a port of a foreign country during the occupation by the
military forces of the United States, and that duties on imports into the United States from
Tampico were lawfully levied under the general tariff act of 1846. Thus, although
Tampico was in the possession of the United States, and the court expressly held that in
an international sense the port was a part of the territory of the United States, yet it was
decided that in the sense of the revenue laws Tampico was a foreign country. The special
tariff act promulgated by President Polk was in force in New Mexico and California until
after notice was received of the ratification of the treaty of peace. In Cross v. Harrison, 16
How. 164, 14 L. ed. 889, certain collections of impost duties on goods brought from
foreign countries into California prior to the time when official notification had been
received in California that the treaty of cession had been ratified, as well as impost duties
levied after the receipt of such notice, were called in question. The duties collected prior
to the receipt of notice were laid at the rate fixed by the tariff promulgated by the Presi-
[182 U.S. 244, 310] dent; those laid after the notification conformed to the general tariff
laws of the United States. The court decided that all the duties collected were valid. The
court undoubtedly in the course of its opinion said that immediately upon the ratification
of the treaty California became a part of the United States and subject to its revenue laws.
However, the opinion pointedly referred to a letter of the Secretary of the Treasury
directing the enforcement of the tariff laws of the United States, upon the express ground
that Congress had enacted laws which recognized the treaty of cession. Besides, the
decision was expressly placed upon the conditions of the treaty, and it was stated, in so
many words, that a different rule would have been applied had the stipulations in the
treaty been of a different character.
But, it is argued, all the instances previously referred to may be conceded, for they but
illustrate the rule inter arma sitent leges. Hence, they do not apply to acts done after the
cessation of hostilities when a treaty of peace has been concluded. This not only begs the
question, but also embodies a fallacy. A case has been supposed in which it was
impossible to make a treaty because of the unwillingness or disappearance of the hostile
government, and therefore the occupation necessarily continued, although actual war had
ceased. The fallacy lies in admitting the right to exercise the power, if only it is exerted
by the military arm of the government, but denying it wherever the civil power comes in
to regulate and make the conditions more in accord with the spirit of our free institutions.
Why it can be thought, although under the Constitution the military arm of the
government is in effect the creature of Congress, that such arm may exercise a power
without violating the Constitution, and yet Congress-the creator-may not regulate, I fail to
comprehend.

This further argument, however, is advanced. Granting that Congress may regulate
without incorporating, where the military arm has taken possession of foreign territory,
and where there has been or can be no treaty, this does not concern the decision of this
case, since there is here involved no regulation, but an actual cession to the United States
of territory by treaty. The general rule of the law of nations, by which the acquiring [182
U.S. 244, 311] government fixes the status of acquired territory, it is urged, does not apply
to the government of the United States, because it is incompatible with the Constitution
that that government should hold territory under a cession and administer it as a
dependency without its becoming incorporated. This claim, I have previously said, rests
on the erroneous assumption that the United States under the Constitution is stripped of
those powers which are absolutely inherent in and essential to national existnece. The
certainty of this is illustrated by the examples already made use of in the supposed cases
of discovery and conquest.

If the authority by treaty is limited as is suggested, then it will be impossible to terminate

a successful war by acquiring territory through a treaty, without immediately
incorporating such territory into the United States. Let me, however, eliminate the case of
war, and consider the treaty-making power as subserving the purposes of the peaceful
evolution of national life. Suppose the necessity of acquiring a naval station or a coaling
station on an island inhabited with people utterly unfit for American citizenship and
totally incapable of bearing their proportionate burden of the national expense. Could
such island, under the rule which is now insisted upon, be taken? Suppose, again, the
acquisition of territory for an interoceanic canal, where an inhabited strip of land on
either side is essential to the United States for the preservation of the work. Can it be
denied that, if the requirements of the Constitution as to taxation are to immediately
control, it might be impossible by treaty to accomplish the desired result?

While no particular provision of the Constitution is referred to, to sustain the argument
that it is impossible to acquire territory by treaty without immediate and absolute
incorporation, it is said that the spirit of the Constitution excludes the conception of
property or dependencies possessed by the United States and which are not so completely
incorporated as to be in all respects a part of the United States; that the theory upon
which the Constitution proceeds is that of confederated and independent states, and that
no territory, therefore, can be acquired which does not contemplate statehood, and
excludes the acquisition of [182 U.S. 244, 312] any territory which is not in a position to be
treated as an integral part of the United States. But this reasoning is based on political,
and not judicial, considerations. Conceding that the conception upon which the
Constitution proceeds is that no territory, as a general rule, should be acquired unless the
territory may reasonably be expected to be worthy of statehood, the determination of
when such blessing is to be bestowed is wholly a political question, and the aid of the
judiciary cannot be invoked to usurp political discretion in order to save the Constitution
from imaginary or even real dangers. The Constitution may not be saved by destroying its
fundamental limitations.

Let me come, however, to a consideration of the express powers which are conferred by
the Constitution, to show how unwarranted is the principle of immediate incorporation,
which is here so strenuously insisted on. In doing so it is conceded at once that the true
rule of construction is not to consider one provision of the Constitution alone, but to
contemplate all, and therefore to limit one conceded attribute by those qualifications
which naturally result from the other powers granted by that instrument, so that the whole
may be interpreted by the spirit which vivifies, and not by the letter which killeth.
Undoubtedly, the power to carry on war and to make treaties implies also the exercise of
those incidents which ordinarily inhere in them. Indeed, in view of the rule of
construction which I have just conceded-that all powers conferred by the Constitution
must be interpreted with reference to the nature of the government and be construed in
harmony with related provisions of the Constitution-it seems to me impossible to
conceive that the treaty-making power by a mere cession can incorporate an alien people
into the United States without the express or implied approval of Congress. And from this
it must follow that there can be no foundation for the assertion that, where the treaty-
making power has inserted conditions which preclude incorporation until Congress has
acted in respect thereto, such conditions are void and incorporation results in spite
thereof. If the treaty-making power can absolutely, without the consent of Congress,
incorporate territory, and if that power may [182 U.S. 244, 313] not insert conditions
against incorporation, it must follow that the treaty-making power is endowed by the
Constitution with the most unlimited right, susceptible of destroying every other
provision of the Constitution; that is, it may wreck our institutions. If the proposition be
true, then millions of inhabitants of alien territory, if acquired by treaty, can, without the
desire or consent of the people of the United States speaking through Congress, be
immediately and irrevocably incorporated into the United States, and the whole structure
of the government be overthrown. While thus aggrandizing the treaty-making power on
the one hand, the construction at the same time minimizes it on the other, in that it strips
that authority of any right to acquire territory upon any condition which would guard the
people of the United States from the evil of immediate incorporation. The treaty-making
power, then, under this contention, instead of having the symmetrical functions which
belong to it from its very nature, becomes distorted,-vested with the right to destroy upon
the one hand, and deprived of all power to protect the government on the other.
And, looked at from another point of view, the effect of the principle asserted is equally
antagonistic, not only to the express provisions, but to the spirit of the Constitution in
other respects. Thus, if it be true that the treaty-making power has the authority which is
asserted, what becomes of that branch of Congress which is peculiarly the representative
of the people of the United States, and what is left of the functions of that body under the
Constitution? For, although the House of Representatives might be unwilling to agree to
the incorporation of alien races, it would be impotent to prevent its accomplishment, and
the express provisions conferring upon Congress the power to regulate commerce, the
right to raise revenue,-bills for which, by the Constitution, must originate in the House of
Representatives,-and the authority to prescribe uniform naturalization laws, would be in
effect set at naught by the treaty-making power. And the consequent result-incorporation-
would be beyond all future control of or remedy by the American people, since, at once
and without hope of redress or power of change, incorporation by the treaty would have
been brought about. [182 U.S. 244, 314] The inconsistency of the position is at once
manifest. The basis of the argument is that the treaty must be considered to have
incorporated, because acquisition presupposes the exercise of judgment as to fitness for
immediate incorporation. But the deduction drawn is, although the judgment exercised is
against immediate incorporation and this result is plainly expressed, the conditions are
void because no judgment against incorporation can be called into play.

All the confusion and dangers above indicated, however, it is argued, are more imaginary
than real, since, although it be conceded that the treaty-making power has the right by
cession to incorporate without the consent of Congress, that body may correct the evil by
availing itself of the provision of the Constitution giving to Congress the right to dispose
of the territory and other property of the United States. This assumes that there has been
absolute incorporation by the treaty-making power on the one hand, and yet asserts that
Congress may deal with the territory as if it had not been incorporated into the United
States. In other words, the argument adopts conflicting theories of the Constitution, and
applies them both at the same time. I am not unmindful that there has been some
contrariety of decision on the subject of the meaning of the clause empowering Congress
to dispose of the territories and other property of the United States, some adjudged cases
treating that article as referring to property as such, and others deriving from it the
general grant of power to govern territories. In view, however, of the relations of the
territories to the government of the United States at the time of the adoption of the
Constitution, and the solemn pledge then existing that they should forever 'remain a part
of the Confederacy of the United States of America,' I cannot resist the belief that the
theory that the disposing clause relates as well to a relinquishment or cession of
sovereignty as to a mere transfer of rights of property is altogether erroneous.

Observe, again, the inconsistency of this argument. It considers, on the one hand, that so
vital is the question of incorporation that no alien territory may be acquired by a cession
without absolutely endowing the territory with incorporation and [182 U.S. 244, 315] the
inhabitants with resulting citizenship, because, under our system of government, the
assumption that a territory and its inhabitants may be held by any other title than one
incorporating is impossible to be thought of. And yet, to avoid the evil consequences
which must follow from accepting this proposition, the argument is that all citizenship of
the United States is precarious and fleeting, subject to be sold at any moment like any
other property. That is to say, to protect a newly acquired people in their presumed rights,
it is essential to degrade the whole body of American citizenship.

The reasoning which has sometimes been indulged in by those who asserted that the
Constitution was not at all operative in the territories is that, as they were acquired by
purchase, the right to buy included the right to sell. This has been met by the proposition
that if the country purchased and its inhabitants became incorporated into the United
States, it came under the shelter of the Constitution, and no power existed to sell
American citizens. In conformity to the principles which I have admitted it is impossible
for me to say at one and the same time that territory is an integral part of the United
States protected by the Constitution, and yet the safeguards, privileges, rights, and
immunities which arise from this situation are so ephemeral in their character that by a
mere act of sale they may be destroyed. And applying this reasoning to the provisions of
the treaty under consideration, to me it seems indubitable that if the treaty with Spain
incorporated all the territory ceded into the United States, it resulted that the millions of
people to whom that treaty related were, without the consent of the American people as
expressed by Congress, and without any hope of relief, indissolubly made a part of our
common country.

Undoubtedly, the thought that under the Constitution power to dispose of people and
territory, and thus to annihilate the rights of American citizens, was contrary to the
conceptions of the Constitution entertained by Washington and Jefferson. In the written
suggestions of Mr. Jefferson, when Secretary of State, reported to President Washington
in March, 1792, on the subject of proposed negotiations between the United States and
Spain, which were intended to be communicated by way of in- [182 U.S. 244, 316]
struction to the commissioners of the United States appointed to manage such
negotiations, it was observed, in discussing the possibility as to compensation being
demanded by Spain 'for the ascertainment of our right' to navigate the lower part of the
Mississippi, as follows:

'We have nothing else' (than a relinquishment of certain claims on Spain) 'to give
in exchange. For as to territory, we have neither the right nor the disposition to
alienate an inch of what belongs to any member of our Union. Such a proposition
therefore is totally inadmissible, and not to be treated for a moment.' Ford's
Writings of Jefferson, vol. 5, p. 476.

The rough draft of these observations was submitted to Mr. Hamilton, then Secretary of
the Treasury, for suggestions, previously to sending it to the President, some time before
March 5, and Hamilton made the following (among other) notes upon it:

'Page 25. Is it true that the United States have no right to alienate an inch of the
territory in question, except in the case of necessity intimated in another place? Or
will it be useful to avow the denial of such a right? It is apprehended that the
doctrine which restricts the alienation of territory to cases of extreme necessity is
applicable rather to peopled territory than to waste and uninhabited districts.
Positions restraining the right of the United States to accommodate to exigencies
which may arise ought ever to be advanced with great caution.' Ford's Writings of
Jefferson, vol. 5, p. 443.

Respecting this note, Mr. Jefferson commented as follows:

'The power to alienate the unpeopled territories of any state is not among the
enumerated powers given by the Constitution to the general government, and if
we may go out of that instrument and accommodate to exigencies which may
arise by alienating the unpeopled territory of a state, we may accommodate
ourselves a little more by alienating that which is peopled, and still a little more
by selling the people themselves. A shade or two more in the degree of exigency
is all that will be requisite, and of that degree we shall ourselves be the judges.
However, may it not be hoped that these questions are forever laid to rest by the
12th Amendment once made a part of the Constitution, declaring expressly that
'the powers not delegated to the [182 U.S. 244, 317] United States by the
Constitution are reserved to the states respectively?' And if the general
government has no power to alienate the territory of a state, it is too irresistible an
argument to deny ourselves the use of it on the present occasion.' Ibid.

The opinions of Mr. Jefferson, however, met the approval of President Washington. On
March 18, 1792, in inclosing to the commissioners to Spain their commission, he said,
among other things:

'You will herewith receive your commission; as also observations on these several
subjects reported to the President and approved by him, which will therefore serve
as instructions for you. These expressing minutely the sense of our government,
and what they wish to have done, it is unnecessary for me to do more here than
desire you to pursue these objects unremittingly,' etc. Ford's Writings of Jefferson,
vol. 5, p. 456.

When the subject-matter to which the negotiations related is considered, it becomes

evident that the word 'state' as above used related merely to territory which was either
claimed by some of the states, as Mississippi territory was by Georgia, or to the
Northwest Territory, embraced within the ordinance of 1787, or the territory south of the
Ohio ( Tennessee), which had also been endowed with all the rights and privileges
conferred by that ordinance, and all which territory had originally been ceded by states to
the United States under express stipulations that such ceded territory should be ultimately
formed into states of the Union. And this meaning of the word 'state' is absolutely in
accord with what I shall hereafter have occasion to demonstrate was the conception
entertained by Mr. Jefferson of what constituted the United States.

True, from the exigency of a calamitous war or the necessity of a settlement of

boundaries, it may be that citizens of the United States may be expatriated by the action
of the treaty-making power, impliedly or expressly ratified by Congress.
But the arising of these particular conditions cannot justify the general proposition that
territory which is an integral part of the United States may, as a mere act of sale, be
disposed of. If, however, the right to dispose of an incorporated American territory and
citizens by the mere exertion of the power to sell [182 U.S. 244, 318] be conceded,
arguendo, it would not relieve the dilemma. It is ever true that, where a malign principle
is adopted, as long as the error is adhered to it must continue to produce its baleful
results. Certainly, if there be no power to acquire subject to a condition, it must follow
that there is no authority to dispose of subject to conditions, since it cannot be that the
mere change of form of the transaction could bestow a power which the Constitution has
not conferred. It would follow, then, that any conditions annexed to a disposition which
looked to the protection of the people of the United States, or to enable them to safeguard
the disposal of territory, would be void; and thus it would be that either the United States
must hold on absolutely, or must dispose of unconditionally.

A practical illustration will at once make the consequences clear. Suppose Congress
should determine that the millions of inhabitants of the Philippine islands should not
continue appurtenant to the United States, but that they should be allowed to establish an
autonomous government, outside of the Constitution of the United States, coupled,
however, with such conditions providing for control as far only as essential to the
guaranty of life and property and to protect against foreign encroachment. If the
proposition of incorporation be well founded, at once the question would arise whether
the ability to impose these conditions existed, since no power was conferred by the
Constitution to annex conditions which would limit the disposition. And if it be that the
question of whether territory is immediately fit for incorporation when it is acquired is a
judicial, and not a legislative one, it would follow that the validity of the conditions
would also come within the scope of judicial authority, and thus the entire political policy
of the government be alone controlled by the judiciary.

The theory as to the treaty-making power upon which the argument which has just been
commented upon rests, it is now proposed to be shown, is refuted by the history of the
government from the beginning. There has not been a single cession made from the time
of the Confederation up to the present day, excluding the recent treaty with Spain, which
has not contained stipulations to the effect that the United States through Con- [182 U.S.
244, 319] gress would either not disincorporate or would incorporate the ceded territory
into the United States. There were such conditions in the deed of cession by Virginia
when it conveyed the Northwest Territory to the United States. Like conditions were
attached by North Carolina to the cession whereby the territory south of the Ohio, now
Tennessee, was transferred. Similar provisions were contained in the cession by Georgia
of the Mississippi territory, now the states of Alabama and Mississippi. Such agreements
were also expressed in the treaty of 1803, ceding Louisiana; that of 1819, ceding the
Floridas, and in the treaties of 1848 and 1853, by which a large extent of territory was
ceded to this country, as also in the Alaska treaty of 1867. To adopt the limitations on the
treaty-making power now insisted upon would presuppose that every one of these
conditions thus sedulously provided for were superfluous, since the guaranties which they
afforded would have obtained, although they were not expressly provided for.
When the various treaties by which foreign territory has been acquired are considered in
the light of the circumstances which surrounded them, it becomes to my mind clearly
established that the treaty-making power was always deemed to be devoid of authority to
incorporate territory into the United States without the assent, express or implied, of
Congress, and that no question to the contrary has ever been even mooted. To appreciate
this it is essential to bear in mind what the words 'United States' signified at the time of
the adoption of the Constitution. When by the treaty of peace with Great Britain the
independence of the United States was acknowledged, it is unquestioned that all the
territory within the boundaries defined in that treaty, whatever may have been the
disputes as to title, substantially belonged to particular states. The entire territory was part
of the United States, and all the native white inhabitants were citizens of the United
States and endowed with the rights and privileges arising from that relation. When, as has
already been said, the Northwest Territory was ceded by Virginia, it was expressly
stipulated that the rights of the inhabitants in this regard should be respected. The
ordinance of 1787, providing for the government of the Northwest Territory, fulfilled [182
U.S. 244, 320] this promise on behalf of the Confederation. Without undertaking to
reproduce the text of the ordinance, it suffices to say that in contained a bill of rights, a
promise of ultimate statehood, and it provided ( italics mine) that 'the said territory and
the states which may be formed therein shall ever remain a part of this Confederacy of
the United States of America, subject to the Articles of Confederation, and to such
alterations therein as shall be constitutionally made, and to all the acts and ordinances of
the United States in Congress assembled, conformably thereto.' It submitted the
inhabitants to a liability for a tax to pay their proportional part of the public debt and the
expenses of the government, to be assessed by the rule of apportionment which governed
the states of the Confederation. It forbade slavery within the territory, and contained a
stipulation that the provisions of the ordinance should ever remain unalterable unless by
common consent.

