Problems of Expansion Part 5

To serve the purpose for which these clauses of the Const.i.tution are invoked, it is necessary to hold that any territory to which the United States has a t.i.tle is an integral part of the United States; and perhaps the greatest name in the history of American const.i.tutional interpretation, that of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States, is cited in favor of that contention. If accepted, it follows that when the treaty ceding Spanish sovereignty in the Philippines was ratified, that archipelago became an integral part of the United States. Then, under the first clause above cited, the Dingley tariff must be immediately extended over the Philippines (as well as Porto Rico, the Sandwich Islands, and Guam) precisely as over New York; and, under the second clause, every native of the Philippines and the other new possessions is a citizen of the United States, with all the rights and privileges thereby accruing. The first result would be the disorganization of the present American revenue system by the free admission into all American ports of sugar and other tropical products from the greatest sources of supply, and the consequent loss of nearly sixty millions of annual revenue. Another would be the destruction of the existing cane- and beet-sugar industries in the United States. Another, apprehended by the laboring cla.s.ses, who are already suspicious from their experience with the Chinese, would be an enormous influx, either of cheap labor or of its products, to beat down their wages.

Next, it is argued, there is no place in the theory or practice of the American Government for territories except for development into Statehood; and, consequently, the required population being already present, new States must be created out of Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas, Porto Rico, and the Sandwich Islands. The right to hold them permanently in the territorial form, or even under a protectorate, is indignantly denied as conflicting with Mr. Jefferson's phrase in the Declaration of Independence, to the effect that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Some great names can certainly be marshaled in support of such views--Chancellor Kent, Mr. John C. Calhoun, Mr. Chief Justice Taney, and others. Denial of this duty to admit the new possessions as States is denounced as a violation by the Republic of the very law of its being, and its transformation into an empire; as a revival of slavery in another form, both because of government without representation, and because of the belief that no tropical colony can be successful without contract labor; as a consequent and inevitable degradation of American character; as a defiance of the warnings in Washington's Farewell Address against foreign entanglements; as a repudiation of the congressional declaration at the outbreak of the war, that it was not waged for territorial aggrandizement; and finally as placing Aguinaldo in the position of fighting for freedom, independence, and the principles of the fathers of the Republic, while the Republic itself is in the position of fighting to control and govern him and his people in spite of their will.

On the other hand, the supporters of the treaty and of the policy of the Administration, so far as it has been disclosed, begin their argument with another provision of the Const.i.tution, the second part of Section 3 in Article IV:

The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.

They claim that, under this, Congress has absolute power to do what it will with the Philippines, as with any other territory or other property which the United States may acquire. It is admitted that Congress is, of course, under an implied obligation to exercise this power in the general spirit of the Const.i.tution which creates it, and of the Government of which it is a part. But it is denied that Congress is under any obligation to confer a republican form of government upon a territory whose inhabitants are unfit for it, or to adopt any form of government devised with reference to preparing it for ultimate admission to the Union as a State.

It is further denied that Congress is under any obligation, arising either from the Const.i.tution itself or from the precedents of the Nation's action under it, to ask the consent of the inhabitants in acquired territory to the form of government which may be given them.

And still further, it is not only denied that Congress is under any obligations to prepare these territories for Statehood or admit them to it, but it is pointed out that, at least as to the Philippines, that body is prevented from doing so by the very terms, of the preamble to the Const.i.tution itself--concluding with the words, "do ordain and establish this Const.i.tution for the United States _of America_." There is no place here for States of Asia.

[Sidenote: Replies to Const.i.tutional Objections.]

In dealing with the arguments against retention of the Philippines, based on the sections previously quoted from Articles I and XIV of the Const.i.tution, the friends of the policy say that the apparent conflict in these articles with the wide grant of powers over territory to Congress which they find in Article IV arises wholly from a failure to recognize the different senses in which the term "the United States" is used. As the name of the Nation it is often employed to include all territory over which United States sovereignty extends, whether originally the property of the individual States and ceded to the United States, or whether acquired in treaties by the Nation itself.

But such a meaning is clearly inconsistent with its use in certain clauses of the Const.i.tution in question. Thus Article XIII says: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude ... shall exist within the United States _or any place subject to their jurisdiction_."

