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.*

To question the principle above stated on the assumption that the rulings on this subject of Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in Loughborough v. Blake were mere dicta, seems to me to be entirely inadmissible. And, besides, if such view was justified, 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 and Fairbank v. United States, supra.

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. 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 provision 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.‡

*Loughborough v. Blake, 5 Wheat. 317, 322; Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wall. 123, 133; Brown v. Houston, 114 U. S. 622, 628; Fairbank v. United States, 181 U. S.

† American Insurance Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511; Benner v. Porter, 9 How. 235; Webster v. Reid, 11 How. 437, 460; Clinton v. Englebrecht, 13 Wall. 434; Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145; Callan v. Wilson, 127 U. S. 540; McAllister v. United States, 141 U. S. 174; Springville v. Thomas, 166 U. S. 707; Baumann v. Ross, 167 U. S. 548; Thompson v. Utah, 170 U. S. 343; Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1; Black v. Jackson, 177 U. S. 363.

In re Ross, 140 U. S. 453, 461, 462, 463.

The question involved was the constitutionality of the statutes of the United States conferring power on ministers and consuls 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):

"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 character cannot be under any circumstances transcended, because of the complete absence of power.

The distinction which exists between the two character 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 whilst 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 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 (Ib. 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 those 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, whilst 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 Fifth 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, whilst propounding the general doctrine, also in effect declared the rule just stated. I append in the margin an excerpt from the platform of the Free Soil Party adopted in 1842.*

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 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. t

The doctrine that those absolute withdrawals of power which 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

* Extract from the Free Soil Party platform of 1842 (Stanwood, Hist. of Presidency, p. 240):

66 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.

66

'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.

66

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."

+ Excerpt from declarations made in the platform of the Republican Party in 1860 (Stanwood, Hist. of Presidency, p. 293):

66

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."

Chicago, Rock Island &c. R. R. Co. v. McGlinn, (1885) 114 U. S. 542, where, speaking through Mr. Justice Field, the court said (p. 546):

"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 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. (Amer. Ins. Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 542; Halleck, Int. 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 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 Pico 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