Thus it was at the adoption of the Constitution, the United States, as a geographical unit
and as a governmental conception both in the international and domestic sense, consisted
not only of states, but also of territories, all the native white inhabitants being endowed
with citizenship, protected by pledges of a common union, and, except as to political
advantages, all enjoying equal rights and freedom, and safeguarded by substantially
similar guaranties, all being under the obligation to contribute their proportionate share
for the liquidation of the debt and future expenses of the general government.

The opinion has been expressed that the ordinance of 1787 became inoperative and a
nullity on the adoption of the Constitution (Taney, Ch. J., in Scott v. Sandford, 19 How.
438, 15 L. ed. 713), while, on the other hand, it has been said that the ordinance of 1787
was 'the most solemn of all engagements,' and became a part of the Constitution of the
United States by reason of the 6th article, which provided that 'all debts contracted and
engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against
the United States under this Constitution as under the Confederation.' Per Baldwin, J.,
concurring opinion in Pollard v. Kibbe, 14 Pet. 417, 10 L. ed. 521, and per Catron, J ., in
dissenting opinion in Stra- [182 U.S. 244, 321] der. Graham, 10 How. 98, 13 L. ed. 343.
Whatever view may be taken of this difference of legal opinion, my mind refuses to
assent to the conclusion that under the Constitution the provision of the Northwest
Territory ordinance making such territory forever a part of the Confederation was not
binding on the government of the United States when the Constitution was formed. When
it is borne in mind that large tracts of this territory were reserved for distribution among
the Continental soldiers, it is impossible for me to believe that it was ever considered that
the result of the cession was to take the Northwest Territory out of the Union, the
necessary effect of which would have been to expatriate the very men who by their
suffering and valor had secured the liberty of their united country. Can it be conceived
that North Carolina, after the adoption of the Constitution, would cede to the general
government the territory south of the Ohio river, intending thereby to expatriate those
dauntless mountaineers of North Carolina who had shed lustre upon the Revolutionary
arms by the victory of King's mountain? And the rights bestowed by Congress after the
adoption of the Constitution, as I shall proceed to demonstrate, were utterly incompatible
with such a theory.

Beyond question, in one of the early laws enacted at the first session of the First
Congress, the binding force of the ordinance was recognized, and certain of its provisions
concerning the appointment of officers in the territory were amended to conform the
ordinance to the new Constitution. 1 Stat. at L. 50, chap. 8.

In view of this it cannot, it seems to me, be doubted that the United States continued to be
composed of states and territories, all forming an integral part thereof and incorporated
therein, as was the case prior to the adoption of the Constitution. Subsequently, the
territory now embraced in the state of Tennessee was ceded to the United States by the
state of North Carolina. In order to insure the rights of the native inhabitants, it was
expressly stipulated that the inhabitants of the ceded territory should enjoy all the rights,
privileges, benefits, and advantages set forth in the ordinance 'of the late Congress for the
government of the western territory of the United [182 U.S. 244, 322] States.' A condition
was, however, inserted in the cession, that no regulation should be made by Congress
tending to emancipate slaves. By act of April 2, 1790 (1 Stat. at L. 106, chap. 6) this
cession was accepted. And at the same session, on May 26, 1790, an act was passed for
the government of this territory, under the designation of 'the territory of the United
States south of the Ohio river.' 1 Stat. at L. 123, chap. 14. This act, except as to the
prohibition which was found in the Northwest Territory ordinance as to slavery, in
express terms declared that the inhabitants of the territory should enjoy all the rights
conferred by that ordinance.

A government for the Mississippi territory was organized on April 7, 1798. 1 Stat. at L.
549, chap. 28. The land embraced was claimed by the state of Georgia, and her rights
were saved by the act. The 6th section thereof provided as follows:

'Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That from and after the establishment of the
said government, the people of the aforesaid territory shall be entitled to and
enjoy, all and singular, the rights, privileges, and advantages granted to the people
of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio, in and by the
aforesaid ordinance of the thirteenth day of July, in the year one thousand seven
hundred and eighty-seven, in as full and ample a manner as the same are
possessed and enjoyed by the people of the said last-mentioned territory.'

Thus clearly defined by boundaries, by common citizenship, by like guaranties, stood the
United States when the plan of acquiring by purchase from France the province of
Louisiana was conceived by President Jefferson. Naturally, the suggestion which arose
was the power on the part of the government of the United States, under the Constitution,
to incorporate into the United States-a Union then composed, as I have stated, of states
and territories-a foreign province inhabited by an alien people, and thus make them
partakers in the American commonwealth. Mr. Jefferson, not doubting the power of the
United States to acquire, consulted Attorney General Lincoln as to the right by treaty to
stipulate for incorporation. By that officer Mr. Jefferson was, in effect, advised that the
power to incorporate, that is, to share the privileges and im- [182 U.S. 244, 323] munities of
the people of the United States with a foreign population, required the consent of the
people of the United States, and it was suggested, therefore, that if a treaty of cession
were made containing such agreements it should be put in the form of a change of
boundaries, instead of a cession, so as thereby to bring the territory within the United
States. The letter of Mr. Lincoln was sent by President Jefferson to Mr. Gallatin, the
Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Gallatin did not agree as to the propriety of the expedient
suggested by Mr. Lincoln. In a letter to President Jefferson, in effect so stating, he said:

'But does any constitutional objection really exist? To me it would appear (1) that
the United States as a nation have an inherent right to acquire territory; (2) that
whenever that acquisition is by treaty, the same constituted authorities in which
the treaty-making power is vested have a constitutional right to sanction the
acquisition; (3) that whenever the territory has been acquired Congress have the
power either of admitting into the Union as a new state, or of annexing to a state,
with the consent of that state, or of making regulations for the government of such
territory.' Gallatin's Writings, vol. 1, p. 11, etc.

To this letter President Jefferson replied in January, 1803, clearly showing that he
thought there was no question whatever of the right of the United States to acquire, but
that he did not believe incorporation could be stipulated for and carried into effect
without the consent of the people of the United States. He said (italics mine):

'You are right, in my opinion, as to Mr. L.'s proposition: There is no constitutional

difficulty as to the acquisition of territory, and whether when acquired it may be
taken into the Union by the Constitution as it now stands will become a question
of expediency. I think it will be safer not to permit the enlargement of the Union
but by amendment of the Constitution.' Gallatin's Writings, vol. 1, p. 115.

And the views of Mr. Madison, then Secretary of State, exactly conformed to those of
President Jefferson, for, on March 2, 1803, in a letter to the commissioners who were
negotiating the treaty, he said:
'To incorporate the inhabitants of the hereby ceded territory [182 U.S. 244, 324]
with the citizens of the United States, being a provision which cannot now be
made, it is to be expected from the character and policy of the United States that
such incorporation will take place without unnecessary delay.' 2 State Papers,
540.

Let us pause for a moment to accentuate the irreconcilable conflict which exists between
the interpretation given to the Constitution at the time of the Louisiana treaty by Jefferson
and Madison, and the import of that instrument as now insisted upon. You are to
negotiate, said Madison to the commissioners, to obtain a cession of the territory, but you
must not under any circumstances agree 'to incorporate the inhabitants of the hereby
ceded territory with the citizens of the United States, being a provision which cannot now
be made.' Under the theory now urged, Mr. Madison should have said: You are to
negotiate for the cession of the territory of Louisiana to the United States, and if deemed
by you expedient in accomplishing this purpose, you may provide for the immediate
incorporation of the inhabitants of the acquired territory into the United States. This you
can freely do because the Constitution of the United States has conferred upon the treaty-
making power the absolute right to bring all the alien people residing in acquired territory
into the United States, and thus divide with them the rights which peculiarly belong to the
citizens of the United States. Indeed, it is immaterial whether you make such agreements,
since by the effect of the Constitution, without reference to any agreements which you
may make for that purpose, all the alien territory and its inhabitants will instantly become
incorporated into the United States if the territory is acquired.

Without going into details, it suffices to say that a compliance with the instructions given
them would have prevented the negotiators on behalf of the United States from inserting
in the treaty any provision looking even to the ultimate incorporation of the acquired
territory into the United States. In view of the emergency and exigencies of the
negotiations, however, the commissioners were constrained to make such a stipulation,
and the treaty provided as follows:

'Art. 3. The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of
the United States, and admitted [182 U.S. 244, 325] as soon as possible, according
to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights,
advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the meantime
they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty,
property, and the religion which they profess.' 8 Stat. at L. 202.

Weighing the provisions just quoted, it is evident they refute the theory of incorporation
arising at once from the mere force of a treaty, even although such result be directly
contrary to any provisions which a treaty may contain. Mark the language. It expresses a
promise: 'The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the
United States. . . .' Observe how guardedly the fulfilment of this pledge is postponed until
its accomplishment is made possible by the will of the American people, since it is to be
executed only 'as soon as possible according to the principles of the Federal Constitution.'
If the view now urged be true, this wise circumspection was unnecessary, and, indeed, as
I have previously said, the entire proviso was superfluous, since everything which it
assured for the future was immediately and unalterably to arise.

It is said, however, that the treaty for the purchase of Louisiana took for granted that the
territory ceded would be immediately incorporated into the United States, and hence the
guaranties contained in the treaty related, not to such incorporation, but was a pledge that
the ceded territory was to be made a part of the Union as a state. The minutest analysis,
however, of the clauses of the treaty, fails to disclose any reference to a promise of
statehood, and hence it can only be that the pledges made referred to incorporation into
the United States. This will further appear when the opinions of Jefferson and Madison
and their acts on the subject are reviewed. The argument proceeds upon the theory that
the words of the treaty, 'shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States,' could
only have referred to a promise of statehood, since the then existing and incorporated
territories were not a part of the Union of the United States, as that Union consisted only
of the states. But this has been shown to be unfounded, [182 U.S. 244, 326] since the 'Union
of the United States' was composed of states and territories, both having been embraced
within the boundaries fixed by the treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United
States which terminated the Revolutionary War, the latter, the territories, embracing
districts of country which were ceded by the states to the United States under the express
pledge that they should forever remain a part thereof. That this conception of the Union
composing the United States was the understanding of Jefferson and Madison, and indeed
of all those who participated in the events which preceded and led up to the Louisiana
treaty, results from what I have already said, and will be additionally demonstrated by
statements to be hereafter made. Again, the inconsistency of the argument is evident.
Thus, while the premise upon which it proceeds is that foreign territory, when acquired,
becomes at once a part of the United States, despite conditions in the treaty expressly
excluding such consequence, it yet endeavors to escape the refutation of such theory
which arises from the history of the government by the contention that the territories
which were a part of the United States were not component constituents of the Union
which composed the United States. I do not understand how foreign territory which has
been acquired by treaty can be asserted to have been absolutely incorporated into the
United States as a part thereof despite conditions to the contrary inserted in the treaty, and
yet the assertion be made that the territories which, as I have said, were in the United
States originally as a part of the states, and which were ceded by them upon express
condition that they should forever so remain a part of the United States, were not a part of
the Union composing the United States. The argument, indeed, reduces itself to this, that
for the purpose of incorporating foreign territory into the United States domestic territory
must be disincorporated. In other words, that the Union must be, at least in theory,
dismembered for the purpose of maintaining the doctrine of the immediate incorporation
of alien territory.

That Mr. Jefferson deemed the provision of the treaty relating to incorporation to be
repugnant to the Constitution is unquestioned. While he conceded, as has been seen, the
right [182 U.S. 244, 327] to acquire, he doubted the power to incorporate the territory into
the United States without the consent of the people by a consitutional amendment. In
July, 1803, he proposed two drafts of a proposed amendment, which he thought ought to
be submitted to the people of the United States to enable them to ratify the terms of the
treaty. The first of these, which is dated July, 1803, is printed in the margin. 12

The second and revised amendment was as follows:

'Louisiana, as ceded by France to the United States, is made a part of the United
States. Its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand, as to their rights and
obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of the United States in
analogous situations. Save only that, as to the portion thereof lying north of the
latitude of the mouth of Arcana river, no new state shall be established nor any
grants of land made therein other than to Indians in exchange for equivalent
portions of lands occupied by them until an amendment of the Constitution shall
be made for those purposes.
'Florida also, whensoever it may be rightfully obtained, shall become a part of the
United States. Its white inhabitants shall thereupon become citizens, and shall
stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other citizens of
the United States in analogous situations.' Ford's Writings of Jefferson, vol. 8, p.
241.

It is strenuously insisted that Mr. Jefferson's conviction on the subject of the repugnancy
of the treaty to the Constitution was [182 U.S. 244, 328] based alone upon the fact that he
thought the treaty exceeded the limits of the Constitution, because he deemed that it
provided for the admission, according to the Constitution, of the acquired territory as a
new state or states into the Union, and hence, for the purpose of conferring this power, he
drafted the amendment. The contention is refuted by two considerations: The first,
because the two forms of amendment which Mr. Jefferson prepared did not purport to
confer any power upon Congress to admit new states; and, second, they absolutely
forbade Congress from admitting a new state out of a described part of the territory
without a further amendment to the Constitution. It cannot be conceived that Mr.
Jefferson would have drafted an amendment to cure a defect which he thought existed,
and yet say nothing in the amendment on the subject of such defect. And, moreover, it
cannot be conceived that he drafted an amendment to confer a power he supposed to be
wanting under the Constitution, and thus ratify the treaty, and yet in the very amendment
withhold in express terms, as to a part of the ceded territory, the authority which it was
the purpose of the amendment to confer.

I excerpt in the margin13 two letters from Mr. Jefferson, one [182 U.S. 244, 329] written
under date of July 7, 1803, to William Dunbar, and the other dated September 7, 1803, to
Wilson Cary Nicholas, which show clearly the difficulties which were in the mind of Mr.
Jefferson, and which remove all doubt concerning the meaning of the amendment which
he wrote and the adoption of which he deemed necessary to cure any supposed want of
power concerning the treaty would be provided for.

These letters show that Mr. Jefferson bore in mind the fact that the Constitution in
express terms delegated to Congress the power to admit new states, and therefore no
further authority on this subject was required. But he thought this power in Congress was
confined to the area embraced within the limits of the United States, as existing at the
adoption of the Constitution. To fulfil the stipulations of the treaty so as to cause the
ceded territory to become a part of the United States, Mr. Jefferson deemed an
amendment to the Constitution to be essential. For this reason the amendment which he
formulated declared that the territory ceded was to be 'a part of the United States, and its
white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the
same footing with other citizens of the United States in analogous situations.' What these
words meant is not open to doubt when it is observed that they were but the paraphrase of
the following words, which were contained in the first proposed amendment which Mr.
Jefferson wrote: 'Vesting the inhabitants thereof with all rights possessed by other
territorial citizens of the United States,'-which clearly show that it was the want of power
to incorporate the ceded country into the United States as a territory which was in Mr.
Jefferson's mind, and to accomplish which re- [182 U.S. 244, 330] sult he thought an
amendment to the Constitution was required. This provision of the amendment applied to
all of the territory ceded, and therefore brought it all into the United States, and hence
placed it in a position where the power of Congress to admit new states would have
attached to it. As Mr. Jefferson deemed that every requirement of the treaty would be
fulfilled by incorporation, and that it would be unwise to form a new state out of the
upper part of the new territory, after thus providing for the complete execution of the
treaty by incorporation of all the territory into the United States, he inserted a provision
forbidding Congress from admitting a new state out of a part of the territory.

With the debates which took place on the subject of the treaty I need not particularly
concern myself. Some shared Mr. Jefferson's doubts as to the right of the treaty-making
power to incorporate the territory into the United States without an amendment of the
Constitution; others deemed that the provision of the treaty was but a promise that
Congress would ultimately incorporate as a territory, and, until by the action of Congress
this latter result was brought about, full power of legislation to govern as deemed best
was vested in Congress. This latter view prevailed. Mr. Jefferson's proposed amendment
to the Constitution, therefore, was never adopted by Congress, and hence was never
submitted to the people.

An act was approved on October 31, 1803 (2 Stat. at L. 245, chap. 1) 'to enable the
President of the United States to take possession of the territories ceded by France to the
United States by the treaty concluded at Paris on the 30th of April last, and for the
temporary government thereof.' The provisions of this act were absolutely incompatible
with the conception that the territory had been incorporated into the United States by
virtue of the cession. On November 10, 1803 (2 Stat. at L. 245, chap. 2 ), an act was
passed providing for the issue of stock to raise the funds to pay for the territory. On
February 24, 1804 (2 Stat. at L. 251, chap. 13), an act was approved which expressly
extended certain revenue and other laws over the ceded country. On March 26, 1804 (2
Stat. at L. 283, chap. 38), an act was passed dividing the 'province of Louisiana' into
Orleans territory on the south and the district of Louisiana to [182 U.S. 244, 331] the north.
This act extended over the territory of Orleans a large number of the general laws of the
United States, and provided a form of government. For the purposes of government the
district of Louisiana was attached to the territory of Indiana, which had been carved out
of the Northwest Territory. Although the area described as Orleans territory was thus
under the authority of a territorial government, and many laws of the United States had
been extended by act of Congress to it, it was manifest that Mr. Jefferson thought that the
requirement of the treaty that it should be incorporated into the United States had not
been complied with.