The latter clause was obviously the const.i.tutional way of conveying the idea about the Territories which the opponents of the Philippine policy are now trying to read into the name "United States." The const.i.tutional provision previously cited about citizenship ill.u.s.trates the same point. It says "all persons born," etc., "are citizens of the United States _and of the State wherein they reside_." There is no possibility left here that Territories are to be held as an integral part of the United States, in the sense in which the Const.i.tution, in this clause, uses the name. If they had been, the clause would have read, "and of the State _or Territory_ in which they reside." For these opinions high authorities are also cited, including debates in the Senate, acts of Congress, the constant practice of the Executive, and most of the judicial rulings of the last half-century that seem to bear upon the present situation.

[Sidenote: The Outcome not Doubtful.]

It has been thought best, in an explanation to readers in another country of the perplexity arising in the American mind, in a sudden emergency, from these disputed points in const.i.tutional powers, to set forth with impartial fairness and some precision the views on either side. It is essential to a fair judgment as to the apparent hesitation since this problem began to develop, that the real basis for the conflicting opinions should be understood, and that full justice should be done to the earnest repugnance with which many conscientious citizens draw back from sending American youth to distant tropical regions to enforce with an armed hand the submission of an unwilling people to the absolute rule of the Republic. It should be realized, too, how far the new departure does unsettle the practice and policy of a century. The old view that each new Territory is merely another outlet for surplus population, soon to be taken in as another State in the Union, must be abandoned. The old a.s.sumption that all inhabitants of territory belonging to the United States are to be regarded as citizens is gone. The idea that government anywhere must derive its just powers only from the consent of the governed is unsettled, and thus, to some, the very foundations of the Republic seem to be shaken.

Three generations, trained in Washington's warnings against foreign entanglements, find it difficult all at once to realize that advice adapted to a people of three millions, scattered along the border of a continent, may need some modifications when applied to a people of seventy-five millions, occupying the continent, and reaching out for the commerce of both the oceans that wash its sh.o.r.es.

But whatever may be thought of the weight of the argument, either as to const.i.tutional power or as to policy, there is little doubt as to the result. The people who found authority in their fundamental law for treating paper currency as a legal tender in time of war, in spite of the const.i.tutional requirement that no State should "make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts," will find there also all the power they need for dealing with the difficult problem that now confronts them. And when the const.i.tutional objections are surmounted, those as to policy are not likely to lead the American people to recall their soldiers from the fields on which the Filipinos attacked them, or abandon the sovereignty which Spain ceded. The American Government has the new territories, and will hold and govern them.

A republic like the United States has not been well adapted hitherto to that sort of work. Congress is apt to be slow, if not also changeable, and under the Const.i.tution the method of government for territories must be prescribed by Congress. It has not yet found time to deal with the Sandwich Islands. Its harsher critics declare it has never yet found time to deal fairly with Alaska. No doubt, Executive action in advance of Congress might be satisfactory; but a President is apt to wait for Congress unless driven by irresistible necessities. He can only take the initiative through some form of military government. For this the War Department is not yet well organized. Possibly the easiest solution for the moment would be in the organization of another department for war and government beyond the seas, or the development of a measurably independent bureau for such work in the present department. Whatever is done, it would be unreasonable to expect unbroken success or exemption from a learner's mistakes and discouragements. But whoever supposes that these will result either in the abandonment of the task or in a final failure with it does not know the American people.

VII

OUR NEW DUTIES

This commencement address was delivered on the campus at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, at the celebration of its seventy-fifth anniversary, June 15, 1899.

OUR NEW DUTIES

Sons and Friends of Miami: I join you in saluting this venerable mother at a notable waymark in her great life. One hundred and seven years ago the Congress voted, and George Washington approved, a foundation for this University. Seventy-five years ago it opened its doors. Now, si monumentum quaeris, circ.u.mspice. There is the catalogue. There are the long lists of men who so served the State or the Church that their lives are your glory, their names your inspiration.[5] There are the longer lists of others to whom kinder fortune did not set duties in the eye of the world; but Miami made of them citizens who leavened the lump of that growing West which was then a sprawling, irregular line of pioneer settlements, and is now an empire. Search through it, above and below the Ohio, and beyond the Mississippi. So often, where there are centers of good work or right thinking and right living--so often and so widely spread will you find traces of Miami, left by her own sons or coming from those secondary sources which sprang from her example and influence, that you are led in grateful surprise to exclaim: "If this be the work of a little college, G.o.d bless and prolong the little college! If, half starved and generally neglected, she has thus nourished good learning and its proper result in good lives through the three quarters of a century ended to-day, may the days of her years be as the sands of the sea; may the Twentieth Century only introduce the glorious prime of a career of which the Nineteenth saw but modest beginnings, and may good old Miami still flourish in saecula saeculorum!"

