Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/332

312 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. Tampico stood to the United States while it was occupied by their arms did not depend upon the laws of nations, but upon our own Constitution and acts of Congress. The power of the President under which Tampico and the State of Tamaulipas were conquered and held in subjection was simply that of a military commander prosecuting a war waged against a public enemy by the authority of his government. And the country from which these goods were imported was invaded and subdued, and occupied as the ter- ritory of a foreign hostile nation, as a portion of Mexico, and was held in possession in order to distress and harass the enemy. While it was occupied by our troops, they were in an enemy's country, and not in their own ; the inhabitants were still foreigners and enemies, and owed to the United States nothing more than the submission and obedience, sometimes called temporary allegiance, which is due from a conquered enemy, when he surrenders to a force which he is unable to resist. But the boundaries of the United States, as they existed when war was declared against Mexico, were not extended by the conquest; nor could they be regulated by the varying incidents of war, and be enlarged or diminished as the armies on either side advanced or retreated. They remained unchanged. And every place which was out of the limits of the United States, as previously established by the political authorities of the government, was still foreign; nor did our laws extend over it." A provisional control assumed by the President during a bel- ligerent occupation may last until the end of the war, and if the territory does not then revert to its former sovereign, may be pro- longed until a normal government shall be established. This provisional control may continue by the sufferance of Con- gress after the territory has been annexed to the United States. For example, Congress never organized a government for Califor- nia, but permitted the government instituted by the President during our hostile occupation to continue after the cession of the territory and until the State of California was admitted. The Supreme Court said in this relation : — "The government of which Colonel Mason was the executive had its origin in the lawful exercise of a beUigerent right over a conquered territory. It had been instituted during the war by the command of the President of the United States. It was the gov- ernment when the territory was ceded as a conquest, and it did not cease as a matter of course or as a necessary consequence of the