In a letter written to Mr. Madison on July 14, 1804, Mr. Jefferson, speaking of the treaty
of cession, said (Ford's Writings of Jefferson, vol. 8, p. 313):

'The inclosed reclamations of Girod & Chote against the claims of Bapstroop to a
monopoly of the Indian commerce supposed to be under the protection of the 3d
article of the Louisiana convention, as well as some other claims to abusive
grants, will probably force us to meet that question. The article has been worded
with remarkable caution on the part of our negotiators. It is that the inhabitants
shall be admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of our
Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens, and, in the meantime,
en attendant, shall be maintained in their liberty, property, and religion. That is,
that they shall continue under the protection of the treaty until the principles of
our Constitution can be extended to them, when the protection of the treaty is to
cease, and that of our own principles to take its place. But as this could not be
done at once, it has been provided to be as soon as our rules will admit.
Accordingly, Congress has begun by extending about twenty particular laws by
their titles, to Louisiana. Among these is the act concerning intercourse with the
Indians, which establishes a system of commerce with them admitting no
monopoly. That class of rights, therefore, are now taken from under the treaty and
placed under the principles of our laws. I imagine it will be necessary to express
an opinion to Governor Claiborne on this subject, after you shall have made up
one.' [182 U.S. 244, 332] In another letter to Mr. Madison, under date of August 15,
1804, Mr. Jefferson said (Ibid. p. 315):
'I am so much impressed with the expediency of putting a termination to the right
of France to patronize the rights of Louisiana, which will cease with their
complete adoption as citizens of the United States, that I hope to see that take
place on the meeting of Congress.'

At the following session of Congress, on March 2, 1805 (2 Stat. at L. 322, chap. 23), an
act was approved, which, among other purposes, doubtless was intended to fulfil the hope
expressed by Mr. Jefferson in the letter just quoted. That act, in the 1st section, provided
that the inhabitants of the territory of Orleans 'shall be entitled to and enjoy all the rights,
privileges, and advantages secured by the said ordinance' ( that is, the ordinance of 1787)
'and now enjoyed by the people of the Mississippi territory.' As will be remembered, the
ordinance of 1787 had been extended to that territory. 1 Stat. at L. 550, chap. 28. Thus,
strictly in accord with the thought embodied in the amendments contemplated by Mr.
Jefferson, citizenship was conferred, and the territory of Orleans was incorporated into
the United States to fulfil the requirements of the treaty, by placing it exactly in the
position which it would have occupied had it been within the boundaries of the United
States as a territory at the time the Constitution was framed. It is pertinent to recall that
the treaty contained stipulations giving certain preferences and commercial privileges for
a stated period to the vessels of French and Spanish subjects, and that, even after the
action of Congress above stated, this condition of the treaty continued to be enforced,
thus demonstrating that even after the incorporation of the territory the express provisions
conferring a temporary right which the treaty had stipulated for and which Congress had
recognized were not destroyed, the effect being that incorporation as to such matter was
for the time being in abeyance.

The upper part of the province of Louisiana, designated by the act of March 26, 1804 (2
Stat. at L. 283, chap. 38), as the district of Louisiana, and by the act of March 3, 1805 (2
Stat. at L. 331, chap. 31), as the territory of Louisiana, was created the territory of Mis-
[182 U.S. 244, 333] souri on June 4, 1812. 2 Stat. at L. 743, chap. 95. By this latter act,
though the ordinance of 1787 was not in express terms extended over the territory,-
probably owing to the slavery agitation,-the inhabitants of the territory were accorded
substantially all the rights of the inhabitants of the Northwest Territory. Citizenship was
in effect recognized in the 9th section, while the 14th section contained an elaborate
declaration of the rights secured to the people of the territory.

Pausing to analyze the practical construction which resulted from the acquisition of the
vast domain covered by the Louisiana purchase, it indubitably results, first, that it was
conceded by every shade of opinion that the government of the United States had the
undoubted right to acquire, hold, and govern the territory as a possession, and that
incorporation into the United States could under no circumstances arise solely from a
treaty of cession, even although it contained provisions for the accomplishment of such
result; second, it was strenuously denied by many eminent men that, in acquiring
territory, citizenship could be conferred upon the inhabitants within the acquired territory;
in other words, that the territory could be incorporated into the United States without an
amendment to the Constitution; and, third, that the opinion which prevailed was that,
although the treaty might stipulate for incorporation and citizenship under the
Constitution, such agreements by the treaty-making power were but promises depending
for their fulfilment on the furture action of Congress. In accordance with this view the
territory acquired by the Louisiana purchase was governed as a mere dependency until,
conformably to the suggestion of Mr. Jefferson, it was by the action of Congress
incorporated as a territory into the United States, and the same rights were conferred in
the same mode by which other territories had previously been incorporated, that is, by
bestowing the privileges of citizenship and the rights and immunities which pertained to
the Northwest Territory.

Florida was ceded by treaty signed on February 22, 1819. 8 Stat. at L. 252. While drafted
in accordance with the precedent afforded by the treaty ceding Louisiana, the Florida
treaty was slightly modified in its phraseology, probably to meet the view [182 U.S. 244,
334] that under the Constitution Congress had the right to determine the time when
incorporation was to arise. Acting under the precedent afforded by the Louisiana case,
Congress adopted a plan of government which was wholly inconsistent with the theory
that the territory had been incorporated. General Jackson was appointed governor under
this act, and exercised a degree of authority entirely in conflict with the conception that
the territory was a part of the United States, in the sense of incorporation, and that those
provisions of the Constitution which would have been applicable under that hypothesis
were then in force. It will serve no useful purpose to go through the gradations of
legislation adopted as to Florida. Suffice it to say that in 1822 (3 Stat. at L. 654, chap.
13), an act was passed as in the case of Missouri, and presumably for the same reason,
which, while not referring to the Northwest Territory ordinance, in effect endowed the
inhabitants of that territory with the rights granted by such ordinance.

This treaty also, it is to be remarked, contained discriminatory commercial provisions

incompatible with the conception of immediate incorporation arising from the treaty, and
they were enforced by the executive officers of the government.

The intensity of the political differences which existed at the outbreak of hostilities with
Mexico and at the termination of the war with that country, and the subject around which
such conflicts of opinion centered, probably explain why the treaty of peace with Mexico
departed from the form adopted in the previous treaties concerning Florida and
Louisiana. That treaty, instead of expressing a cession in the form previously adopted,
whether intentionally or not I am unable, of course, to say, resorted to the expedient
suggested by Attorney General Lincoln to President Jefferson, and accomplished the
cession by changing the boundaries of the two countries; in other words, by bringing the
acquired territory within the described boundaries of the United States. The treaty,
besides, contained a stipulation for rights of citizenship; in other words, a provision
equivalent in terms to those used in the previous treaties to which I have referred. The
controversy which was then flagrant on the subject of slavery prevented the passage of
[182 U.S. 244, 335] bill giving California a territorial form of government, and California,
after considerable delay, was therefore directly admitted into the Union as a state. After
the ratification of the treaty various laws were enacted by Congress, which in effect
treated the territory as acquired by the United States; and the executive officers of the
government, conceiving that these acts were an implied or express ratification of the
provisions of the treaty by Congress, acted upon the assumption that the provisions of the
treaty were thus made operative, and hence incorporation had thus become efficacious.

Ascertaining the general rule from the provisions of this latter treaty and the practical
execution which it received, it will be seen that the precedents established in the cases of
Louisiana and Florida were departed from to a certain extent; that is, the rule was
considered to be that where the treaty, in express terms, brought the territory within the
boundaries of the United States and provided for incorporation, and the treaty was
expressly or impliedly recognized by Congress, the provisions of the treaty ought to be
given immediate effect. But this did not conflict with the general principles of the law of
nations which I have at the outset stated, but enforced it, since the action taken assumed,
not that incorporation was brought about by the treat-making power wholly without the
consent of Congress, but only that, as the treaty provided for incorporation in express
terms, and Congress had acted without repudiating it, its provisions should be at once
enforced.
Without referring in detail to the acquisition from Russia of Alaska, it suffices to say that
that treaty also contained provisions for incorporation, and was acted upon exactly in
accord with the practical construction applied in the case of the acquisitions from
Mexico, as just stated. However, the treaty ceding Alaska contained an express provision
excluding from citizenship the uncivilized native tribes, and it has been nowhere
contended that this condition of exclusion was inoperative because of the want of power
under the Constitution in the treaty-making authority to so provide, which must be the
case if the limitation on the treaty- making power, which is here asserted, be well
founded. The treaty concerning Alaska, therefore, adds [182 U.S. 244, 336] cogency to the
conception established by every act of the government from the foundation,-that the
condition of a treaty, when expressly or impliedly ratified by Congress, becomes the
measure by which the rights arising from the treaty are to be adjusted.

The demonstration which it seems to me is afforded by the review which has preceded is,
besides, sustained by various other acts of the government which to me are wholly
inexplicable except upon the theory that it was admitted that the government of the
United States had the power to acquire and hold territory without immediately
incorporating it. Take, for instance, the simultaneous acquisition and admission of Texas,
which was admitted into the Union as a state by joint resolution of Congress, instead of
by treaty. To what grant of power under the Constitution can this action be referred,
unless it be admitted that Congress is vested with the right to determine when
incorporation arises? It cannot be traced to the authority conferred on Congress to admit
new states, for to adopt that theory would be to presuppose that this power gave the
prerogative of conferring statehood on wholly foreign territory. But this I have
incidentally shown is a mistaken conception. Hence, it must be that the action of
Congress at one and the same time fulfilled the function of incorporation; and, this being
so, the privilege of statehood was added. But I shall not prolong this opinion by
occupying time in referring to the many other acts of the government which further refute
the correctness of the propositions which are here insisted on and which I have previously
shown to be without merit. In concluding my appreciation of the history of the
government, attention is called to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which to my
mind seems to be conclusive. The 1st section of the amendment, the italics being mine,
reads as follows: 'Sec. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.' Obviously this
provision recognized that there may be places subject to the jurisdiction of the United
States, but which are not [182 U.S. 244, 337] incorporated into it, and hence are not within
the United States in the completest sense of those words.

Let me now proceed to show that the decisions of this court, without a single exception,
are absolutely in accord with the true rule as evolved from a correct construction of the
Constitution as a matter of first impression, and as shown by the history of the
government which has been previously epitomized. As it is appropriate here, I repeat the
quotation which has heretofore been made from the opinion, delivered by Mr. Chief
Justice Marshall, in American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 511, 7 L. ed. 242,
where, considering the Florida treaty, the court said (p. 542, L. ed. p. 255):
'The usage of the world is, if a nation be not entirely subdued, to consider the
holding of conquered territory as a mere military occupation until its fate shall be
determined at the treaty of peace. If it be ceded by the treaty the acquisition is
confirmed, and the ceded territory becomes a part of the nation to which it is
annexed, either on the terms stipulated in the treaty of cession or on such as its
new master shall impose.'

In Fleming v. Page the court, speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Taney, discussing the
acts of the military forces of the United States while holding possession of Mexican
territory, said (9 How. 614, 13 L. ed. 281):

'The United States, it is true, may extend its boundaries by conquest or treaty, and
may demand the cession of territory as the condition of peace in order to
indemnify its citizens for the injuries they have suffered, or to reimburse the
government for the expenses of the war. But this can be done only by the treaty-
making power or the legislative authority.'

In Cross v. Harrison, 16 How. 164, 14 L. ed. 889, the question for decision, as I have
previously observed, was as to the legality of certain duties collected both before and
after the ratification of the treaty of peace, on foreign merchandise imported into
California. Part of the duties collected were assessed upon importations made by local
officials before notice had been received of the ratification of the treaty of peace, and
when duties were laid under a tariff which had been promulgated by the President. Other
duties were imposed subsequent to the receipt of notification of the ratification, and these
latter duties were laid [182 U.S. 244, 338] according to the tariff as provided in the laws of
the United States. All the exactions were upheld. The court decided that, prior to and up
to the receipt of notice of the ratification of the treaty, the local government lawfully
imposed the tariff then in force in California, although it differed from that provided by
Congress, and that subsequent to the receipt of notice of the ratification of the treaty the
duty prescribed by the act of Congress, which the President had ordered the local officials
to enforce, could be lawfully collected. The opinion undoubtedly expressed the thought
that by the ratification of the treaty in question, which, as I have shown, not only included
the ceded territory within the boundaries of the United States, but also expressly provided
for incorporation, the territory had become a part of the United States, and the body of the
opinion quoted the letter of the Secretary of the Treasury, which referred to the enactment
of laws of Congress by which the treaty had been impliedly ratified. The decision of the
court as to duties imposed subsequent to the receipt of notice of the ratification of the
treaty of peace undoubtedly took the fact I have just stated into view, and, in addition,
was unmistakably proceeded upon the nature of the rights which the treaty conferred. No
comment can obscure or do away with the patent fact, namely, that it was unequivocally
decided that if different provisions had been found in the treaty a contrary result would
have followed. Thus, speaking through Mr. Justice Wayne, the court said (16 How. 197,
14 L. ed. 903):

'By the ratification of the treaty California became a part of the United States.
And, as there is nothing differently stipulated in the treaty with respect to
commerce, it became instantly bound and privileged by the laws which Congress
had passed to raise a revenue from duties on imports and tonnage.'

It is, then, as I think, indubitably settled by the principles of the law of nations, by the
nature of the government created under the Constitution, by the express and implied
powers conferred upon that government by the Constitution, by the mode in which those
powers have been executed from the beginning, and by an unbroken lien of decisions of
this court, first announced by Marshall and followed and lucidly expounded [182 U.S. 244,
339] by Taney, that the treaty-making power cannot incorporate territory into the United
States without the express or implied assent of Congress, that it may insert in a treaty
conditions against immediate incorporation, and that on the other hand, when it has
expressed in the treaty the conditions favorable to incorporation they will, if the treaty be
not repudiated by Congress, have the force of the law of the land, and therefore by the
fulfilment of such conditions cause incorporation to result. It must follow, therefore, that
where a treaty contains no conditions for incorporation, and, above all, where it not only
has no such conditions, but expressly provides to the contrary, that incorporation does not
arise until in the wisdom of Congress it is deemed that the acquired territory has reached
that state where it is proper that it should enter into and form a part of the American
family.

Does, then, the treaty in question contain a provision for incorporation, or does it, on the
contrary, stipulate that incorporation shall not take place from the mere effect of the
treaty and until Congress has so determined?-is then the only question remaining for
consideration.

The provisions of the treaty with respect to the status of Porto Rico and its inhabitants are
as follows:

Article II.

Spain cedes to the United States the Island of Porto Rico and other islands now under
Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, and the island of Guam, in the Marianas or
Ladrones.

Article IX.

Spanish subjects, natives of the Peninsula, residing in the territory over which Spain by
the present treaty relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty, may remain in such territory or
may remove therefrom, retaining in either event all their rights of property, including the
right to sell or dispose of such property or of its proceeds; and they shall also have the
right to carry on their industry, commerce, and professions, being subject in respect
thereof to such laws as are applicable to other foreigners. In case they remain in the
territory they may pre- [182 U.S. 244, 340] serve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain by
making, before a court of record, within a year from the date of the exchange of
ratifications of this treaty, a declaration of their decision to preserve such allegiance; in
default of which declaration they shall be held to have renounced it and to have adopted
the nationality of the territory in which they may reside.

The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded
to the United States shall be determined by the Congress.

Article X.

The inhabitants of the territories over which Spain relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty
shall be secured in the free exercise of their religion.

It is to me obvious that the above-quoted provisions of the treaty do not stipulate for
incorporation, but, on the contrary, expressly provide that the 'civil rights and political
status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded' shall be determined by
Congress. When the rights to which this careful provision refers are put in juxtaposition
with those which have been deemed essential from the foundation of the government to
bring about incorporation, all of which have been previously referred to, I cannot doubt
that the express purpose of the treaty was not only to leave the status of the territory to be
determined by Congress, but to prevent the treaty from operating to the contrary. Of
course, it is evident that the express or implied acquiescence by Congress in a treaty so
framed cannot import that a result was brought about which the treaty itself-giving effect
to its provisions-could not produce. And, in addition, the provisions of the act by which
the duty here in question was imposed, taken as a whole, seem to me plainly to manifest
the intention of Congress that, for the present at least, Porto Rico is not to be incorporated
into the United States.

The fact that the act directs the officers to swear to support the Constitution does not
militate against this view, for, as I have conceded, whether the island be incorporated or
not, the applicable provisions of the Constitution are there in force. A [182 U.S. 244, 341]
further analysis of the provisions of the act seems to me not to be required in view of the
fact that as the act was reported from the committee it contained a provision conferring
citizenship upon the inhabitants of Porto Rico, and this was stricken out in the Senate.
The argument, therefore, can only be that rights were conferred, which, after
consideration, it was determined should not be granted. Moreover I fail to see how it is
possible, on the one hand, to declare that Congress in passing the act had exceeded its
powers by treating Porto Rico as not incorporated into the United States, and, at the same
time, it be said that the provisions of the act itself amount to an incorporation of Porto
Rico into the United States, although the treaty had not previously done so. It in reason
cannot be that the act is void because it seeks to keep the island disincorporated, and, at
the same time, that material provisions are not to be enforced because the act does
incorporate. Two irreconcilable views of that act cannot be taken at the same time, the
consequence being to cause it to be unconstitutional.

In what has preceded I have in effect considered every substantial proposition, and have
either conceded or reviewed every authority referred to as establishing that immediate
incorporation resulted from the treaty of cession which is under consideration. Indeed, the
whole argument in favor of the view that immediate incorporation followed upon the
ratification of the treaty in its last analysis necessarily comes to this: Since it has been
decided that incorporation flows from a treaty which provides for that result, when its
provisions have been expressly or impliedly approved by Congress, it must follow that
the same effect flows from a treaty which expressly stipulates to the contrary, even
although the condition to that end has been approved by Congress. That is to say, the
argument is this: Because a provision for incorporation when ratified incorporates,
therefore a provision against incorporation must also produce the very consequence
which it expressly provides against.

The result of what has been said is that while in an international sense Porto Rico was not
a foreign country, since it was subject to the sovereignty of and was owned by the United
States, it was foreign to the United States in a domestic sense, [182 U.S. 244, 342] because
the island had not been incorporated into the United States, but was merely appurtenant
thereto as a possession. As a necessary consequence, the impost in question assessed on
coming from Porto Rico into the United States after the cession was within the power of
Congress, and that body was not, moreover, as to such impost, controlled by the clause
requiring that imposts should be uniform throughout the United States; in other words,
the provision of the Constitution just referred to was not applicable to Congress in
legislating for Porto Rico.