[5] Much attention had been attracted, as the date for this celebration approached, to the numerous sons of this small college who had in one way or another become prominent; and the newspapers printed long lists of them. Among the names thus singled out in the press were Benjamin Harrison, of the cla.s.s of 1852, President of the United States, 1889-93; William Dennison, cla.s.s of 1835, Governor of Ohio, 1859-63, and Postmaster-General under Abraham Lincoln; Caleb B. Smith, 1826, Secretary of the Interior in the same Administration; General Robert C. Schenck, 1827, Chairman Ways and Means Committee in House of Representatives, Major-General in the Civil War, and United States Minister to Brazil and to Great Britain; William S.

Groesbeck, 1834, Congressman, counsel for Andrew Johnson in the impeachment proceedings, and United States delegate to the International Monetary Congress, 1878; Samuel Sh.e.l.labarger, 1841, Congressman, member of the Credit Mobilier Investigation, and of the United States Civil Service Commission; Oliver P. Morton, 1845, War Governor of Indiana, and United States Senator; Charles Anderson, 1833, Governor of Ohio; James Birney, 1836, Governor of Michigan; Richard Yates, 1830, War Governor of Illinois, and United States Senator; Milton Sayler, 1852, Speaker House of Representatives; John S. Williams, 1838, the "Cerro Gordo Williams" of the Mexican War, United States Senator from Kentucky; George E. Pugh, 1840, United States Senator from Ohio; James W. McDill, 1853, United States Senator from Iowa; General Samuel F. Carey, 1835, Congressman from Ohio, and temperance orator; Albert S. Berry, 1856, Congressman from Kentucky; Dr.

John S. Billings, U.S.A., 1857, head of New York Library; David Swing, 1852, the Chicago clergyman; General A. C. McClurg, 1853, the Chicago publisher; Henry M. MacCracken, 1857, Chancellor of New York University; William M. Thomson, 1828, author of "The Land and the Book"; Calvin S. Brice, 1863, railway-builder, and United States Senator; etc.

But the celebration of her past and the aspirations for her future belong to worthier sons--here among these gentlemen of the Board who have cared for her in her need. I make them my profound acknowledgments for the honor they have done me in a.s.signing me a share in the work of this day of days, and shall best deserve their trust by going with absolute candor straight to my theme.

[Sidenote: New Duties; a New World.]

I shall speak of the new duties that are upon us and the new world that is opening to us with the new century--of the spirit in which we should advance and the results we have the right to ask. I shall speak of public matters which it is the duty of educated men to consider; and of matters which may hereafter divide parties, but on which we must refuse now to recognize party distinctions. Partizanship stops at the guard-line. "In the face of an enemy we are all Frenchmen," said an eloquent Imperialist once in my hearing, in rallying his followers to support a foreign measure of the French Republic. At this moment our soldiers are facing a barbarous or semi-civilized foe, who treacherously attacked them in a distant land, where our flag had been sent, in friendship with them, for the defense of our own sh.o.r.es. Was it creditable or seemly that it was lately left to a Bonaparte on our own soil to teach some American leaders that, at such a time, patriotic men at home do not discourage those soldiers or weaken the Government that directs them?[6]

[6] "MY DEAR SIR: I have received your letter of the 23d inst., notifying me of my election as a vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League. I recognize the compliment implied in this election, and appreciate it the more by reason of my respect for the gentlemen identified with the league, but I do not think I can appropriately or consistently accept the position, especially since I learn through the press that the league adopted at its recent meeting certain resolutions to which I cannot a.s.sent.... I may add that, while I fully recognize the injustice and even absurdity of those charges of 'disloyalty'

which have been of late freely made against some members of the league, and also that many honorable and patriotic men do not feel as I do on this subject, I am personally unwilling to take part in an agitation which may have some tendency to cause a public enemy to persist in armed resistance, or may be, at least, plausibly represented as having this tendency. There can be no doubt that, as a matter of fact, the country is at war with Aguinaldo and his followers. I profoundly regret this fact;...

but it is a fact, nevertheless, and, as such, must weigh in determining my conduct as a citizen....

