The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-11-16
SENATOR MORGAN ON
HPAN'S CONTENTION
California Has Constitutional Right TO Separate Japanese, Chin.
csc, Indians and Negroes From Her Citizens in
Public Schools,

making power it, is like all other pow
ers, a trust power, delegated TO the
government for the great objects
named in the preamble Of the constitu-
ton and implied in the other clauses
of that instrument. 1t can not De so
exercised as to defeat the purposes of
the constitution.
While a treaty may make peace, it
can not make peace upon terms which
would surrender a state of the union
TO a foreign power, nor make inva-
sion of a state by a foreign power law
full, in the face of the duty of the
United States to protect every state
against invasion; o to dissolve the
union; nor to change the constitution
itself; nor to divest the states Of pow
ers reserved to each by the tenth
amendment to the constitution; nor to
deny the essential rights Of liberty Sc
cured by it's express terms to its people,
as in respect Of the habeas corpus, bills
Of a%ttainder and the like.
at has been Ocntended over and
over again in the senate that it can
not be held with any show of reason
that these limitations upon Legislative
power, imposed on the United States
MS a governmental corporate being
can be set at naught by q treaty.
Such a construction of the constitution
would be contrary to the whole frame
work of the system. 1t has been said
that as q treaty is a compact between
two nations, it must abrOgate al. acts
of either contrary to its terms. This
| proposition has been met in the senate
with the reply that it is only r u
when the compact is complete and per
feet, and hat if it is ultra wires or
inchOate. needing any other act TO
complete its binding efficacy, it is petit
ito principii to claim that a treaty
which may need legislation in order TO
bind the nation is a compact, which
needs o n and which abrOgate6 Ill
laws repugnant to it.
"a treaty, it is commended, binds
each nation only when by its lawful
authority, and it is extremely doubt
full whether the power existed to pro
vide by treaty that the japanese should
be accorded rights in California con
trary to the laws of that state. If a
treaty has any operation to supercedc
legislative action Or cOnstraln it. Il
would follow that by treaty a state
might be admitted into the union
when congress alone has that power
The treaty between the United States
and Texas did not propose to make
her a member of the union, and The
admission was made by the action OF
congress.
Congress has power to naturalizt
foreigners. A treaty could not do Sc
contrary to the will Of congress. The
same is true as to bankruptcy, patents
copyrights, coinage of money. TIL
army and navy, the postal service ant
exclusive legislation in the District o
Columbia, where congress has provided
a public school system which separates
the whites from the blacks and place
them in different schools.
eff a contract may be. made witt
a foreign nation as to all OF thes'
subjects which is obligatory on III
United States, then it is cOntended
in opposition to the Root doctrine
that it would naturally follow that for
eign intervention in all our lnterna
concerns may supersede under treat
stipulations all the powers Of congress
intrusted to it by the constitution
"The same results would also fOlloV
as to the powers of the president an
the judiciary. which might then, to-
be ~subOrdinated by treaty to the su
preme control Of foreign nation
through the action Of the treaty-mAb
ing power, under this construction
Treaties might usurp the PRESIDENT;
chair and the bench Of the judge.