Incidentally I have heretofore pointed out that the arguments of expediency pressed with
so much earnestness and ability concern the legislative, and not the judicial, department
of the government. But it may be observed that, even if the disastrous consequences
which are foreshadowed as arising from conceding that the government of the United
States may hold property without incorporation were to tempt me to depart from what
seems to me to be the plain line of judicial duty, reason admonishes me that so doing
would not serve to prevent the grave evils which it is insisted must come, but, on the
contrary, would only render them more dangerous. This must be the result, since, as
already said, it seems to me it is not open to serious dispute that the military arm of the
government of the United States may hold and occupy conquered territory without
incorporation for such length of time as may seem appropriate to Congress in the exercise
of its discretion. The denial of the right of the civil power to do so would not, therefore,
prevent the holding of territory by the United States if it was deemed best by the political
department of the government, but would simply necessitate that it should be exercised
by the military instead of by the civil power.

And to me it further seems apparent that another and more disastrous result than that just
stated would follow as a consequence of an attempt to cause judicial judgment to invade
the domain of legislative discretion. Quite recently one of the stipulations contained in
the treaty with Spain which is now under consideration came under review by this court.
By the provision in question Spain relinquished 'all claim of sover- [182 U.S. 244, 343]
eignty over and title to Cuba.' It was further provided in the treaty as follows:

'And as the island is upon the evacuation by Spain to be occupied by the United
States, the United States will, so long as such occupation shall last, assume and
discharge the obligations that may under international law result from the fact of
its occupation, and for the protection of life and property.'

It cannot, it is submitted, be questioned that, under this provision of the treaty, as long as
the occupation of the United States lasts, the benign sovereignty of the United States
extends over and dominates the island of Cuba. Likewise, it is not, it seems to me,
questionable that the period when that sovereignty is to cease is to be determined by the
legislative department of the government of the United States in the exercise of the great
duties imposed upon it, and with the sense of the responsibility which it owes to the
people of the United States, and the high respect which it of course feels for all the moral
obligations by which the government of the United States may, either expressly or
impliedly, be bound. Considering the provisions of this treaty, and reviewing the pledges
of this government extraneous to that instrument, by which the sovereignty of Cuba is to
be held by the United States for the benefit of the people of Cuba and for their account, to
be relinquished to them when the conditions justify its accomplishment, this court
uranimously held in Neely v. Henkel, 180 U.S. 109 , ante, 302, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 302, that
Cuba was not incorporated into the United States, and was a foreign country. It follows
from this decision that it is lawful for the United States to take possession of and hold in
the exercise of its sovereign power a particular territory, without incorporating it into the
United States, if there be obligations of honor and good faith which, although not
expressed in the treaty, nevertheless sacredly bind the United States to terminate the
dominion and control when, in its political discretion, the situation is ripe to enable it to
do so. Conceding, then, for the purpose of the argument, it to be true that it would be a
violation of duty under the Constitution for the legislative department, in the exercise of
its discretion, to accept a cession of and permanently hold territory which is not [182 U.S.
244, 344] intended to be incorporated, the presumption necessarily must be that that
department, which within its lawful sphere is but the expression of the political
conscience of the people of the United States, will be faithful to its duty under the
Constitution, and therefore, when the unfitness of particular territory for incorporation is
demonstrated, the occupation will terminate. I cannot conceive how it can be held that
pledges made to an alien people can be treated as more sacred than is that great pledge
given by every member of every department of the government of the United States to
support and defend the Constitution.

But if it can be supposed-which, of course, I do not think to be conceivable-that the

judiciary would be authorized to draw to itself by an act of usurpation purely political
functions, upon the theory that if such wrong is not committed a greater harm will arise,
because the other departments of the government will forget their duty to the Constitution
and wantonly transcend its limitations, I am further admonished that any judicial action in
this case which would be predicated upon such an unwarranted conception would be
absolutely unavailing. It cannot be denied that under the rule clearly settled in Neely v.
Henkel, 180 U.S. 109 , ante, 302, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 302, the sovereignty of the United
States may be extended over foreign territory to remain paramount until, in the discretion
of the political department of the government of the United States, it be relinquished.
This method, then, of dealing with foreign territory, would in any event be available.
Thus, the enthralling of the treaty-making power, which would result from holding that
no territory could be acquired by treaty of cession without immediate incorporation,
would only result in compelling a resort to the subterfuge of relinquishment of
sovereignty, and thus indirection would take the place of directness of action,-a course
which would be incompatible with the dignity and honor of the government.

I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice Shiras and Mr. Justice McKenna concur in this
opinion.

Mr. Justice Gray, concurring: [182 U.S. 244, 345] Concurring in the judgment of
affirmance in this case, and in substance agreeing with the opinion of Mr. Justice White, I
will sum up the reasons for my concurrence in a few propositions which may also
indicate my position in other cases now standing for judgment.

The cases now before the court do not touch the authority of the United States over the
territories in the strict and technical sense, being those which lie within the United States,
as bounded by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Dominion of Canada and the
Republic of Mexico, and the territories of Alaska and Hawaii; but they relate to territory
in the broader sense, acquired by the United States by war with a foreign state.

As Chief Justice Marshall said: 'The Constitution confers absolutely on the government
of the Union the powers of making war and of making treaties; consequently, that
government possesses the power of acquiring territory, either by conquest or by treaty.
The usage of the world is, if a nation be not entirely subdued, to consider the holding of
conquered territory as a mere military occupation, until its fate shall be determined at the
treaty of peace. If it be ceded by the treaty, the acquisition is confirmed, and the ceded
territory becomes a part of the nation to which it is annexed, either on the terms stipulated
in the treaty of cession, or on such as its new master shall impose.' American Ins. Co. v.
356 Bales of Cotton (1828) 1 Pet. 511, 542, 7 L. ed. 242, 255.

The civil government of the United States cannot extend immediately, and of its own
force, over territory acquired by war. Such territory must necessarily, in the first instance,
be governed by the military power under the control of the President as Commander in
Chief. Civil government cannot take effect at once, as soon as possession is acquired
under military authority, or even as soon as that possession is confirmed by treaty. It can
only be put in operation by the action of the appropriate political department of the
government, at such time and in such degree as that department may determine. There
must, of necessity, be a transition period.

In a conquered territory, civil government must take effect either by the action of the
treaty-making power, or by that of [182 U.S. 244, 346] the Congress of the United States.
The office of a treaty of cession ordinarily is to put an end to all authority of the foreign
government over the territory, and to subject the territory to the disposition of the
government of the United States.

The government and disposition of territory so acquired belong to the government of the
United States, consisting of the President, the Senate, elected by the states, and the House
of Representatives, chosen by and immediately representing the people of the United
States. Treaties by which territory is acquired from a foreign state usually recognize this.

It is clearly recognized in the recent treaty with Spain, especially in the 9th article, by
which 'the civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby
ceded to the United States shall be determined by the Congress.'

By the 4th and 13th articles of the treaty, the United States agree that for ten years
Spanish ships and merchandise shall be admitted to the ports of the Philippine islands on
the same terms as ships and merchandise of the United States, and Spanish scientific,
literary, and artistic works not subversive of public order shall continue to be admitted
free of duty into all the ceded territories. Neither of these provisions could be carried out
if the Constitution required the customs regulations of the United States to apply in those
territories.

In the absence of congressional legislation, the regulation of the revenue of the conquered
territory, even after the treaty of cession, remains with the executive and military
authority.

So long as Congress has not incorporated the territory into the United States, neither
military occupation nor cession by treaty makes the conquered territory domestic
territory, in the sense of the revenue laws; but those laws concerning 'foreign countries'
remain applicable to the conquered territory until changed by Congress. Such was the
unanimous opinion of this court, as declared by Chief Justice Taney in Fleming v. Page, 9
How. 603, 617, 13 L. ed. 276, 281.

If Congress is not ready to construct a complete government for the conquered territory,
it may establish a temporary government, which is not subject to all the restrictions of the
Constitution. [182 U.S. 244, 347] Such was the effect of the act of Congress of April 12,
1900 (31 Stat. at L. chap. 191), entitled 'An Act Temporarily to Provide Revenues and a
Civil Government for Porto Rico, and for Other Purposes.' By the 3d section of that act, it
was expressly declared that the duties thereby established on merchandise and articles
going into Porto Rico from the United States, or coming into the United States from Porto
Rico, should cease in any event on March 1, 1902, and sooner if the legislative assembly
of Porto Rico should enact and put into operation a system of local taxation to meet the
necessities of the government established by that act.

The system of duties temporarily established by that act during the transition period was
within the authority of Congress under the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. Chief Justice Fuller, with whom concurred Mr. Justice Harlan, Mr. Justice Brewer,
and Mr. Justice Peckham, dissenting:

This is an action brought to recover moneys exacted by the collector of customs at the
port of New York as import duties on two shipments of fruit from ports in the island of
Porto Rico to the port of New York in November, 1900
The treaty ceding Porto Rico to the United States was ratified by the Senate February 6,
1899; Congress passed an act to carry out its obligations March 3, 1899; and the
ratifications were exchanged, and the treaty proclaimed April 11, 1899. Then followed
the act approved April 12, 1900. 31 Stat. at L. 77, chap. 191.

Mr. Justice Harlan, Mr. Justice Brewer, Mr. Justice Peckham, and myself are unable to
concur in the opinions and judgment of the court in this case. The majority widely differ
in the reasoning by which the conclusion is reached, although there seems to be
concurrence in the view that Porto Rico belongs to the United States, but nevertheless,
and notwithstanding the act of Congress, is not a part of the United States subject to the
provisions of the Constitution in respect of the levy of taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.
[182 U.S. 244, 348] The inquiry is whether the act of April 12, 1900, so far as it requires the
payment of import duties on merchandise brought from a port of Porto Rico as a
condition of entry into other ports of the United States, is consistent with the Federal
Constitution.

The act creates a civil government for Porto Rico, with a governor, secretary, attorney
general, and other officers, appointed by the President, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate, who, together with five other persons, likewise so appointed and
confirmed, are constituted an executive council; local legislative powers are vested in a
legislative assembly consisting of the executive council and a house of delegates to be
elected; courts are provided for, and, among other things, Porto Rico is constituted a
judicial district, with a district judge, attorney, and marshal, to be appointed by the
President for the term of four years. The district court is to be called the district court of
the United States for Porto Rico, and to possess, in addition to the ordinary jurisdiction of
district courts of the United States, jurisdiction of all cases cognizant in the circuit courts
of the United States. The act also provides that 'writs of error and appeals from the final
decisions of the supreme court of Porto Rico and the district court of the United States
shall be allowed and may be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States in the same
manner and under the same regulations and in the same cases as from the supreme courts
of the territories of the United States; and such writs of error and appeal shall be allowed
in all cases where the Constitution of the United States, or a treaty thereof, or an act of
Congress is brought in question and the right claimed thereunder is denied.'

It was also provided that the inhabitants continuing to reside in Porto Rico, who were
Spanish subjects on April 11, 1899, and their children born subsequent thereto (except
such as should elect to preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain), together with
citizens of the United States residing in Porto Rico, should 'constitute a body politic
under the name of The People of Porto Rico, with governmental powers as hereinafter
conferred, and with power to sue and be sued as such.' [182 U.S. 244, 349] All officials
authorized by the act are required to, 'before entering upon the duties of their respective
offices, take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the laws of Porto
Rico.'

The 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th and 38th sections of the act are printed in the margin. 14 [182 U.S.
244, 350] It will be seen that duties are imposed upon 'merchandise coming into Porto
Rico from the United States:' 'merchandise [182 U.S. 244, 351] coming into the United
States from Porto Rico;' taxes upon 'articles of merchandise of Porto Rican manufacture
coming into the United States and withdrawn from consumption or sale' 'equal to the
internal-revenue tax imposed in the United States upon like articles of domestic
manufacture;' and 'on all articles of merchandise of United States manufacture coming
into Porto Rico,' 'a tax equal in rate and amount to the internal-revenue tax imposed in
Porto Rico upon the like articles of Porto Rican manufacture.'

And it is also provided that all duties collected in Porto Rico on imports from foreign
countries and on 'merchandise coming into Porto Rico from the United States,' and 'the
gross amount of all collections of duties and taxes in the United States upon articles of
merchandise coming from Porto Rico,' shall be held as a separate fund and placed 'at the
disposal of the President to be used for the government and benefit of Porto Rico' until
the local government is organized, when 'all collections of taxes and duties under this act
shall be paid into the treasury of Porto Rico, instead of being paid into the Treasury of the
United States.'

The 1st clause of 8 of article 1 of the Constitution [182 U.S. 244, 352] provides: 'The
Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay
the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;
but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.'

Clauses 4, 5, and 6 of 9 are:

'No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census
or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken.
'No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state.
'No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the
ports of one state over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to or from one
state be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.'

This act on its face does not comply with the rule of uniformity, and that fact is admitted.

The uniformity required by the Constitution is a geographical uniformity, and is only

attained when the tax operates with the same force and effect in every place where the
subject of it is found. Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U.S. 41 , 44 L. ed. 969, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep.
747; Head Money Cases, 112 U.S. 594 , sub nom. Edye v. Robertson, 28 L. ed. 802, 5
Sup. Ct. Rep. 247. But it is said that Congress in attempting to levy these duties was not
exercising power derived from the 1st clause of 8, or restricted by it, because in dealing
with the territories Congress exercises unlimited powers of government, and, moreover,
that these duties are merely local taxes.

This court, in 1820, when Marshall was Chief Justice, and Washington, William Johnson,
Livingston, Todd, Duvall, and Story were his associates, took a different view of the
power of Congress in the matter of laying and collecting taxes, duties, imposts, and
excises in the territories, and its ruling in Loughborough v. Blake, 5 Wheat. 317, 5 L. ed.
98, has never been overruled.

It is said in one of the opinions of the majority that the Chief Justice 'made certain
observations which have occasioned some embarrassment in other cases.' Manifestly this
is so in this case, for it is necessary to overrule that decision in order to reach the result
herein announced. [182 U.S. 244, 353] The question in Loughborough v. Blake was
whether Congress had the right to impose a direct tax on the District of Columbia apart
from the grant of exclusive legislation, which carried the power to levy local taxes. The
court held that Congress had such power under the clause in question. The reasoning of
Chief Justice Marshall was directed to show that the grant of the power 'to lay and collect
taxes, duties, imposts, and excises,' because it was general and without limitation as to
place, consequently extended 'to all places over which the government extends,' and he
declared that, if this could be doubted, the doubt was removed by the subsequent words,
which modified the grant, 'but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform
throughout the United States.' He then said: 'It will not be contended that the modification
of the power extends to places to which the power itself does not extend. The power,
then, to lay and collect duties, imposts, and excises may be exercised, and must be
exercised, throughout the United States. Does this term designate the whole, or any
particular portion of the American empire? Certainly this question can admit of but one
answer. It is the name given to our great republic, which is composed of states and
territories. The District of Columbia, or the territory west of the Missouri, is not less
within the United States than Maryland or Pennsylvania; and it is not less necessary, on
the principles of our Constitution, that uniformity in the imposition of imposts, duties,
and excises should be observed in the one than in the other. Since, then, the power to lay
and collect taxes, which includes direct taxes, is obviously coextensive with the power to
lay and collect duties, imposts, and excises, and since the latter extends throughout the
United States, it follows that the power to impose direct taxes also extends throughout the
United States.'

It is wholly inadmissible to reject the process of reasoning by which the Chief Justice
reached and tested the soundness of his conclusion, as merely obiter.

Nor is there any intimation that the ruling turned on the theory that the Constitution
irrevocably adhered to the soil of Maryland and Virginia, and therefore accompanied the
parts which were ceded to form the District, or that 'the tie' be- [182 U.S. 244, 354] tween
those states and the Constitution 'could not be dissolved without at least the consent of
the Federal and state governments to a formal separation,' and that this was not given by
the cession and its acceptance in accordance with the constitutional provision itself, and
hence that Congress was restricted in the exercise of its powers in the District, while not
so in the territories.

So far from that, the Chief Justice held the territories as well as the District to be part of
the United States for the purposes of national taxation, and repeated in effect what he had
already said in M'Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 408, 4 L. ed. 602; 'Throughout this vast
republic, from the St. Croix to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
revenue is to be collected and expended, armies are to be marched and supported.'

Conceding that the power to tax for the purposes of territorial government is implied
from the power to govern territory, whether the latter power is attributed to the power to
acquire or the power to make needful rules and regulations, these particular duties are
nevertheless not local in their nature, but are imposed as in the exercise of national
powers. The levy is clearly a regulation of commerce, and a regulation affecting the states
and their people as well as this territory and its people. The power of Congress to act
directly on the rights and interests of the people of the states can only exist if and as
granted by the Constitution. And by the Constitution Congress is vested with power 'to
regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the
Indian tribes.' The territories are indeed not mentioned by name, and yet commerce
between the territories and foreign nations is covered by the clause, which would seem to
have been intended to embrace the entire internal as well as foreign commerce of the
country.

It is evident that Congress cannot regulate commerce between a territory and the states
and other territories in the exercise of the bare power to govern the particular territory,
and as this act was framed to operate and does operate on the people of the states, the
power to so legislate is apparently [182 U.S. 244, 355] rested on the assumption that the
right to regulate commerce between the states and territories comes within the commerce
clause by necessary implication. Stoutenburgh v. Hennick, 129 U.S. 141 , 32 L. ed. 637,
9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 256.

Accordingly the act of Congress of August 8, 1890, entitled 'An Act to Limit the Effect
of the Regulations of Commerce between the Several States, and with Foreign Countries
in Certain Cases,' applied in terms to the territories as well as to the states. [26 Stat. at L.
313, chap. 728.]

In any point of view, the imposition of duties on commerce operates to regulate

commerce, and is not a matter of local legislation; and it follows that the levy of these
duties was in the exercise of the national power to do so, and subject to the requirement
of geographical uniformity.