"CHARLES JEROME BONAPARTE.

"BALTIMORE, "May 25, 1899."

Neither shall I discuss, here and now, the wisdom of all the steps that have led to the present situation. For good or ill, the war was fought.

Its results are upon us. With the ratification of the Peace of Paris, our Continental Republic has stretched its wings over the West Indies and the East. It is a fact and not a theory that confronts us. We are actually and now responsible, not merely to the inhabitants and to our own people, but, in International Law, to the commerce, the travel, the civilization of the world, for the preservation of order and the protection of life and property in Cuba, in Porto Rico, in Guam, and in the Philippine Archipelago, including that recent haunt of piracy, the Sulus. Shall we quit ourselves like men in the discharge of this immediate duty; or shall we fall to quarreling with each other like boys as to whether such a duty is a good or a bad thing for the country, and as to who got it fastened upon us? There may have been a time for disputes about the wisdom of resisting the stamp tax, but it was not just after Bunker Hill. There may have been a time for hot debate about some mistakes in the antislavery agitation, but not just after Sumter and Bull Run. Furthermore, it is as well to remember that you can never grind with the water that has pa.s.sed the mill. Nothing in human power can ever restore the United States to the position it occupied the day before Congress plunged us into the war with Spain, or enable us to escape what that war entailed. No matter what we wish, the old continental isolation is gone forever. Whithersoever we turn now, we must do it with the burden of our late acts to carry, the responsibility of our new position to a.s.sume.

When the sovereignty which Spain had exercised with the a.s.sent of all nations over vast and distant regions for three hundred years was solemnly transferred under the eye of the civilized world to the United States, our first responsibility became the restoration of order. Till that is secured, any hindrance to the effort is bad citizenship--as bad as resistance to the police; as much worse, in fact, as its consequences may be more b.l.o.o.d.y and disastrous. "You have a wolf by the ears," said an accomplished ex-Minister of the United States to a departing Peace Commissioner last autumn. "You cannot let go of him with either dignity or safety, and he will not be easy to tame."

[Sidenote: Policy for the New Possessions.]

But when the task is accomplished,--when the Stars and Stripes at last bring the order and peaceful security they typify, instead of wanton disorder, with all the concomitants of savage warfare over which they now wave,--we shall then be confronted with the necessity of a policy for the future of these distant regions. It is a problem that calls for our soberest, most dispa.s.sionate, and most patriotic thought. The colleges, and the educated cla.s.ses generally, should make it a matter of conscience--painstakingly considered on all its sides, with reference to International Law, the burdens of sovereignty, the rights and the interests of native tribes, and the legitimate demands of civilization--to find first our national duty and then our national interest, which it is also a duty for our statesmen to protect. On such a subject we have a right to look to our colleges for the help they should be so well equipped to give. From these still regions of cloistered thought may well come the white light of pure reason, not the wild, whirling words of the special pleader or of the partizan, giving loose rein to his hasty first impressions. It would be an ill day for some colleges if crude and hot-tempered incursions into current public affairs, like a few unhappily witnessed of late, should lead even their friends to fear lest they have been so long accustomed to dogmatize to boys that they have lost the faculty of reasoning with men.

When the first duty is done, when order is restored in those commercial centers and on that commercial highway, somebody must then be responsible for maintaining it--either ourselves or some Power whom we persuade to take them off our hands. Does anybody doubt what the American people in their present temper would say to the latter alternative?--the same people who, a fortnight ago, were ready to break off their Joint Commission with Great Britain and take the chances, rather than give up a few square miles of worthless land and a harbor of which a year ago they scarcely knew the name, on the remote coast of Alaska. Plainly it is idle now, in a government so purely dependent on the popular will, to scheme or hope for giving the Philippine task over to other hands as soon as order is restored. We must, then, be prepared with a policy for maintaining it ourselves.

Of late years men have unthinkingly a.s.sumed that new territory is, in the very nature of our Government, merely and necessarily the raw material for future States in the Union. Colonies and dependencies, it is now said, are essentially inconsistent with our system. But if any ever entertained the wild dream that the instrument whose preamble says it is ordained for the United States of _America_ could be stretched to the China Sea, the first Tagal guns fired at friendly soldiers of the Union, and the first mutilation of American dead that ensued, ended the nightmare of States from Asia admitted to the American Union. For that relief, at least, we must thank the uprising of the Tagals. It was a Continental Union of independent sovereign States our fathers planned.

