Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-303_6khn.pdf
Page Number: 26

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

3 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

Foraker Act, Congress erected a civil government in Puerto
Rico and imposed a tax on goods exported to, or imported 
from, the new Territory.  See Act of Apr. 12, 1900, ch. 191, 
§§ 2–3, 31 Stat. 77–78.  After incurring a $659.35 tax bill, 
an  importer  challenged  the  Act  as  inconsistent  with  the 
Constitution’s Tax Uniformity Clause, which provides that
“all Duties, Imposts, and Excises shall be uniform through-
out the United States.”  Art. I, § 8, cl. 1; Downes, 182 U. S., 
at 247, 249. 

To  answer  the  question  whether  the  Act  complied  with 
the Constitution, the Court resolved that it first had to de-
cide whether the Constitution applied at all in Puerto Rico. 
Ultimately, a fractured set of opinions emerged.  Employing
arguments  similar  to  those  advanced  by  Professors  Lang-
dell and Thayer, Justice Brown saw things in the starkest 
terms.  Applying the Constitution made sense in “contigu-
ous territor[ies] inhabited only by people of the same race,
or by scattered bodies of native Indians.”  Id., at 282.  But 
it would not do for islands “inhabited by alien races, differ-
ing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation,
and modes of thought.”  Id., at 287.  There, Justice Brown 
contended, “the administration of government and justice, 
according to Anglo-Saxon principles, may for a time be im-
possible.”  Ibid.  On his view, the Constitution should reach 
Puerto Rico only if and when Congress so directed.  Id., at 
279. 

Justice White offered a different theory that drew on Pro-
fessor Lowell’s thinking.  See Developments in the Law—
The  U. S.  Territories,  130  Harv.  L. Rev.  1616,  1617–1620 
(2017).  To Justice White, the Constitution’s application de-
pended on “the situation of the territory and its relations to
the United States.”  Downes, 182 U. S., at 293 (concurring 
opinion).  In some cases, Congress might express an inten-
tion to “incorporate” a Territory into the United States at a 
future date; in a Territory like that the Constitution must
apply  fully  and  immediately.  Id.,  at  339.  But  in  other