The fact that the proceeds are devoted by the act to the use of the territory does not make
national taxes, local. Nobody disputes the source of the power to lay and collect, duties
geographically uniform, and apply the proceeds by a proper appropriation act to the relief
of a particular territory, but the destination of the proceeds would not change the source
of the power to lay and collect. And that suggestion certainly is not strengthened when
based on the diversion of duties collected from all parts of the United States to a
territorial treasury before reaching the Treasury of the United States. Clause 7 of 9 of
article 1 provides that 'no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of
appropriations made by law,' and the proposition that this may be rendered inapplicable if
the money is not permitted to be paid in so as to be susceptible of being drawn out is
somewhat startling.
It is also urged that Chief Justice Marshall was entirely in fault because, while the grant
was general and without limitation as to place, the words, 'throughout the United States,'
imposed a limitation as to place so far as the rule of uniformity was concerned, namely, a
limitation to the states as such.

Undoubtedly the view of the Chief Justice was utterly inconsistent with that contention,
and, in addition to what has been quoted, he further remarked: 'If it be said that the
principle of uniformity, estab lished in the Constitution, secures the District from
oppression in the imposition of indirect taxes, it is [182 U.S. 244, 356] not less true that the
principle of apportionment, also established in the Constitution, secures the District from
any oppressive exercise of the power to lay and collect direct taxes.' [5 Wheat. 325, 5 L.
ed. 100.] It must be borne in mind that the grant was of the absolute power of taxation for
national purposes, wholly unlimited as to place, and subject to only one exception and
two qualifications. The exception was that exports could not be taxed at all. The
qualifications were that direct taxes must be imposed by the rule of apportionment, and
indirect taxes by the rule of uniformity. License Tax Cases, 5 Wall. 462, 18 L. ed. 497.
But as the power necessarily could be exercised throughout every part of the national
domain, state, territory, District, the exception and the qualifications attended its exercise.
That is to say, the protection extended to the people of the states extended also to the
people of the District and the territories.

In Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U.S. 41 , 44 L. ed. 969, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 747, it is shown that
the words, 'throughout the United States,' are but a qualification introduced for the
purpose of rendering the uniformity prescribed, geographical, and not intrinsic, as would
have resulted if they had not been used.

As the grant of the power to lay taxes and duties was unqualified as to place, and the
words were added for the sole purpose of preventing the uniformity required from being
intrinsic, the intention thereby to circumscribe the area within which the power could
operate not only cannot be imputed, but the contrary presumption must prevail.

Taking the words in their natural meaning,-in the sense in which they are frequently and
commonly used,-no reason is perceived for disagreeing with the Chief Justice in the view
that they were used in this clause to designate the geographical unity known as 'The
United States,' 'our great republic, which is composed of states and territories.'

Other parts of the Constitution furnish illustrations of the correctness of this view. Thus,
the Constitution vests Congress with the power 'to establish an uniform rule of
naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy throughout the United
States.' [182 U.S. 244, 357] This applies to the territories as well as the states, and has
always been recognized in legislation as binding.

Aliens in the territories are made citizens of the United States, and bankrupts residing in
the territories are discharged from debts owing citizens of the states, pursuant to uniform
rules and laws enacted by Congress in the exercise of this power.
The 14th Amendment provides that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States,
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state
wherein they reside;' and this court naturally held, in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16
Wall. 36, 21 L. ed. 394, that the United States included the District and the territories.
Mr. Justice Miller observed: 'It had been said by eminent judges that no man was a
citizen of the United States, except as he was a citizen of one of the states composing the
Union. Those, therefore, who had been born and resided always in the District of
Columbia or in the territories, though within the United States, were not citizens.
Whether this proposition was sound or not had never been judicially decided.' And he
said the question was put at rest by the amendment, and the distinction between
citizenship of the United States and citizenship of a state was clearly recognized and
established. 'Not only may a man be a citizen of the United States without being a citizen
of a state, but an important element is necessary to convert the former into the latter. He
must reside within the state to make him a citizen of it, but it is only necessary that he
should be born or naturalized in the United States to be a citizen of the Union.'

No person is eligible to the office of President unless he has 'attained the age of thirty-
five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.' Clause 5, 1, art. 2.

Would a native-born citizen of Massachusetts be ineligible if he had taken up his

residence and resided in one of the territories for so many years that he had not resided
altogether fourteen years in the states? When voted for he must be a citizen of one of the
states (clause 3, 1, art. 2; art. 12), but as to length of time must residence in the territories
be counted against him? [182 U.S. 244, 358] The 15th Amendment declares that 'the right
of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.'
Where does that prohibition on the United States especially apply if not in the territories?

The 13th Amendment says that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 'shall exist
within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.' Clearly this prohibition
would have operated in the territories if the concluding words had not been added. The
history of the times shows that the addition was made in view of the then condition of the
country,-the amendment passed the house January 31, 1865,-and it is, moreover,
otherwise applicable than to the territories. Besides, generally speaking, when words are
used simply out of abundant caution, the fact carries little weight.

Other illustrations might be adduced, but it is unnecessary to prolong this opinion by

giving them.

I repeat that no satisfactory ground has been suggested for restricting the words
'throughout the United States,' as qualifying the power to impose duties, to the states, and
that conclusion is the more to be avoided when we reflect that it rests, in the last analysis,
on the assertion of the possession by Congress of unlimited power over the territories.

The government of the United States is the government ordained by the Constitution, and
possesses the powers conferred by the Constitution. 'This original and supreme will
organizes the government, and assigns to different departments their respective powers. It
may either stop here, or establish certain limits not to be transcended by those
departments. The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers
of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or
forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what
purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed
by those intended to be restrained?' Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 176, 2 L. ed. 73. The
opinion of the court, by Chief Justice Marshall, in that case, was delivered at [182 U.S. 244,
359] the February term, 1803, and at the October term, 1885, the court, in Yick Wo v.
Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 , 30 L. ed. 220, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1064, speaking through Mr.
Justice Matthews, said: 'When we consider the nature and theory of our institutions of
government, the principles upon which they are supposed to rest, and review the history
of their development, we are constrained to conclude that they do not mean to leave room
for the play and action of purely personal and arbitrary power. Sovereignty itself is, of
course, not subject to law, for it is the author and source of law; but in our system, while
sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains
with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts. And the law is
the definition and limitation of power.'

From Marbury v. Madison to the present day, no utterance of this court has intimated a
doubt that in its operation on the people, by whom and for whom it was established, the
national government is a government of enumerated powers, the exercise of which is
restricted to the use of means appropriate and plainly adapted to constitutional ends, and
which are 'not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution.'

The powers delegated by the people to their agents are not enlarged by the expansion of
the domain within which they are exercised. When the restriction on the exercise of a
particular power by a particular agent is ascertained, that is an end of the question.

To hold otherwise is to overthrow the basis of our constitutional law, and moreover, in
effect, to reassert the proposition that the states, and not the people, created the
government.

It is again to antagonize Chief Justice Marshall, when he said: 'The government of the
Union, then (whatever may be the influence of this fact on the case), is emphatically and
truly a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its
powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them and for their
benefit. This government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers.' 4
Wheat. 404, 4 L. ed. 601.

The prohibitory clauses of the Constitution are many, and [182 U.S. 244, 360] they have
been repeatedly given effect by this court in respect of the territories and the District of
Columbia.

The underlying principle is indicated by Chief Justice Taney, in The Passenger Cases, 7
How. 492, 12 L. ed. 790, where he maintained the right of the American citizen to free
transit in these words: 'Living, as we do, under a common government charged with the
great concerns of the whole Union, every citizen of the United States, from the most
remote states or territories, is entitled to free access, not only to the principal departments
established at Washington, but also to its judicial tribunals and public offices in every
state and territory of the Union. . . . For all the great purposes for which the Federal
government was formed, we are one people, with one common country. We are all
citizens of the United States; and, as members of the same community, must have the
right to pass and repass through every part of it without interruption, as freely as in our
own states.'

In Cross v. Harrison, 16 How. 197, 14 L. ed. 903, it was held that by the ratification of
the treaty with Mexico 'California became a part of the United States,' and that 'the right
claimed to land foreign goods within the United States at any place out of a collection
district, if allowed, would be a violation of that provision in the Constitution which
enjoins that all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United
States.'

In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 15 L. ed. 691, the court was unanimous in
holding that the power to legislate respecting a territory was limited by the restrictions of
the Constitution, or, as Mr. Justice Curtis put it, by 'the express prohibitions on Congress
not to do certain things.'

Mr. Justice McLean said: 'No powers can be exercised which are prohibited by the
Constitution, or which are contrary to its spirit.'

Mr. Justice Campbell: 'I look in vain, among the discussions of the time, for the assertion
of a supreme sovereignty for Congress over the territory then belonging to the United
States, or that they might thereafter acquire. I seek in vain for an annunciation that a
consolidated power had been inaugurated, [182 U.S. 244, 361] whose subject
comprehended an empire, and which had no restriction but the discretion of Congress.'

Chief Justice Taney: 'The powers over person and property of which we speak are not
only not granted to Congress, but are in express terms denied, and they are forbidden to
exercise them. And this prohibition is not confined to the states, but the words are
general, and extend to the whole territory over which the Constitution gives it power to
legislate, including those portions of it remaining under territorial government, as well as
that covered by states. It is a total absence of power everywhere within the dominion of
the United States, and places the citizens of a territory, so far as these rights are
concerned, on the same footing with citizens of the states, and guards them as firmly and
plainly against any inroads which the general government might attempt under the plea of
implied or incidental powers.'

Many of the later cases were brought from territories over which Congress had professed
to 'extend the Constitution,' or from the District after similar provision, but the decisions
did not rest upon the view that the restrictions on Congress were self-imposed, and might
be withdrawn at the pleasure of that body.
Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U.S. 1 , 43 L. ed. 873, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 580, is a fair
illustration, for it was there ruled, citing Webster v. Reid, 11 How. 437, 13 L. ed. 761;
Callan v. Wilson, 127 U.S. 550 , 32 L. ed. 226, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1301; Thompson v. Utah,
170 U.S. 343 , 42 L. ed. 1061, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 620, that 'it is beyond doubt, at the
present day, that the provisions of the Constitution of the United States securing the right
of trial by jury, whether in civil or in criminal cases, are applicable to the District of
Columbia.'

No reference whatever was made to 34 of the act of February 21, 1871 ( 16 Stat. at L.
419, chap. 62), which, in providing for the election of a delegate for the District, closed
with the words: 'The person having the greatest number of legal votes shall be declared
by the governor to be duly elected, and a certificate thereof shall be given accordingly;
and the Constitution and all the laws of the United States, which are not locally
inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect within the said District of Columbia as
elsewhere within the United States.' [182 U.S. 244, 362] Nor did the court in Bauman v.
Ross, 167 U.S. 548 , 42 L. ed. 270, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 966, attribute the application of the
5th Amendment to the act of Congress, a although it was cited to another point.

The truth is that, as Judge Edmunds wrote, 'the instances in which Congress has declared,
in statutes organizing territories, that the Constitution and laws should be in force there,
are no evidence that they were not already there, for Congress and all legislative bodies
have often made enactments that in effect merely declared existing law. In such cases
they declare a pre-existing truth to ease the doubts of casuists.' Cong. Rec. 56th Cong. 1st
Sess., p. 3507.

In Callan v. Wilson, 127 U.S. 540 , 32 L. ed. 223, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1301, which was a
criminal prosecution in the District of Columbia, Mr. Justice Harlan, speaking for the
court, said: 'There is nothing in the history of the Constitution or of the original
amendments to justify the assertion that the people of this District may be lawfully
deprived of the benefit of any of the constitutional guaranties of life, liberty, and
property,-especially of the privilege of trial by jury in criminal cases.' And further: 'We
cannot think that the people of this District have, in that regard, less rights than those
accorded to the people of the territories of the United States.'

In Thompson v. Utah, 170 U.S. 343 , 42 L. ed. 1061, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 620, it was held
that a statute of the state of Utah providing for the trial of criminal cases other than
capital, by a jury of eight, was invalid as applied on a trial for a crime committed before
Utah was admitted; that it was not 'competent for the state of Utah, upon its admission
into the Union, to do in respect of Thompson's crime what the United States could not
have done while Utah was a territory;' and that an act of Congress providing for a trial by
a jury of eight persons in the territory of Utah would have been in conflict with the
Constitution.

Article 6 of the Constitution ordains: 'This Constitution, and the laws of the United States
which shall be made in pursuance thereof and all treaties made, or which shall be made,
under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.'
And, as Mr. Justice Curtis observed in United States v. Morris, [182 U.S. 244, 363] 1 Curt.
C. C. 50, Fed. Cas. No. 15,815, 'nothing can be clearer than the intention to have the
Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States in equal force throughout every part
of the terribory of the United States, alike in all places, at all times.'

But it is said that an opposite result will be reached if the opinion of Chief Justice
Marshall in American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 511, 7 L. ed 242, be read 'in
connection with art. 3, 1 and 2 of the Constitution, vesting 'the judicial power of the
United States' in 'one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may
from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior
courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior," etc. And it is argued: 'As the only
judicial power vested in Congress is to create courts whose judges shall hold their offices
during good behavior, it necessarily follows that, if Congress authorizes the creation of
courts and the appointment of judges for a limited time, it must act independently of the
Constitution, and upon territory which is not part of the United States within the meaning
of the Constitution.'

And further, that if the territories 'be a part of the United States, it is difficult to see how
Congress could create courts in such territories, except under the judicial clause of the
Constitution.'

By the 9th clause of 8 of article 1, Congress is vested with power 'to constitute tribunals
inferior to the Supreme Court,' while by 1 of article 3 the power is granted to it to
establish inferior courts in which the judicial power of the government treated of in that
article is vested.

That power was to be exerted over the controversies therein named, and did not relate to
the general administration of justice in the territories, which was committed to courts
established as part of the territorial government.

What the Chief Justice said was: 'These courts, then, are not constitutional courts, in
which the judicial power conferred by the Constitution on the general government can be
deposited. They are incapable of receiving it. They are legislative courts, created in virtue
of the general right of sovereignty which exists in the government, or in virtue of that [182
U.S. 244, 364] clause which enables Congress to make all needful rules and regulations
respecting the territory belonging to the United States. The jurisdiction with which they
are invested is not a part of that judicial power which is defined in the 3d article of the
Constitution, but is conferred by Congress in the execution of those general powers
which that body possesses over the territories of the United States.'

The Chief Justice was dealing with the subject in view of the nature of the judicial
department of the government and the distinction between Federal and state jurisdiction,
and the conclusion was, to use the language of Mr. Justice Harlan in McAllister v. United
States, 141 U.S. 174 , 35 L. ed. 693, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 949, 'that courts in the territories,
created under the plenary municipal authority that Congress possesses over the territories
of the United States, are not courts of the United States created under the authority
conferred by that article.'

But it did not therefore follow that the territories were not parts of the United States, and
that the power of Congress in general over them was unlimited; nor was there in any of
the discussions on this subject the least intimation to that effect.

And this may justly be said of expressions in some other cases supposed to give color to
this doctrine of absolute dominion in dealing with civil rights.

In Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15 , 29 L. ed. 47, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 747, Mr. Justice
Matthews said: 'The personal and civil rights of the inhabitants of the territories are
secured to them, as to other citizens, by the principles of constitutional liberty which
restrain all the agencies of government, state and national. Their political rights are
franchises, which they hold as privileges in the legislative discretion of the Congress of
the United States.'

In the Church of Jesus Christ of L. D. S. v. United States, 136 U.S. 44 , 34 L. ed. 491, 10
Sup. Ct. Rep. 803, Mr. Justice Bradley observed: 'Doubtless Congress, in legislating for
the territories, would be subject to those fundamental limitations in favor of personal
rights which are formulated in the Constitution and its amendments; but these limitations
would exist rather by inference and the general spirit of the Constitution, from which
Congress derives all its powers, than by any express and direct application of its
provisions. [182 U.S. 244, 365] That able judge was referring to the fact that the
Constitution does not expressly declare that its prohibitions operate on the power to
govern the territories, but, because of the implication that an express provision to that
effect might be essential, three members of the court were constrained to dissent,
regarding it, as was said, 'of vital consequence that absolute power should never be
conceded as belonging under our system of government to any one of its departments.'

What was ruled in Murphy v. Ramsey is that in places over which Congress has exclusive
local jurisdiction its power over the political status is plenary.

Much discussion was had at the bar in respect of the citizenship of the inhabitants of
Porto Rico, but we are not required to consider that subject at large in these cases. It will
be time enough to seek a ford when, if ever, we are brought to the stream.

Yet although we are confined to the question of the validity of certain duties imposed
after the organization of Porto Rico as a territory of the United States, a few observations
and some references to adjudged cases may well enough be added in view of the line of
argument pursued in the concurring opinion.