Whoever proposes to debase it with admixtures of States made up from the islands of the sea, in any archipelago, East or West, is a bad friend to the Republic. We may guide, protect, elevate them, and even teach them some day to stand alone; but if we ever invite them into our Senate and House, to help to rule us, we are the most imbecile of all the offspring of time.

[Sidenote: The Const.i.tutional Objection.]

Yet we must face the fact that able and conscientious men believe the United States has no const.i.tutional power to hold territory that is not to be erected into States in the Union, or to govern people that are not to be made citizens. They are able to cite great names in support of their contention; and it would be an ill omen for the freest and most successful const.i.tutional government in the world if a const.i.tutional objection thus fortified should be carelessly considered or hastily overridden. This objection rests mainly on the a.s.sumption that the name "United States," as used in the Const.i.tution, necessarily includes all territory the Nation owns, and on the historic fact that large parts of this territory, on acquiring sufficient population, have already been admitted as States, and have generally considered such admission to be a right. Now, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall--than whom no const.i.tutional authority carries greater weight--certainly did declare that the question what was designated by the term "United States" in the clause of the Const.i.tution giving power to levy duties on imposts "admitted of but one answer." It "designated the whole of the American empire, composed of States and Territories." If that be accepted as final, then the tariff must be applied in Manila precisely as in New York, and goods from Manila must enter the New York custom-house as freely as goods from New Orleans. Sixty millions would disappear instantly and annually from the Treasury, and our revenue system would be revolutionized by the free admission of sugar and other tropical products from the United States of Asia and the Caribbean Sea; while, on the other hand, the Philippines themselves would be fatally handicapped by a tariff wholly unnatural to their locality and circ.u.mstances. More. If that be final, the term "United States" should have the same comprehensive meaning in the clause as to citizenship.

Then Aguinaldo is to-day a citizen of the United States, and may yet run for the Presidency. Still more. The Asiatics south of the China Sea are given that free admission to the country which we so strenuously deny to Asiatics from the north side of the same sea. Their goods, produced on wages of a few cents a day, come into free compet.i.tion in all our home markets with the products of American labor, and the cheap laborers themselves are free to follow if ever our higher wages attract them. More yet. If that be final, the Tagals and other tribes of Luzon, the Visayans of Negros and Cebu, and the Mohammedan Malays of Mindanao and the Sulus, having each far more than the requisite population, may demand admission next winter into the Union as free and independent States, with representatives in Senate and House, and may plausibly claim that they can show a better t.i.tle to admission than Nevada ever did, or Utah or Idaho.

Nor does the great name of Marshall stand alone in support of such conclusions. The converse theory that these territories are not necessarily included in the const.i.tutional term "the United States"

makes them our subject dependencies, and at once the figure of Jefferson himself is evoked, with all the signers of the immortal Declaration grouped about him, renewing the old war-cry that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. At different periods in our history eminent statesmen have made protests on grounds of that sort. Even the first bill for Mr. Jefferson's own purchase of Louisiana was denounced by Mr. Macon as "establishing a species of government unknown to the United States"; by Mr. Lucas as "establishing elementary principles never previously introduced in the government of any Territory of the United States"; and by Mr. Campbell as "really establishing a complete despotism." In 1823 Chancellor Kent said, with reference to Columbia River settlements, that "a government by Congress as absolute sovereign, over colonies, absolute dependents, was not congenial to the free and independent spirit of American inst.i.tutions."

In 1848 John C. Calhoun declared that "the conquest and retention of Mexico as a province would be a departure from the settled policy of the Government, in conflict with its character and genius, and in the end subversive of our free inst.i.tutions." In 1857 Mr. Chief Justice Taney said that "a power to rule territory without restriction as a colony or dependent province would be inconsistent with the nature of our Government." And now, following warily in this line, the eminent and trusted advocate of similar opinions to-day, Mr. Senator h.o.a.r of Ma.s.sachusetts, says: "The making of new States and providing national defense are const.i.tutional ends, so that we may acquire and hold territory for those purposes. The governing of subject peoples is not a const.i.tutional end, and there is therefore no const.i.tutional warrant for acquiring and holding territory for that purpose."

[Sidenote: An Alleged Const.i.tutional Inability.]

