The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-31

could be lawfully collected by his nicipal character he may have set up would continue in the discharge of their functions, with the power of life and death.
 "A port or island, like Guam, taken for military or naval purposes, can be permanently kept under military law And here such certainty as can be de- rived from judicial precedent or settled legislative construction and popular ac- quiescence comes to an end.
 How long, and with what effect, con gress might allow our possessions to be held under military rule; whether Por- to Rico can be held permanently and avowedly as a colonial dependence; whether the Philippines could be held permanently; whether with or without view of ultimately dividing them into states to be admitted as such into the Union; whether they could be given over to their inhabitants; whether all trials for crimes committed there must be by jury; whether Cuba, which we have taken in the capacity of a friend or protector, for the benefit of it's peo- pie, through a war, at the outset Of which the public faith was pledged not to acquire it for ourselves by right of conquest, could, should we come at last to despair of their capacity for self government, be kept as part of the ter ritory of the United States; whether in this republic there can be settled in- habitants of civilized or semi-civilized races owing allegiance to the United States alone, but who can be regarded as subjects and not citizens-these are questions not irrevocably settled SC far as we can consult the oracles of the past, and in view of which the senate must act, in dealing with the great is sue now presented to it, as the eXecu- tive council with which the states have surrounded the president to protect their interests against any undue exer- else of executive power.
 Our constitution was made by a civ ilized and educated people. It provides guarantees of personal security whiel seem i'll adapted to the conditions of so- cety that prevail in many parts of our new possessions. To give the half-civ- ilized Moros of the Philippines, or the ignorant and lawless brigands that in fest Porto Rico, or even the ordinary Filipino of Manila, the benefit of such immunities from the sharp and sudden justice-or injustice-which they have been hitherto accustomed to expect, would, of course, be a serious obstacle to the maintenance there of an efficient government. Every people under a written constitution must experience difficulties of administration that are unknown to nations like Great Britain which are unfettered by legal restraints imposed by former generations. It is a part of the price it pays for liberty that new conditions must be dealt with, in fundamentals, under old laws.
 '"The people of the United States, when they framed this constitution for themselves and their posterity, had they contemplated a day when the executive
 might negotiate a treaty of cession em- bracing an archipelago in the waters of Asia, might have relaxed some of the restrictions which they were laying down to limit the legislative power. They might also have strengthened and multiplied them. They may now be asked to declare their will through the slow process of constitutional amend ment, but until they speak we must take the constitution as it is"