In American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 541,- in which, by the way, the court
did not accept the views of Mr. Justice Johnson in the circuit court or of Mr. Webster in
argument,-Chief Justice Marshall said: 'The course which the argument has taken will
require that in deciding this question the court should take into view the relation in which
Florida stands to the United States. The Constitution confers absolutely on the
government of the Union the powers of making war and of making treaties; consequently
that government possesses the power of acquiring territory, either by conquest or by
treaty. The usage of the world is, if a nation be not entriely subdued, to consider the
holding of conquered territory as a mere military occupation until its fate shall be
determined at the treaty of peace. If it be ceded by the treaty, the acquisition is confirmed,
and the ceded territory becomes a part of the nation to which it is annexed, either on the
terms stipulated in the treaty of cession, or on such as its new master shall impose. [182
U.S. 244, 366] On such transfer of territory, it has never been held that the relations of the
inhabitants with each other undergo any change. Their relations with their former
sovereign are dissolved, and new relations are created between them and the government
which has acquired their territory. The same act which transfers their country transfers
the allegiance of those who remain in it; and the law, which may be denominated
political, is necessarily changed, although that which regulates the intercourse and
general conduct of individuals remains in force until altered by the newly created power
of the state. On the 2d of February, 1819, Spain ceded Florida to the United States. The
6th article of the treaty of cession contains the following provision: 'The inhabitants of
the territories which his Catholic Majesty cedes to the United States by this treaty shall be
incorporated in the Union of the United States as soon as may be consistent with the
principles of the Federal Constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of the privileges,
rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States.' This treaty is the law of the
land, and admits the inhabitants of Florida to the enjoyment of the privileges, rights, and
immunities of the citizens of the United States. It is unnecessary to inquire whether this is
not their condition independent of stipulation. They do not, however, participate in
political power; they do not share in the government till Florida shall become a state. In
the meantime, Florida continues to be a territory of the United States; governed by virtue
of that clause in the Constitution which empowers Congress 'to make all needful rules
and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.'
Perhaps the power of governing a territory belonging to the United States, which has not,
by becoming a state, acquired the means of self-government, may result necessarily from
the facts that it is not within the jurisdiction of any particular state, and is within the
power and jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be the inevitable
consequence of the right to acquire territory. Whichever may be the source whence the
power is derived, the possession of it is unquestioned.' [182 U.S. 244, 367] General Halleck
(International Law, 1st ed. chap. 33, 14), after quoting from Chief Justice Marshall,
observed:

'This is now a well-settled rule of the law of nations, and is universally admitted.
Its provisions are clear and simple and easily understood; but it is not so easy to
distinguish between what are political and what are municipal laws, and to
determine when and how far the constitution and laws of the conqueror change or
replace those of the conquered. And in case the government of the new state is a
constitutional government, of limited and divided powers, questions necessarily
arise respecting the authority, which, in the absence of legislative action, can be
exercised in the conquered territory after the cessation of war and the conclusion
of a treaty of peace. The determination of these questions depends upon the
institutions and laws of the new sovereign, which, though conformable to the
general rule of the law of nations, affect the construction and application of that
rule to particular cases.'

In United States v. Percheman, 7 Pet. 87, 8 L. ed. 617, the Chief Justice said:

'The people change their allegiance; their relation to their ancient sovereign is
dissolved; but their relations to each other, and their rights of property, remain
undisturbed. If this be the modern rule even in cases of conquest, who can doubt
its application to the case of an amicable cession of territory? . . . The cession of a
territory by its name from one sovereign to another, conveying the compound idea
of surrendering at the same time the lands and the people who inhabit them,
would be necessarily understood to pass the sovereignty only, and not to interfere
with private property.'

Again, the court in Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 225, 11 L. ed. 572:

'Every nation acquiring territory, by treaty or otherwise, must hold it subject to the
constitution and laws of its own government, and not according to those of the
government ceding it.'

And in Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co. v. McGlinn, 114 U.S. 546 , 29 L. ed. 271, 5 Sup. Ct.
Rep. 1006: 'It is a general rule of public law, recognized and acted upon by the United
States, that whenever [182 U.S. 244, 368] political jurisdiction and legislative power over
any territory are transferred from one nation or sovereign to another, the municipal laws
of the country, that is, laws which are intended for the protection of private rights,
continue in force until abrogated or changed by the new government or sovereign. By the
cession, public property passes from one government to the other, but private property
remains as before, and with it those municipal laws which are designed to secure its
peaceful use and enjoyment. As a matter of course, all laws, ordinances, and regulations
in conflict with the political character, institutions, and constitution of the new
government are at once displaced. Thus, upon a cession of political jurisdiction and
legislative power-and the latter is involved in the former-to the United States, the laws of
the country in support of an established religion, or abridging the freedom of the press, or
authorizing cruel and unusual punishments, and the like, would at once cease to be of
obligatory force without any declaration to that effect; and the laws of the country on
other subjects would necessarily be superseded by existing laws of the new government
upon the same matters. But with respect to other laws affecting the possession, use, and
transfer of property, and designed to secure good order and peace in the community, and
promote its health and prosperity, which are strictly of a municipal character, the rule is
general that a change of government leaves them in force until, by direct action of the
new government, they are altered or repealed.'

When a cession of territory to the United States is completed by the ratification of a

treaty, it was stated in Cross v. Harrison, 16 How. 198, 14 L. ed. 903, that the land ceded
becomes a part of the United States, and that, as soon as it becomes so, the territory is
subject to the acts which were in force to regulate foreign commerce with the United
States, after those had ceased which had been instituted for its regulation as a belligerent
right; and the latter ceased after the ratification of the treaty. This statement was made by
the justice delivering the opinion, as the result of the discussion and argument which he
had already set forth. It was his summing up of what he supposed was decided on that
subject in the case in which he was writing. [182 U.S. 244, 369] The new master was, in the
instance of Porto Rico, the United States, a constitutional government with limited
powers, and the terms which the Constitution itself imposed, or which might be imposed
in accordance with the Constitution, were the terms on which the new master took
possession.

The power of the United States to acquire territory by conquest, by treaty, or by

discovery and occupation, is not disputed, nor is the proposition that in all international
relations, interests, and responsibilities the United States is a separate, independent, and
sovereign nation; but it does not derive its powers from international law, which, though
a part of our municipal law, is not a part of the organic law of the land. The source of
national power in this country is the Constitution of the United States; and the
government, as to our internal affairs, possesses no inherent sovereign power not derived
from that instrument, and inconsistent with its letter and spirit.

Doubtless the subjects of the former sovereign are brought by the transfer under the
protection of the acquiring power, and are so far forth impressed with its nationality, but
it does not follow that they necessarily acquire the full status of citizens. The 9th article
of the treaty ceding Porto Rico to the United States provided that Spanish subjects,
natives of the Peninsula, residing in the ceded territory, might remain or remove, and in
case they remained might preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain by making a
declaration of their decision to do so, 'in default of which declaration they shall be held to
have renounced it and to have adopted the nationality of the territory in which they
reside.'

The same article also contained this paragraph: 'The civil rights and political status of the
native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined
by Congress.' This was nothing more than a declaration of the accepted principles of
international law applicable to the status of the Spanish subjects and of the native
inhabitants. It did not assume that Congress could deprive the inhabitants of ceded
territory of rights to which they might be entitled. The grant by Spain could not enlarge
the powers of Congress, nor did it [182 U.S. 244, 370] purport to secure from the United
States a guaranty of civil or political privileges.

Indeed, a treaty which undertook to take away what the Constitution secured, or to
enlarge the Federal jurisdiction, would be simply void.

'It need hardly be said that a treaty cannot change the Constitution, or be held
valid if it be in violation of that instrument. This results from the nature and
fundamental principles of our government.' The Cherokee Tobacco, 11 Wall. 620,
sub nom. 207 Half Pound Papers of Smoking Tobacco v. United States, 20 L. ed.
229.

So, Mr. Justice Field in De Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 267 , 33 L. ed. 645, 10 Sup. Ct.
Rep. 297: 'The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited except
by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the
government or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the government
itself and of that of the states. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to
authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government or
in that of one of the states, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter, without
its consent.'

And it certainly cannot be admitted that the power of Congress to lay and collect taxes
and duties can be curtailed by an arrangement made with a foreign nation by the
President and two thirds of a quorum of the Senate. See 2 Tucker, Const. 354, 355, 356.

In the language of Judge Cooley: 'The Constitution itself never yields to treaty or
enactment; it neither changes with time nor does it in theory bend to the force of
circumstances. It may be amended according to its own permission; but while it stands it
is 'a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of
its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances.' Its principles
cannot, therefore, be set aside in order to meet the supposed necessities of great crises.
'No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of
man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of
government."

I am not intimating in the least degree that any reason exists for regarding this article to
be unconstitutional, but even if it [182 U.S. 244, 371] were, the fact of the cession is a fact
accomplished, and this court is concerned only with the question of the power of the
government in laying duties in respect of commerce with the territory so ceded.

In the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice White, we find certain important propositions
conceded, some of which are denied or not admitted in the other. These are to the effect
that 'when an act of any department is challenged because not warranted by the
Constitution, the existence of the authority is to be ascertained by determining whether
the power has been conferred by the Constitution, either in express terms or by lawful
implication;' that, as every function of the government is derived from the Constitution,
'that instrument is everywhere and at all times potential in so far as its provisions are
applicable;' that 'wherever a power is given by the Constitution, and there is a limitation
imposed on the authority, such restriction operates upon and confines every action on the
subject within its constitutional limits;' that where conditions are brought about to which
any particular provision of the Constitution applies, its controlling influence cannot be
frustrated by the action of any or all of the departments of the government; that the
Constitution has conferred on Congress the right to create such municipal organizations
as it may deem best for all the territories of the United States, but every applicable
express limitation of the Constitution is in force, and even where there is no express
command which applies, there may nevertheless be restrictions of so fundamental a
nature that they cannot be transgressed though not expressed in so many words; that
every provision of the Constitution which is applicable to the territories is controlling
therein, and all the limitations of the Constitution applicable to Congress in governing the
territories necessarily limit its power; that in the case of the territories, when a provision
of the Constitution is invoked, the question is whether the provision relied on is
applicable; and that the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, as
well as the qualification of uniformity, restrains Congress from imposing an impost duty
on goods coming into the United States from a territory [182 U.S. 244, 372] which has been
incorporated into and forms a part of the United States.

And it is said that the determination of whether a particular provision is applicable

involves an inquiry into the situation of the territory and its relations to the United States,
although it does not follow, when the Constitution has withheld all power over a given
subject, that such an inquiry is necessary.

The inquiry is stated to be: 'Had Porto Rico, at the time of the passage of the act in
question, been incorporated into and become an integral part of the United States?' And
the answer being given that it had not, it is held that the rule of uniformity was not
applicable.

I submit that that is not the question in this case. The question is whether, when Congress
has created a civil government for Porto Rico, has constituted its inhabitants a body
politic, has given it a governor and other officers, a legislative assembly, and courts, with
right of appeal to this court, Congress can, in the same act and in the exercise of the
power conferred by the 1st clause of 8, impose duties on the commerce between Porto
Rico and the states and other territories in contravention of the rule of uniformity
qualifying the power. If this can be done, it is because the power of Congress over
commerce between the states and any of the territories is not restricted by the
Constitution. This was the position taken by the Attorney General, with a candor and
ability that did him great credit.

But that position is rejected, and the contention seems to be that, if an organized and
settled province of another sovereignty is acquired by the United States, Congress has the
power to keep it, like a disembodied shade, in an intermediate state of ambiguous
existence for an indefinite period; and, more than that, that after it has been called from
that limbo, commerce with it is absolutely subject to the will of Congress, irrespective of
constitutional provisions.

The accuracy of this view is supposed to be sustained by the act of 1856 in relation to the
protection of citizens of the United States removing guano from unoccupied islands; but I
am unable to see why the discharge by the United States of its un- [182 U.S. 244, 373]
doubted duty to protect its citizens on terra nullius, whether temporarily engaged in
catching and curing fish, or working mines, or taking away manure, furnishes support to
the proposition that the power of Congress over the territories of the United States is
unrestricted.
Great stress is thrown upon the word 'incorporation,' as if possessed of some occult
meaning, but I take it that the act under consideration made Porto Rico, whatever its
situation before, an organized territory of the United States. Being such, and the act
undertaking to impose duties by virtue of clause 1 of 8, how is it that the rule which
qualifies the power does not apply to its exercise in respect of commerce with that
territory? The power can only be exercised as prescribed, and even if the rule of
uniformity could be treated as a mere regulation of the granted power,-a suggestion to
which I do not assent,-the validity of these duties comes up directly, and it is idle to
discuss the distinction between a total want of power and a defective exercise of it.

The concurring opinion recognizes the fact that Congress, in dealing with the people of
new territories or possessions, is bound to respect the fundamental guaranties of life,
liberty, and property, but assumes that Congress is not bound, in those territories or
possessions, to follow the rules of taxation prescribed by the Constitution. And yet the
power to tax involves the power to destroy, and the levy of duties touches all our people
in all places under the jurisdiction of the government.

The logical result is that Congress may prohibit commerce altogether between the states
and territories, and may prescribe one rule of taxation in one territory, and a different rule
in another.

That theory assumes that the Constitution created a government empowered to acquire
countries throughout the world, to be governed by different rules than those obtaining in
the original states and territories, and substitutes for the present system of republiean
government a system of domination over distant provinces in the exercise of unrestricted
power.

In our judgment, so much of the Porto Rican act as author- [182 U.S. 244, 374] ized the
imposition of these duties is invalid, and plaintiffs were entitled to recover.

Some argument was made as to general consequences apprehended to flow from this
result, but the language of the Constitution is too plain and unambiguous to permit its
meaning to be thus influenced. There is nothing 'in the literal construction so obviously
absurd, or mischievous, or repugnant to the general spirit of the instrument as to justify
those who expound the Constitution' in giving it a construction not warranted by its
words.

Briefs have been presented at this bar, purporting to be on behalf of certain industries,
and eloquently setting forth the desirability that our government should possess the power
to impose a tariff on the products of newly acquired territories so as to diminish or
remove competition. That however, furnishes no basis for judicial judgment, and if the
producers of staples in the existing states of this Union believe the Constitution should be
amended so as to reach that result, the instrument itself provides how such amendment
can be accomplished. The people of all the states are entitled to a voice in the settlement
of that subject.
Again, it is objected on behalf of the government that the possession of absolute power is
essential to the acquisition of vast and distant territories, and that we should regard the
situation as it is to-day, rather than as it was a century ago. 'We must look at the situation
as comprehending a possibility-I do not say a probability, but a possibility- that the
question might be as to the powers of this government in the acquisition of Egypt and the
Soudan, or a section of Central Africa, or a spot in the Antarctic Circle, or a section of the
Chinese Empire.'

But it must be remembered that, as Marshall and Story declared, the Constitution was
framed for ages to come, and that the sagacious men who framed it were well aware that
a mighty future waited on their work. The rising sun to which Franklin referred at the
close of the convention, they well knew, was that star of empire whose course Berkeley
had sung sixty years before.

They may not, indeed, have deliberately considered a trium- [182 U.S. 244, 375] phal
progress of the nation, as such, around the earth, but as Marshall wrote: 'It is not enough
to say that this particular case was not in the mind of the convention when the article was
framed, nor of the American people when it was adopted. It is necessary to go further,
and to say that, had this particular case been suggested, the language would have been so
varied as to exclude it, or it would have been made a special exeption.'

This cannot be said, and on the contrary, in order to the successful extension of our
institutions, the reasonable presumption is that the limitations on the exertion of arbitrary
power would have been made more rigorous.

After all, these arguments are merely political, and 'political reasons have not the
requisite certainty to afford rules of judicial interpretation.'

Congress has power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying
into execution all the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United
States, or in any department or officer thereof. If the end be legitimate and within the
scope of the Constitution, then, to accomplish it, Congress may use 'all means which are
appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist
with the letter and spirit of the Constitution.'

The grave duty of determining whether an act of Congress does or does not comply with
these requirements is only to be discharged by apply in the well-settled rules which
govern the interpretation of fundamental law, unaffected by the theoretical opinions of
individuals.

Tested by those rules our conviction is that the imposition of these duties cannot be
sustained.

Mr. Justice Harlan, dissenting:

I concur in the dissenting opinion of the Chief Justice. The grounds upon which he and
Mr. Justice Brewer and Mr. Justice Peckham regard the Foraker act as unconstitutional in
the particulars involved in this action meet my entire approval. [182 U.S. 244, 376] Those
grounds need not be restated, nor is it necessary to re-examine the authorities cited by the
Chief Justice. I agree in holding that Porto Rico- at least after the ratification of the treaty
with Spain-became a part of the United States within the meaning of the section of the
Constitution enumerating the powers of Congress, and providing the 'all duties, imposts,
and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.'

In view, however, of the importance of the questions in this case, and of the
consequences that will follow any conclusion reached by the court, I deem it appropriate-
without rediscussing the principal questions presented-to add some observations
suggested by certain passages in opinions just delivered in support of the judgment.

In one of those opinions it is said that 'the Constitution was created by the people of the
United States, as a union of states, to be governed solely by representatives of the states;'
also, that 'we find the Constitution speaking only to states, except in the territorial clause,
which is absolute in its terms, and suggestive of no limitations upon the power of
Congress in dealing with them.' I am not sure that I correctly interpret these words. But if
it is meant, as I assume it is meant, that, with the exception named, the Constitution was
ordained by the states, and is addressed to and operates only on the staes, I cannot accept
that view.

In Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304, 324, 326, 331, 4 L. ed. 97, 102, 104, this court
speaking by Mr. Justice Story, said that 'the Constitution of the United States was
ordained and established, not by the states in their sovereign capacities but emphatically,
as the preamble of the Constitution declares, by 'the People of the United States."

In McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 403-406, 4 L. ed. 579, 600, 601, Chief Justice
Marshall, speaking for this court, said: 'The government proceeds directly from the
people; is 'ordained and established' in the name of the people; and is declared to be
ordained 'in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic
tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and to their posterity.' The
assent of the states, in their sovereign capacity, is implied in calling a con- [182 U.S. 244,
377] vention, and thus submitting that instrument to the people. But the people were at
perfect liberty to accept or reject it; and their act was final. It required not the affirmance,
and could not be negatived, by the state governments. The Constitution, when thus
adopted, was of complete obligation, and bound the state sovereignties. . . . The
government of the union, then (whatever may be the influence of this fact on the case) is
emphatically and truly a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates
from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them and
for their benefit. This government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated
powers. . . . It is the government of all; its powers are delegated by all; it represents all,
and acts for all.'
Although the states are constituent parts of the United States, the government rests upon
the authority of the people of the United States, and not on that of the states. Chief Justice
Marshall, delivering the unanimous judgment of this court in Cohen v. Virginia, 6 Wheat.
264, 413, 5 L. ed. 257, 293, said: 'That the United States form, for many and for most
important purposes, a single nation, has not yet been denied. In war, we are one people.
In making peace, we are one people. . . . In many other respects, the American people are
one; and the government which is alone capable of controlling and managing their
interests . . . is the government of the Union. It is their government, and in that character
they have no other. America has chosen to be, in many respects and to many purposes, a
nation; and for all these purposes her government is complete; to all these objects it is
competent. The people have declared that in the exercise of all powers given for those
objects it is supreme. It can, then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all
individuals or governments within the American territory.'