We have now, as is believed, presented with entire fairness a summary of the more important aspects in which the const.i.tutional objections mentioned have been urged. I would not underrate by a hair's breadth the authority of these great names, the weight of these continuous rea.s.sertions of principle, the sanction even of the precedent and general practice through a century. And yet I venture to think that no candid and competent man can thoroughly investigate the subject, in the light of the actual provisions of the Const.i.tution, the avowed purpose of its framers, their own practice and the practice of their successors, without being absolutely convinced that this whole fabric of opposition on const.i.tutional grounds is as flimsy as a cobweb. This country of our love and pride is no malformed, congenital cripple of a nation, incapable of undertaking duties that have been found within the powers of every other nation that ever existed since governments among civilized men began. Neither by chains forged in the Const.i.tution nor by chains of precedent, neither by the dead hand we all revere, that of the Father of his Country, nor under the most authoritative exponents of our organic act and of our history, are we so bound that we cannot undertake any duty that devolves or exercise any power which the emergency demands. Our Const.i.tution has entrapped us in no impa.s.se, where retreat is disgrace and advance is impossible. The duty which the hand of Providence, rather than any purpose of man, has laid upon us, is within our const.i.tutional powers. Let me invoke your patience for a rather minute and perhaps wearisome detail of the proof.

The notion that the United States is an inferior sort of nation, const.i.tutionally without power for such public duties as other nations habitually a.s.sume, may perhaps be dismissed with a single citation from the Supreme Court. Said Mr. Justice Bradley, in the Legal Tender Cases: "As a government it [the United States] was invested with all the attributes of sovereignty.... It seems to be a self-evident proposition that it is invested with all those inherent and implied powers which, at the time of adopting the Const.i.tution, were generally considered to belong to every government as such, and as being essential to the exercise of its functions" (12 Wall. 554).

Every one recalls this const.i.tutional provision: "The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United States." That grant is absolute, and the only qualification is the one to be drawn from the general spirit of the Government the Const.i.tution was framed to organize. Is it consistent with that spirit to hold territory permanently, or for long periods of time, without admitting it to the Union? Let the man who wrote the very clause in question answer. That man was Gouverneur Morris of New York, and you will find his answer on page 192 of the third volume of his writings, given only fifteen years after, in reply to a direct question as to the exact meaning of the clause: "I always thought, when we should acquire Canada and Louisiana, it would be proper to govern them as provinces, and allow them no voice in our councils. In wording the third section of the fourth article, I went as far as circ.u.mstances would permit to establish the exclusion."

This framer of the Const.i.tution desired then, and intended definitely and permanently, to keep _Louisiana_ out! And yet there are men who tell us the provision he drew would not even permit us to keep the Philippines out! To be more papist than the Pope will cease to be a thing exciting wonder if every day modern men, in the consideration of practical and pressing problems, are to be more narrowly const.i.tutional than the men that wrote the Const.i.tution!

Is it said that, at any rate, our practice under this clause of the Const.i.tution has been against the view of the man that wrote it, and in favor of that quoted from Mr. Chief Justice Marshall? Does anybody seriously think, then, that though we have held New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma as territory organized or unorganized, part of it nearly a century and all of it half a century, our representatives believed all the while they had no const.i.tutional right to do so? Who imagines that when the third of a century during which we have already held Alaska is rounded out to a full century, that unorganized Territory will even then have any greater prospect than at present of admission as a State?

or who believes our grandchildren will be violating the Const.i.tution in keeping it out? Who imagines that under the Const.i.tution ordained on this continent specifically "for the United States of _America_," we will ever permit the Kanakas, Chinese, and j.a.panese, who make up a majority of the population in the Sandwich Islands, to set up a government of their own and claim admission as an independent and sovereign State of our American Union? Finally, let me add that conclusive proof relating not only to practice under the Const.i.tution, but to the precise construction of the const.i.tutional language as to the Territories by the highest authority, in the light of long previous practice, is to be found in another part of the instrument itself, deliberately added three quarters of a century later. Article XIII provides that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States, _or any place subject to their jurisdiction_."

If the term "the United States," as used in the Const.i.tution, really includes the Territories as an integral part, as Mr. Chief Justice Marshall said, what, then, does the Const.i.tution mean by the additional words, "or any place subject to their jurisdiction"? Is it not too plain for argument that the Const.i.tution here refers to territory not a part of the United States, but subject to its jurisdiction--territory, for example, like the Sandwich Islands or the Philippines?