The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-31
PROBLEMS IN EXPANSION
tcontinued from Second Page.)

annex such islands to a union into which they can never enter on equal terms?
 This question cuts deeper than the one propounded to the supreme court in the Dred Scott case, The opinion given there was that we could not &C., quire any American territory to hold permanently as a dependent province. If that position be unsound, it would not follow that islands appertaining to | another continent could be so acquired and held. To acquire, of course, Is one thing, and to keep, another If we should be unable or unwilling to hold them permanently as a colonial depend- ency, how could we get rid of such | possessions:
 Could such a decision be made either through congress by law, or the | president and senate by treaty, or both together, if it took the shape of a gift 1 to the Filipinos, under which our own ership and sovereignty would pass to them as an independent power? An | authority for such a transaction is eX- | pressly given in the constitution. If ! implied, it would probably have to rest on the assumption that the Philippines l had proved damnosa hereditas. There ! would be greater difficulty in defend ing it on the ground that we had taken them as an act of humanity to spread the blessings of independent liberty ! over an oppressed people, after we had ] elevated and educated them sufficiently to make them fit to use it alright. For l foreign missionary work of this kind in another continent our constitution con- tains no provision.
 'The case of Cuba is, of course, far different. That lies at our doors. It has not been ceded to the United States. Spain has relinquished her sovereignty, but she has not transferred it to us. Our position is to be that of custodian or receiver. The sovereignty is, in effect, in abeyance, but it is to pass, by our pledged consent, to the Cuban people, whenever they organize a government for themselves, and show that they can maintain it, and with it the peace and order to which Cuba has been so long | a stranger
 "The Philippines also occupy a very l different relation to us, as respects the l questions of constitutional limitations, | from that which belongs to Hawaii or | Porto Rico. The West India Islands | SNPPSie eoii1 " oul tOIllIISII as lully as l Nantucket or the Dry Tortugas Ha- waii is nearer to it than to any other, I and no ship owner or naval officer in these days when it is coal that moves commerce and defends it, will question that 1t is within our legitimate sphere l of influence
 If we follow the ordinary rules of construction, the provisions of tie third, fifth, and eighth amendments must be regarded in any form of terri torial government which congress may construct for any part of the United States, including, of course, Porto Rico and the Philippines, should the pending treaty be ratified and if, as I have taken for granted, it cedes to us the sovereignty over both.
 If not, it must be on the theory that the guarantees which they afford to l personal liberty refer only to proceed ings had in the exercise of the judicial | power of the United States. To read them thus would seem to me to violate the ordinary rule that constitutional provisions for the safety of the individ- ual and the security of property should be favorably and liberally construed It would also lead to what I should say was the inadmissible assumption that the amendments set up no checks against executive and legislative DOW CT.
 Tn Milligans case the supreme court held that in time of war and at the seat of war military law might be imposed on civilians under certain conditions. At the present moment the conditions thus described exist. The president is holding these islands during a foreign war, with the rights of military com mander in an enemys country. He has granted an armfstice. He has negoti- ated treaty of peace. But until the senate acts our declaration of war re- mains unrevoked; state of war, for all purposes of military occupation, still continues: and these islands, though ours as to the rest of the world are still Spain's as to us.'
 The following conclusions were stated as in the speakers opinion unavoida- ble:
 There is no constitutional objection to the acquisition of any or all of our new possessions, or to subjecting them to temporary government of military or colonial form. There is no constitu-
 tional objection to our taking tempora- ry possession of Cuba as friend of the
 Cubans, and maintaining peace and or der by military occupation, under the
 president of the United States, until such time as we may deem it's people fit
 to govern themselves. It is a practical application of the Monroe doctrine in
 it's modern form.
 Until congress acts the president can
 govern our new possessions with nc
 other authority than that with which
 his great office is clothed by the con-
 stitution in it's grant of executive pow
 CT. If the Spanish treaty should be rat
 flied congress could replace the tempo rary government which the president
 has set up in Porto Rico by whatever
 form of administration it may think l proper not inconsistent with the prin- lciples and provisions of the constitution
 of the United States, and maintain il
 until the inhabitants may be fit to gov
 ern themselves. No fixed limit of time
 can be assigned for the duration of such l a regime. We have held Alaska under such conditions already for thirty years
 and she is hardly more deserving of au- tonomy now than when she was Rus
 sian province. We have held New Mex ico under different forms of admins.