In reference to the doctrine that the Constitution was established by and for the states as
distinct political organizations, Mr. Webster said: 'The Constitution itself in its very front
refutes that. It declares that it is ordained and established by [182 U.S. 244, 378] the People
of the United States. So far from saying that it is established by the governments of the
several states, it does not even say that it is established by the people of the several states.
But it pronounces that it was established by the people of the United States in the
aggregate. Doubtless, the people of the several states, taken collectively, constitute the
people of the United States. But it is in this their collective capacity, it is as all the people
of the United States, that they established the Constitution.'

In view of the adjudications of this court I cannot assent to the proposition, whether it be
announced in express words or by implication, that the national government is a
government of or by the states in union, and that the prohibitions and limitations of the
Constitution are addressed only to the states. That is but another form of saying that, like
the government created by the Articles of Confederation, the present government is a
mere league of states, held together by compact between themselves; whereas, as this
court has often declared, it is a government created by the People of the United States,
with enumerated powers, and supreme over states and individuals with respect to certain
objects, throughout the entire territory over which its jurisdiction extends. If the national
government is in any sense a compact, it is a compact between the People of the United
States among themselves as constituting in the aggregate the political community by
whom the national government was established. The Constitution speaks, not simply to
the states in their organized capacities, but to all peoples, whether of states or territories,
who are subject to the authority of the United States. Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 327, 4
L. ed. 103.

In the opinion to which I am referring it is also said that the 'practical interpretation put
by Congress upon the Constitution has been long continued and uniform to the effect that
the Constitution is applicable to territories acquired by purchase or conquest only when
and so far as Congress shall so direct;' that while all power of government may be
abused, the same may be said of the power of the government 'under the Constitution as
well as outside of it;' that 'if it once be conceded that we are at liberty to acquire foreign
territory, a presumption arises that [182 U.S. 244, 379] our power with respect to such
territories is the same power which other nations have been accustomed to exercise with
respect to territories acquired by them;' that 'the liberality of Congress in legislating the
Constitution into all our contiguous territories has undoubtedly fostered the impression
that it went there by its own force, but there is nothing in the Constitution itself and little
in the interpretation put upon it, to confirm that impression;' that as the states could only
delegate to Congress such powers as they themselves possessed, and as they had no
power to acquire new territory, and therefore none to delegate in that connection, the
logical inference is that 'if Congress had power to acquire new territory, which is
conceded, that power was not hampered by the constitutional provisions;' that if 'we
assume that the territorial clause of the Constitution was not intended to be restricted to
such territory as the United States then possessed, there is nothing in the Constitution to
indicate that the power of Congress in dealing with them was intended to be restricted by
any of the other provisions;' and that 'the execuive and legislative departments of the
government have for more than a century interpreted this silence as precluding the idea
that the Constitution attached to these territories as soon as acquired.'

These are words of weighty import. They involve consequences of the most momentous
character. I take leave to say that if the principles thus announced should ever receive the
sanction of a majority of this court, a radical and mischievous change in our system of
government will be the result. We will, in that event, pass from the era of constitutional
liberty guarded and protected by a written constitution into an era of legislative
absolutism.

Although from the foundation of the government this court has held steadily to the view
that the government of the United States was one of enumerated powers, and that no one
of its branches, nor all of its branches combined, could constitutionally exercise powers
not granted, or which were not necessarily implied from those expressly granted (Martin
v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 326, 331, 4 L. ed. 102, 104) we are now informed that Congress
possesses powers outside of the Constitution, and may deal with new er- [182 U.S. 244, 380]
ritory, acquired by treaty or conquest, in the same manner as other nations have been
accustomed to act with respect to territories acquired by them. In my opinion, Congress
has no existence and can exercise no authority outside of the Constitution. Still less is it
true that Congress can deal with new territories just as other nations have done or may do
with their new territories. This nation is under the control of a written constitution, the
supreme law of the land and the only source of the powers which our government, or any
branch or officer of it, may exert at any time or at any place. Monarchical and despotic
governments, unrestrained by written constitutions, may do with newly acquired
territories what this government may not do consistently with our fundamental law. To
say otherwise is to concede that Congress may, by action taken outside of the
Constitution, engraft upon our republican institutions a colonial system such as exists
under monarchical governments. Surely such a result was never contemplated by the
fathers of the Constitution. If that instrument had contained a word suggesting the
possibility of a result of that character it would never have been adopted by the people of
the United States. The idea that this country may acquire territories anywhere upon the
earth, by conquest or treaty, and hold them as mere colonies or provinces,-the people
inhabiting them to enjoy only such rights as Congress chooses to accord to them,-is
wholly inconsistent with the spirit and genius, as well as with the words, of the
Constitution.

The idea prevails with some-indeed, it found expression in agruments at the bar-that we
have in this country substantially or practically two national governments; one to be
maintained under the Constitution, with all its restrictions; the other to be maintained by
Congress outside and independently of that instrument, by exercising such powers as
other nations of the earth are accustomed to exercise. It is one thing to give such a
latitudinarian construction to the Constitution as will bring the exercise of power by
Congress, upon a particular occasion or upon a particular subject, within its provisions. It
is quite a different thing to say that Congress may, if it so elects, proceed outside of the
Constitution. The glory of our American system [182 U.S. 244, 381] of government is that
it was created by a written constitution which protects the people against the exercise of
arbitrary, unlimited power, and the limits of which instrument may not be passed by the
government it created, or by any branch of it, or even by the people who ordained it,
except by amendment or change of its provisions. 'To what purpose,' Chief Justice
Marshall said in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, 176, 2 L. ed. 60, 73, 'are powers
limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writting, if these limits may,
at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a
government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine
the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of
equal obligation.'

The wise men who framed the Constitution, and the patriotic people who adopted it, were
unwilling to depend for their safety upon what, in the opinion referred to, is described as
'certain principles of natural justice inherent in Anglo-Saxon character, which need no
expression in constitutions or statutes to give them effect or to secure dependencies
against legislation manifestly hostile to their real interests.' They proceeded upon the
theory-the wisdom of which experience has vindicated- that the only safe guaranty
against governmental oppression was to withhold or restrict the power to oppress. They
well remembered that Anglo- Saxons across the ocean had attempted, in defiance of law
and justice, to trample upon the rights of Anglo-Saxons on this continent, and had sought,
by military force, to establish a government that could at will destroy the privileges that
inhere in liberty. They believed that the establishment here of a government that could
administer public affairs according to its will, unrestrained by any fundamental law and
without regard to the inherent rights of freemen, would be ruinous to the liberties of the
people by exposing them to the oppressions of arbitrary power. Hence, the Constitution
enumerates the powers which Congress and the other departments may exercise,-leaving
unimpaired, to the states or the People, the powers not delegated to the national
government nor prohibited to the states. That instrument so expressly declares in [182 U.S.
244, 382] the 10th Article of Amendment. It will be an evil day for American liberty if the
theory of a government outside of the supreme law of the land finds lodgment in our
constitutional jurisprudence. No higher duty rests upon this court than to exert its full
authority to prevent all violation of the principles of the Constitution.
Again, it is said that Congress has assumed, in its past history, that the Constitution goes
into territories acquired by purchase or conquest only when and as it shall so direct, and
we are informed of the liberality of Congress in legislating the Constitution into all our
contiguous territories. This is a view of the Constitution that may well cause surprise, if
not alarm. Congress, as I have observed, has no existence except by virtue of the
Constitution. It is the creature of the Constitution. It has no powers which that instrument
has not granted, expressly or by necessary implication. I confess that I cannot grasp the
thought that Congress, which lives and moves and has its being in the Constitution, and is
consequently the mere creature of that instrument, can, at its pleasure, legislate or exclude
its creator from territories which were acquired only by authority of the Constitution.

By the express words of the Constitution, every Senator and Representative is bound, by
oath or affirmation, to regard it as the supreme law of the land. When the constitutional
convention was in session there was much discussion as to the phraseology of the clause
defining the supremacy of the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States. At one
stage of the proceedings the convention adopted the following clause: 'This Constitution,
and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all the treaties made
under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the several states and
of their citizens and inhabitants, and the judges of the several states shall be bound
thereby in their decisions, anything in the constitutions or laws of the several states to the
contrary notwithstanding.' This clause was amended, on motion of Mr. Madison, by
inserting after the words 'all treaties made' the words 'or which shall be made.' If the
clause, so amended had been inserted in the Constitution as finally adopted, per- [182 U.S.
244, 383] haps there would have been some justification for saying that the Constitution,
laws, and treaties of the United States constituted the supreme law only in the states, and
that outside of the states the will of Congress was supreme. But the framers of the
Constitution saw the danger of such a provision, and put into that instrument in place of
the above clause the following: 'This Constitution, and the laws of the United States
which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made,
under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the
judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any
state to the contrary notwithstanding.' Meigs's Growth of the Constitution, 284, 287. That
the convention struck out the words 'the supreme law of the several states,' and inserted
'the supreme law of the land,' is a fact of no little significance. The 'land' referred to
manifestly embraced all the peoples and all the territory, whether within or without the
states, over which the United States could exercise jurisdiction or authority.

Further, it is admitted that some of the provisions of the Constitution do apply to Porto
Rico, and may be invoked as limiting or restricting the authority of Congress, or for the
protection of the people of that island. And it is said that there is a clear distinction
between such prohibitions 'as go to the very root of the power of Congress to act at all,
irrespective of time or place, and such as are operative only 'throughout the United States'
or among the several states.' In the enforcement of this suggestion it is said in one of the
opinions just delivered: 'Thus, when the Constitution declares that 'no bill of attainder or
ex post facto law shall be passed,' and that 'no title of nobility shall be granted by the
United States,' it goes to the competency of Congress to pass a bill of that description.' I
cannot accept this reasoning as consistent with the Constitution or with sound rules of
interpretation. The express prohibition upon the passage by Congress of bills of attainder,
or of ex post facto laws, or the granting of titles of nobility, goes no more directly to the
root of the power of Congress than does the express prohibition against the imposition by
Congress of any [182 U.S. 244, 384] duty, impost, or excise that is not uniform throughout
the United States. The opposite theory, I take leave to say, is quite as extraordinary as
that which assumes that Congress may exercise powers outside of the Constitution, and
may, in its discretion, legislate that instrument into or out of a domestic territory of the
United States.

In the opinion to which I have referred it is suggested that conditions may arise when the
annexation of distant possessions may be desirable. 'If,' says that opinion, 'those
possessions are inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws,
methods of taxation, and modes of thought, the administration of government and justice,
according to Anglo-Saxon principles, may for a time be impossible; and the question at
once arises whether large concessions ought not to be made for a time, that ultimately our
own theories may be carried out, and the blessings of a free government under the
Constitution extended to them. We decline to hold that there is anything in the
Constitution to forbid such action.' In my judgment, the Constitution does not sustain any
such theory of our governmental system. Whether a particular race will or will not
assimilate with our people, and whether they can or cannot with safety to our institutions
be brought within the operation of the Constitution, is a matter to be thought of when it is
proposed to acquire their territory by treaty. A mistake in the acquisition of territory,
although such acquisition seemed at the time to be necessary, cannot be made the ground
for violating the Constitution or refusing to give full effect to its provisions. The
Constitution is not to be obeyed or disobeyed as the circumstances of a particular crisis in
our history may suggest the one or the other course to be pursued. The People have
decreed that it shall be the supreme law of the land at all times. When the acquisition of
territory becomes complete, by cession, the Constitution necessarily becomes the
supreme law of such new territory, and no power exists in any department of the
government to make 'concessions' that are inconsistent with its provisions. The authority
to make such concessions implies the existence in Congress of power to declare that
constitutional provisions may be ignored under special or [182 U.S. 244, 385] embarrassing
circumstances. No such dispensing power exists in any branch of our government. The
Constitution is supreme over every foot of territory, wherever situated, under the
jurisdiction of the United States, and its full operation cannot be stayed by any branch of
the government in order to meet what some may suppose to be extraordinary
emergencies. If the Constitution is in force in any territory, it is in force there for every
purpose embraced by the objects for which the government was ordained. Its authority
cannot be displaced by concessions, even if it be true, as asserted in argument in some of
these cases, that if the tariff act took effect in the Philippines of its own force, the
inhabitants of Mandanao, who live on imported rice, would starve, because the import
duty is many fold more than the ordinary cost of the grain to them. The meaning of the
Constitution cannot depend upon accidental circumstances arising out of the products of
other countries or of this country. We cannot violate the Constitution in order to serve
particular interests in our own or in foreign lands. Even this court, with its tremendous
power, must heed the mandate of the Constitution. No one in official station, to whatever
department of the government he belongs, can disobey its commands without violating
the obligation of the oath he has taken. By whomsoever and wherever power is exercised
in the name and under the authority of the United States, or of any branch of its
government, the validity or invalidity of that which is done must be determined by the
Constitution.

In De Lima v. Bidwell, just decided, 181 U. S. --, ante, 743, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 743, we
have held that, upon the ratification of the treaty with Spain, Porto Rico ceased to be a
foreign country and became a domestic territory of the United States. We have said in
that case that from 1803 to the present time there was not a shred of authority, except a
dictum in one case, 'for holding that a district ceded to and in possession of the United
States remains for any purpose a foreign territory;' that territory so acquired cannot be
'domestic for one purpose and foreign for another;' and that any judgment to the contrary
would be 'pure judicial legislation,' for which there was no warrant in the Constitution or
in the powers conferred upon this court. Although, as we have just decided, [182 U.S. 244,
386] Porto Rico ceased, after the ratification of the treaty with Spain, to be a foreign
country within the meaning of the tariff act, and became a domestic country,-'a territory
of the United States,'-it is said that if Congress so wills it may be controlled and governed
outside of the Constitution and by the exertion of the powers which other nations have
been accustomed to exercise with respect to territories acquired by them; in other words,
we may solve the question of the power of Congress under the Constitution by referring
to the powers that may be exercised by other nations. I cannot assent to this view. I reject
altogether the theory that Congress, in its discretion, can exclude the Constitution from a
domestic territory of the United States, acquired, and which could only have been
acquired, in virtue of the Constitution. I cannot agree that it is a domestic territory of the
United States for the purpose of preventing the application of the tariff act imposing
duties upon imports from foreign countries, but not a part of the United States for the
purpose of enforcing the constitutional requirement that all duties, imposts, and excises
imposed by Congress 'shall be uniform throughout the United States.' How Porto Rico
can be a domestic territory of the United States, as distinctly held in De Lima v. Bidwell,
and yet, as is now held, not embraced by the words 'throughout the United States,' is more
than I can understand.

We heard much in argument about the 'expanding future of our country.' It was said that
the United States is to become what is called a 'world power;' and that if this government
intends to keep abreast of the times and be equal to the great destiny that awaits the
American people, it must be allowed to exert all the power that other nations are
accustomed to exercise. My answer is, that the fathers never intended that the authority
and influence of this nation should be exerted otherwise than in accordance with the
Constitution. If our government needs more power than is conferred upon it by the
Constitution, that instrument provides the mode in which it may be amended and
additional power thereby obtained. The People of the United States who ordained the
Constitution never supposed that a change could be made in our system of govern- [182
U.S. 244, 387] ment by mere judicial interpretation. They never contemplated any such
juggling with the words of the Constitution as would authorize the courts to hold that the
words 'throughout the United States,' in the taxing clause of the Constitution, do not
embrace a domestic 'territory of the United States' having a civil government established
by the authority of the United States. This is a distinction which I am unable to make, and
which I do not think ought to be made when we are endeavoring to ascertain the meaning
of a great instrument of government.

There are other matters to which I desire to refer. In one of the opinions just delivered the
case of Neely v. Henkel, 180 U.S. 109 , ante, 302, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 302, is cited in
support of the proposition that the provision of the Foraker act here involved was
consistent with the Constitution. If the contrary had not been asserted I should have said
that the judgment in that case did not have the slightest bearing on the question before us.
The only inquiry there was whether Cuba was a foreign country or territory within the
meaning, not of the tariff act, but of the act of June 6th, 1900 (31 Stat. at L. 656, chap.
793). We held that it was a foreign country. We could not have held otherwise, because
the United States, when recognizing the existence of war between this country and Spain,
disclaimed 'any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control
over said island except for the pacification thereof,' and asserted 'its determination, when
that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people.' We
said: 'While by the act of April 25th, 1898, declaring war between this country and Spain,
the President was directed and empowered to use our entire land and naval forces, as well
as the militia of the several states, to such extent as was necessary to carry such act into
effect, that authorization was not for the purpose of making Cuba an integral part of the
United States, but only for the purpose of compelling the relinquishment by Spain of its
authority and government in that island and the withdrawal of its forces from Cuba and
Cuban waters. The legislative and executive branches of the government, by the joint
resolution of April 20th, 1898, expressly disclaimed any purpose to exercise sovereignty
juris- [182 U.S. 244, 388] diction, or control over Cuba 'except for the pacification thereof,'
and asserted the determination of the United States, that object being accomplished, to
leave the government and control of Cuba to its own people. All that has been done in
relation to Cuba has had that end in view, and, so far as the court is informed by the
public history of the relations of this country with that island, nothing has been done
inconsistent with the declared object of the war with Spain. Cuba is none the less foreign
territory, within the meaning of the act of Congress, because it is under a military
governor appointed by and representing the President in the work of assisting the
inhabitants of that island to establish a government of their own, under which, as a free
and independent people, they may control their own affairs without interference by other
nations. The occupancy of the island by troops of the United States was the necessary
result of the war. That result could not have been avoided by the United States
consistently with the principles of international law or with its obligations to the people
of Cuba. It is true that as between Spain and the United States,-indeed, as between the
United States and all foreign nations,-Cuba, upon the cessation of hostilities with Spain
and after the treaty of Paris, was to be treated as if it were conquered territory. But as
between the United States and Cuba, that island is territory held in trust for the
inhabitants of Cuba to whom it rightfully belongs, and to whose exclusive control it will
be surrendered when a stable government shall have been established by their voluntary
action.' In answer to the suggestion that, under the modes of trial there adopted, Neely, if
taken to Cuba, would be denied the rights, privileges, and immunities accorded by our
Constitution to persons charged with crime against the United States, we said that the
constitutional provisions referred to 'have no relation to crimes committed without the
jurisdiction of the United States against the laws of a foreign country.' What use can be
made of that case in order to prove that the Constitution is not in force in a territory of the
United States acquired by treaty, except as Congress may provide, is more than I can
perceive.

