had been conferred by the Constitution upon 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, nor to enlarge its territorial limits in any way except by the admission of new states." Had arguments of this sort, backed by a strong public sentiment against the acquisition of the territory and by the earnest advocacy of either of the great political parties, been employed when the states were jealous of the authority of the federal government, and while the idea was widely prevalent that the Constitution was simply a league between sovereign states, and that its grants of power should be strictly construed-we cannot say now with any confidence what limitations might have been imposed by a construction at a very early day on the power of the United States to acquire and govern foreign territory, nor how seriously such limitations might have affected our future growth and prosperity. I do not imagine, however, that any construction which might have been placed upon the federal compact at that early day would have prevented the American people from taking possession eventually of the great region west of the Mississippi River, or from forcing a passageway to the Gulf. Written constitutions may hinder, but they cannot prevent the growth of a nation, nor suppress the natural propensities of a free, intelligent and enterprising race. It would have been a task more difficult than to dam the waters of the Mississippi River to prevent the American people from overflowing the country to the west of that river. The fertile lands of that region would have attracted thousands of American citizens, who would have settled thereon and founded free commonwealths, which in turn would have gravitated to and in the end become an integral part of our great federal union. The Louisiana territory in all probability would have shared the fate of Texas. The Emperor Napoleon probably foresaw this result in the near future, and was doubtless well aware that free access to the Gulf must be given to the United States, or it would be acquired by force. He acted wisely,

therefore, in selling the Louisiana territory to the United States, and the United States acted with greater wisdom in buying it. Indeed, time has demonstrated that President Jefferson displayed greater ability as a statesman and conferred more lasting benefits on the people of the United States, in making the purchase, than by any other single act in the course of his long political career. It is not too much to say that future generations will accord him more praise for adding the Louisiana territory to the domain of the United States than for any other of his official acts; although in his self-written obituary he does not mention it as one of the deeds that best entitled him to the gratitude of posterity.

It is hardly necessary to observe that the Louisiana purchase paved the way for all of those future acquisitions of foreign territory that have together made the United States. the dominant power on the North American continent, and added immensely to its prestige and influence as a nation. It turned the minds of the American people to thoughts of expansion and gave them a vivid conception of a great republic extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The purchase in question determined, as it were, with the general consent of the American people, that the federal government has the power under the Constitution to acquire and hold foreign territory at least on this continent, which power has never since been seriously disputed by statesmen or jurists. It is true that the right to acquire foreign territory and govern it was challenged incidentally in a private suit which arose twenty-five years later after the United States had acquired the territory of Florida by a treaty with Spain. This treaty, like the one with France, provided that the inhabitants of the acquired territory should be incorporated into the union as soon as might be consistent with the principles of the federal Constitution and "admitted to the enjoyment of all the privileges, rights and immunities of citizens of the United States." (8 St. 256, 258.) When the right was thus challenged, the federal government rested upon a more secure foundation

than in 1903, and was a far more stately and imposing structure. It had in the meantime engaged in a foreign war of considerable magnitude and a strong national spirit had been aroused throughout the length and breadth of the entire country. Two states, Louisiana and Missouri, had already been carved out of the Louisiana territory and admitted into the federal union. The necessity of confederation and the benefits which had accrued from the creation of a national government were clearly perceived by all classes and the bond. of union had become too strong to be easily broken. It was a forlorn hope, therefore, to obtain from any department of the government in the year 1828, when the case of Insurance Company vs. Canter, 1 Peters 511, was decided, a decision that the Constitution conferred on the United States no power to acquire and govern foreign territory and that the federal government had exceeded its just powers for a quarter of a century in exercising sovereignty over the Louisiana territory. In a few short and pithy sentences of profound import, Chief Justice Marshall declared that the Constitution conferred absolutely on the government of the union the power of making war and of making treaties; that, as a consequence, the United States possessed the power of acquiring territory either by conquest or treaty, and that the right to govern territory so acquired was undoubted and was due either to the fact that it was not within the jurisdiction of any particular state and could be governed in virtue of the provision of the Constitution giving Congress the power "to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory," or that the power to govern territory was the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire it. It is a curious circumstance showing how readily political views may be cast aside and that they are less persistent than the well-settled convictions of lawyers on legal questions, that Chief Justice Marshall, who was himself a pronounced Federalist, in this decision employed substantially the same argument which the followers of Jefferson had used in the Congress of the United States to secure

the ratification of the treaty with France when the Federalists were protesting against its ratification.

These propositions, which were determined by Chief Justice Marshall in Insurance Company vs. Canter, have ever since been accepted and acted upon as sound law by all departments of the government, and on the strength thereof an empire was acquired from Mexico at the conclusion of the Mexican War. They were expressly reaffirmed in the year 1856 in the case of Scott vs. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 447. Chief Justice Taney, in that celebrated case, did not find it necessary to challenge the power of the federal government to acquire foreign territory either by treaty or conquest. He conceded that the power to expand the territory of the United States by the admission of new states was plainly given by the Constitution, and that this power, as construed by all of the departments of government, had been held to authorize the acquisition of foreign territory, although it was not at the time fit for admission into the federal union. He maintained, however, that the right to govern such foreign territory as had been acquired by treaty or conquest subsequent to the adoption of the federal Constitution was not deducible from that provision of the Constitution empowering Congress "to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory," as had been suggested in the case of Insurance Company vs. Canter, but that the right to govern such territory followed by implication from the power to acquire it. He also said, arguendo, that when the United States acquired foreign territory it did so for the purpose of eventually creating states and admitting them into the The learned jurist was compelled to concede, however, that when foreign territory was acquired it rested with Congress to determine when it was fit for admission as a state; that this was a political question with which the judiciary have no concern, and that, in the meantime, Congress could exercise control over the territory, but not to the extent of prohibiting any citizen of the United States from going there with his property, even though such property consisted of slaves.

union.

In these later days the question which has attracted most public attention and agitated the minds of statesmen and jurists is not whether the United States can acquire and hold foreign territory, but how and under what guaranties of life, liberty and property shall such territory, when acquired, be governed. On the one hand, we find learned jurists and statesmen who contend that as soon as territory is acquired by treaty from a foreign power the inhabitants of the ceded territory are within the protection of all the provisions of the bill of rights as contained in the federal Constitution and its amendments. On the other hand, we find some statesmen and jurists of great learning and ability who contend with equal zeal that some provisions of the federal Constitution and the bill of rights are applicable to the states only, and do not extend to the territories; and yet other jurists who, while admitting the paramount authority of the Constitution over all territory that has been incorporated into the United States, with the express or implied consent of both branches of the Congress of the United States, yet insist that the treaty-making power, consisting of the President and the Senate, may acquire, but that they cannot alone incorporate foreign territory into the United States. According to this latter view, it is possible for the federal government, in virtue of its treatymaking power, to acquire and govern foreign territory as appurtenant to the United States, although the inhabitants are not within the protecting ægis of the Constitution. It is also possible that they may remain in that state of suspense, subject to the control of Congress for an indefinite period, or until it sees fit to incorporate them into the federal union or grant them the protection of the federal Constitution.

It would be out of place in a paper of this nature to discuss or criticise either of these propositions, and it is not my purpose to do so. The controversy on these points is due in a large measure to a wide divergence of public opinion concerning the question whether it is wise for the American people to acquire and hold territory at a distance from the North Amer