A legal argument upon this subject is quite outside of my purpose, which is to consider, in a popular, rather than a professional way, some of the questions that arise, some of the answers that have been proposed, and some of the objections to these answers.
We have done something out of line with American history, not in the matter of territorial expansion, but in the character of it. Heretofore, the regions we have taken over have been contiguous to us, save in the case of Alaska—and, indeed, Alaska is contiguous, in the sense of being near. These annexed regions were also, at the time of annexation, either unpeopled or very sparsely peopled, by civilized men, and were further, by their situation, climate and soil, adapted to the use of an increasing American population. We have now acquired insular regions, situated in the tropics, and in another hemisphere, and hence unsuitable for American settlers, even if they were not, as they are, already populated, and their lands already largely taken up.
We have taken over peoples rather than lands, and these chiefly of other race stocks—for there are "diversities of tongues." The native labor is cheap and threatens competition, and there is a total absence of American ideas and methods of life and government among the eight or more millions of inhabitants in the Philippines. We have said that the Chinese will not "homologate"; and the Filipinos will certainly be slow. Out of the too late contemplation of these very real and serious problems has arisen the proposition to solve them, as many think, by wresting our government from its constitutional basis; or at least, as all must agree, by the introduction of wholly new views of the status of the people of the territories, and of some startlingly new methods of dealing with them. It is not open to question, I think, that, if we had taken over only the Sandwich islands and Porto Rico, these new views of the status of the people of our territories, and these new methods of dealing with them, would never have been suggested or used.
The question of the constitutional right of the United States to acquire territory, as these new regions have been acquired, must, I suppose, be taken by every one to have been finally adjudged in favor of that right. The supreme court is not likely to review the decision announced by Chief Justice Marshall. It is important to note, however, that the great chief-justice derives the power to acquire territory, by treaty and conquest, from the constitution itself. He says:
"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."
While this decision stands, there is no room for the suggestion that the power of the United States to acquire territory, either by a conquest confirmed by treaty, or by a treaty of purchase from a nation with which we are at peace, is doubtful, and as little for the suggestion that this power is an extra-constitutional power. The people, then, have delegated to the president and congress the power to acquire territory by the methods we have used in the cases of Porto Rico and the Hawaiian and Philippine islands. But some have suggested that this power to acquire new territory is limited to certain ends; that it can only be used to acquire territory that is to be, or is capable of being, erected into states of the Union. If this view were allowed, the attitude of the courts to the question would not be much changed; for they could not inquire as to the purposes of congress, nor, I suppose, overrule the judgment of congress as to the adaptability of territory for the creation of states. The appeal would be to congress to limit the use of the power.
The islands of Hawaii, of Porto Rico and of the Philippine archipelago have been taken over, not for a temporary purpose, as in the case of Cuba, but to have and to hold forever, as a part of the region over which the sovereignty of the United States extends. We have not put ourselves under any pledge as to them, at least not of a written sort. Indeed, we have not, it is said, made up our minds as to anything affecting the Philippines, save this: that they are a part of our national domain and that the inhabitants must yield obedience to the sovereignty of the United States, so long as we choose to hold them.