There is still another view taken of this case. Conceding [182 U.S. 244, 389] that the
national government is one of enumerated powers, to be exerted only for the limited
objects defined in the Constitution, and that Congress has no power, except as given by
that instrument either expressly or by necessary implication, it is yet said that a new
territory, acquired by treaty or conquest, cannot become incorporated into the United
States without the consent of Congress. What is meant by such incorporation we are not
fully informed, nor are we instructed as to the precise mode in which it is to be
accomplished. Of course, no territory can become a state in virtue of a treaty or without
the consent of the legislative branch of the government; for only Congress is given power
by the Constitution to admit new states. But it is an entirely different question whether a
domestic 'territory of the United States,' having an organized civil government
established by Congress, is not, for all purposes of government by the nation, under the
complete jurisdiction of the United States, and therefore a part of, and incorporated into,
the United States, subject to all the authority which the national government may exert
over any territory or people. If Porto Rico, although a territory of the United States, may
be treated as if it were not a part of the United States, then New Mexico and Arizona may
be treated as not parts of the United States, and subject to such legislation as Congress
may choose to enact without any reference to the restrictions imposed by the
Constitution. The admission that no power can be exercised under and by authority of the
United States except in accordance with the Constitution is of no practical value whatever
to constitutional liberty, if, as soon as the admission is made,-as quickly as the words
expressing the thought can be uttered,-the Constitution is so liberally interpreted as to
produce the same results as those which flow from the theory that Congress may go
outside of the Constitution in dealing with newly acquired territories, and give them the
benefit of that instrument only when and as it shall direct.

Can it for a moment be doubted that the addition of Porto Rico to the territory of the
United States in virtue of the treaty with Spain has been recognized by direct action upon
the part of Congress? Has it not legislated in recognition of that treaty, [182 U.S. 244, 390]
and appropriated the money which it required this country to pay?

If, by virtue of the ratification of the treaty with Spain, and the appropriation of the
amount which that treaty required this country to pay, Porto Rico could not become a part
of the United States so as to be embraced by the words 'throughout the United States,' did
it not become 'incorporated' into the United States when Congress passed the Foraker act?
31 Stat. at L. 77, chap. 191. What did that act do? It provided a civil government for
Porto Rico, with legislative, executive, and judicial departments; also, for the
appointment by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the
United States, of a 'governor, secretary, attorney general, treasurer, auditor, commissioner
of the interior, and a commissioner of education.' 17-25. It provided for an executive
council, the members of which should be appointed by the President, by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate. 18. The governor was required to report all transactions
of the government in Porto Rico to the President of the United States. 17. Provision was
made for the coins of the United States to take the place of Porto Rican coins . 11. All
laws enacted by the Porto Rican legislative assembly were required to be reported to the
Congress of the United States, which reserved the power and authority to amend the
same. 31. But that was not all. Except as otherwise provided, and except also the internal
revenue laws, the statutory laws of the United States, not locally inapplicable, are to have
the same force and effect in Porto Rico as in the United States. 14. A judicial department
was established in Porto Rico, with a judge to be appointed by the President, by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate. 33. The court so established was to be known as the
district court of the United States for Porto Rico, from which writs of error and appeals
were to be allowed to this court. 34. All judicial process, it was provided, 'shall run in the
name of the United States of America, ss: the President of the United States.' 16. And yet
it is said that Porto Rico was not 'incorporated' by the Foraker act into the United States
so as to be part of the United States within the [182 U.S. 244, 391] meaning of the
constitutional requirement that all duties, imposts, and excises imposed by Congress shall
be uniform 'throughout the United States.'

It would seem, according to the theories of some, that even if Porto Rico is in and of the
United States for many important purposes, it is yet not a part of this country with the
privilege of protesting against a rule of taxation which Congress is expressly forbidden
by the Constitution from adopting as to any part of the 'United States.' And this result
comes from the failure of Congress to use the word 'incorporate' in the Foraker act,
although by the same act all power exercised by the civil government in Porto Rico is by
authority of the United States, and although this court has been given jurisdiction by writ
of error or appeal to re-examine the final judgments of the district court of the United
States established by Congress for that territory. Suppose Congress had passed this act:
'Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, That
Porto Rico be and is hereby incorporated into the United States as a territory,' would such
a statute have enlarged the scope or effect of the Foraker act? Would such a statute have
accomplished more than the Foraker act has done? Indeed, would not such legislation
have been regarded as most extraordinary as well as unnecessary?

I am constrained to say that this idea of 'incorporation' has some occult meaning which
my mind does not apprehend. It is enveloped in some mystery which I am unable to
unravel.

In my opinion Porto Rico became, at least after the ratification of the treaty with Spain, a
part of and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States in respect of all its territory and
people, and that Congress could not thereafter impose any duty, impost, or excise with
respect to that island and its inhabitants, which departed from the rule of uniformity
established by the Constitution.
Footnotes

[ Footnote 1 ] Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch, 176, 2 L. ed. 73 et seq.; Martin v. Hunter, 1

Wheat. 326, 4 L. ed. 102; New Orleans v. United States, 10 Pet. 662, 736, 9 L. ed. 573,
602; De Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258, 266 , 33 S. L. ed. 642, 644, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep.
295; United States v. Gettysburg Electric R. Co. 160 U.S. 668, 679 , 40 S. L. ed. 576,
580, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 427, and cases cited.

[ Footnote 2 ] The City of Panama, 101 U.S. 453, 460 , 25 S. L. ed. 1061, 1064; Fong
Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 716, 738 , 37 S. L. ed. 914, 921, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep.
1016.

[ Footnote 3 ] Monongahela Nav. Co. v. United States, 148 U.S. 312, 336 , 37 S. L. ed.
463, 471, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 622; Interstate Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U.S.
447, 479 , 38 S. L. ed. 1047, 1058, 4 Inters. Com. Rep. 545, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1125;
United States v. Joint Traffic Asso. 171 U.S. 571 , 43 L. ed. 288, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 25.

[ Footnote 4 ] United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 378 , 30 S. L. ed. 228, 229, 6 Sup.
Ct. Rep. 1109; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 48 , 38 S. L. ed. 331, 349, 14 Sup. Ct.
Rep. 548.

[ Footnote 5 ] Sere v. Pitot, 6 Cranch, 332, 336, 3 L. ed. 240, 241; M'Culloch v.
Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421, 4 L. ed. 579, 605; American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of
Cotton, 1 Pet. 511, 542, 7 L. ed. 242, 255; United States v. Gratiot, 14 Pet. 526, 537, 10
L. ed. 573, 578; Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 448, 15 L. ed. 718; Clinton v. Englebrecht,
13 Wall. 434, 447, 20 L. ed. 659, 662; Hamilton v. Dillin, 21 Wall. 73, 93, 22 L. ed. 528,
532; First Nat. Bank v. Yankton County, 101 U.S. 129, 132 , 25 S. L. ed. 1046, 1047;
The City of Panama, 101 U.S. 453 , 457, sub nom. The City of Panama v. Phelps, 25 L.
ed. 1061, 1062; Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15, 44 , 29 S. L. ed. 47, 57, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep.
747; United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 380 , 30 S. L. ed. 228, 230, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep.
1109; Church of Jesus Christ of L. D. S. v. United States, 136 U.S. 1, 42 , 34 S. L. ed.
478, 490, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 792; Boyd v. Nebraska ex rel. Thayer, 143 U.S. 135, 169 , 36
S. L. ed. 103, 112, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 375.

[ Footnote 6 ] Church of Jesus Christ of L. D. S. v. United States, 136 U.S. 1, 44 , 34 S.

L. ed. 478, 491, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 792.

[ Footnote 7 ] Loughborough v. Blake, 5 Wheat. 317, 322, 5 L. ed. 98, 99; Woodruff v.
Parham, 8 Wall. 123, 133, 19 L. ed. 382, 385; Brown v. Houston, 114 U.S. 622, 628 , 29
S. L. ed. 257, 259, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1091; Fairbank v. United States, 181, U. S. 283, ante,
648, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 648.

[ Footnote 8 ] American Ins. Co. v. 356 Bales of Cotton, 1 Pet. 511, 7 L. ed. 242; Benner
v. Porter, 9 How. 235, 13 L. ed. 119; Webster v. Reid, 11 How. 437, 460, 13 L. ed. 761,
770; Clinton v. Englebrecht, 13 Wall. 434, 20 L. ed. 659; Reynolds v. United States, 98
U.S. 145 , 25 L. ed. 244; Callan v. Wilson, 127 U.S. 540 , 32 L. ed. 223, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep.
1301; McAllister v. United States, 141 U.S. 174 , 35 L. ed. 693, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 949;
Springville v. Thomas, 166 U.S. 707 , 41 L. ed. 1172, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 717; Bauman v.
Ross, 167 U.S. 548 , 42 L. ed. 270, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 966; Thompson v. Utah, 170 U.S.
343 , 42 L. ed. 1061, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 620; Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U.S. 1 , 43
L. ed. 873, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 580; Black v. Jackson, 177 U.S. 363 , 44 L. ed. 807, 20 Sup.
Ct. Rep. 648.

[ Footnote 9 ] Re Ross, 140 U.S. 453, 461 , 462 S., 463, sub nom. Ross v. McIntyre, 35
L. ed. 581, 585, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 897.

[ Footnote 10 ] Extract from the Free Soil Party Platform of 1842 (Standwood, Hist. of
Presidency, p. 240):

'Resolved, That our fathers ordained the Constitution of the United States in
order, among other great national objects, to establish justice, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, but expressly denied to the Federal
government which they created, all constitutional power to deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property without due legal process.
'Resolved, That, in the judgment of this convention, Congress has no more power
to make a slave than to make a king; no more power to institute or establish
slavery than to institute or establish a monarchy. No such power can be found
among those specifically conferred by the Constitution, or derived by any just
implication from them.
'Resolved, That it is the duty of the Federal government to relieve itself from all
responsibility for the existence or continuance of slavery wherever the
government possesses constitutional authority to legislate on that subject, and is
thus responsible for its existence.
'Resolved, That the true, and in the judgment of this convention the only safe,
means of preventing the extension of slavery into territory now free, is to prohibit
its existence in all such territory by an act of Congress.'

[ Footnote 11 ] Excerpt from Declarations Made in the Platform of the Republican Party
in 1860 (Stanwood, Hist. of Presidency, p. 293):

'8. That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of
freedom; that as our republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our
national territory, ordained that no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law, it becomes our duty, by legislation,
whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the
Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of
Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individual, to give legal existence
to slavery in any territory of the United States.'

[ Footnote 12 ] First draft of Mr. Jefferson's proposed amendment to the Constitution:

'The province of Louisiana is incorporated with the United States and made part thereof.
The rights of occupancy in the soil and of self-government are confirmed to Indian
inhabitants as they now exist.' It then proceeded with other provisions relative to Indian
rights and possession and exchange of lands, and forbidding Congress to dispose of the
lands otherwise than is therein provided without further amendment to the Constitution.
This draft closes thus: 'Except as to that portion thereof which lies south of the latitude of
31, which, whenever they deem expedient, they may enact into a territorial government,
either separate or as making part with one on the eastern side of the river, vesting the
inhabitants thereof with all rights possessed by other territorial citizens of the United
States.' Writings of Jefferson, edited by Ford, vol. 8, p. 241.

[ Footnote 13 ] Letter to William Dunbar of July 7, 1803;

'Before you receive this you will have heard through the channel of the public
papers of the cession of Louisiana by France to the United States. The terms as
stated in the National Intelligencer are accurate. That the treaty may be ratified in
time, I have found it necessary to convene Congress on the 17th of October, and it
is very important for the happiness of the country that they should possess all
information which can be obtained respecting it, that they make the best
arrangements practicable for its good government. It is most necessary because
they will be obliged to ask from the people an amendment of the Constitution
authorizing their receiving the province into the Union and providing for its
government, and limitations of power which shall be given by that amendment
will be unalterable but by the same authority.' Jefferson's Writings, vol. 8, p. 254.

Letter to Wilson Cary Nicholas of September 7, 1803:

'I am aware of the force of the observations you make on the power given by the
Constitution to Congress to admit new states into the Union without restraining
the subject to the territory then constituting the United States. But when I consider
that the limits of the United States are precisely fixed by the treaty of 1783, that
the Constitution expressly declares itself to be made for the United States, I
cannot help believing that the intention was to permit Congress to admit into the
Union new states which should be formed out of the territory for which and under
whose authority alone they were then acting. I do not believe it was meant that
they might receive England, Ireland, Holland, etc., into it, which would be the
case under your construction. When an instrument admits two constructions, the
one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that
which is safe and precise. I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the
nation where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which
would make our powers boundless.' Writings of Jefferson, vol. 8, p. 247.

[ Footnote 14 ] Sec. 2. That on and after the passage of this act the same tariffs, customs,
and duties shall be levied, collected, and paid upon all articles imported into Porto Rico
from ports other than those of the United States which are required by law to be collected
upon articles imported into the United States from foreign countries: Provided, That on
all coffee in the bean or ground imported into Porto Rico there shall be levied and
collected a duty of five cents per pound, any law or part of law to the contrary
notwithstanding: And provided further, That all Spanish scientific, literary, and artistic
works, not subversive of public order in Porto Rico, shall be admitted free of duty into
Porto Rico for a period of ten years, reckoning from the eleventh day of April, eighteen
hundred and ninety-nine, as provided in said treaty of peace between the United States
and Spain: And provided further, That all books and pamphlets printed in the English
language shall be admitted into Porto Rico free of duty when imported from the United
States.

Sec. 3. That on and after the passage of this act all merchandise coming into the United
States from Porto Rico and coming into Porto Rico from the United States shall be
entered at the several ports of entry upon payment of fifteen per centum of the duties
which are required to be levied, collected, and paid upon like articles of merchandise
imported from foreign countries; and in addition thereto, upon articles of merchandise of
Porto Rican manufacture coming into the United States and withdrawn for consumption
or sale, upon payment of a tax equal to the internal revenue tax imposed in the United
States upon the like articles of merchandise of domestic manufacture; such tax to be paid
by internal revenue stamp or stamps to be purchased and provided by the Commissioner
of Internal Revenue, and to be procured from the collector of internal revenue at or most
convenient to the port of entry of said merchandise in the United States, and to be affixed
under such regulations as the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the
Secretary of the Treasury, shall prescribe; and on all articles of merchandise of United
States manufacture coming into Porto Rico, in addition to the duty above provided, upon
payment of a tax equal in rate and amount to the internal revenue tax imposed in Porto
Rico upon the like articles of Porto Rican manufacture: Provided, That on and after the
date when this act shall take effect all merchandise and articles, except coffee, not
dutiable under the tariff laws of the United States, and all merchandise and articles
entered in Porto Rico free of duty under orders heretofore made by the Secretary of War,
shall be admitted

into the several ports thereof, when imported from the United States, free of duty, all laws
or parts of laws to the contrary notwithstanding; and whenever the legislative assembly of
Porto Rico shall have enacted and put into operation a system of local taxation to meet
the necessities of the government of Porto Rico, by this act established, and shall by
resolution duly passed so notify the President, he shall make proclamation thereof, and
thereupon all tariff duties on merchandise and articles going into Porto Rico from the
United States or coming into the United States from Porto Rico shall cease, and from and
after such date all such merchandise and articles shall be entered at the several ports of
entry free of duty; and in no event shall any duties be collected after the first day of
March, nineteen hundred and two, on merchandise and articles going into Porto Rico
from the United States or coming into the United states from Porto Rico.

Sec. 4. That the duties and taxes collected in Porto Rico in pursuance of this act, less the
cost of collecting the same, and the gross amount of all collections of duties and taxes in
the United States upon articles of merchandise coming from Porto Rico, shall not be
covered into the general fund of the Treasury, but shall be held as a separate fund, and
shall be placed at the disposal of the President to be used for the government and benefit
of Porto Rico until the government of Porto Rico herein provided for shall have been
organized, when all moneys theretofore collected under the provisions hereof, then
unexpended, shall be transferred to the local treasury of Porto Rico, and the Secretary of
the Treasury shall designate the several ports and sub-ports of entry into Porto Rico, and
shall make such rules and regulations and appoint such agents as may be necessary to
collect the duties and taxes authorized to be levied, collected, and paid in Porto Rico by
the provisions of this act, and he shall fix the compensation and provide for the payment
thereof of all such officers, agents, and assistants as he may find it necessary to employ to
carry out the provisions hereof: Provided, however, That as soon as a civil government
for Porto Rico shall have been organized in accordance with the provisions of this act,
and notice thereof shall have been given to the President, he shall make proclamation
thereof, and thereafter all collections of duties and taxes in Porto Rico under the
provisions of this act shall be paid into the treasury of Porto Rico, to be expended as
required by law for the government and benefit thereof, instead of being paid into the
Treasury of the United States.

Sec. 5: That on and after the day when this act shall go into effect all goods, wares, and
merchandise previously imported from Porto Rico, for which no entry has been made,
and all goods, wares, and merchandise previously entered without payment of duty and
under bond for warehousing, transportation, or any other purpose, for which no permit of
delivery to the importer or his agent has been issued, shall be subjected to the duties
imposed by this act, and to no other duty, upon the entry or the withdrawal

thereof: Provided, That when duties are based upon the weight of merchandise deposited
in any public or private bonded warehouse said duties shall be levied and collected upon
the weight of such merchandise at the time of its entry.

...

Sec. 38. That no export duties shall be levied or collected on exports from Porto Rico; but
taxes and assessments on property, and license fees for franchises, privileges, and
concessions may be imposed for the purposes of the insular and municipal governments,
respectively, as may be provided and defined by act of the legislative assembly; and
where necessary to anticipate taxes and revenues, bonds and other obligations may be
issued by Porto Rico or any municipal government therein as may be provided by law to
provide for expenditures authorized by law, and to protect the public credit, and to
reimburse the United States for any moneys which have been or may be expended out of
the emergency fund of the War Department for the relief of the industrial conditions of
Porto Rico caused by the hurricane of August eighth, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine:
Provided, however, That no public indebtedness of Porto Rico or of any municipality
thereof shall be authorized or allowed in excess of seven per centum of the aggregate tax
valuation of its property.