Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/325

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF ANNEXA TION. 305 The Philippine islanders are, and are likely to remain, unfit for statehood. Indeed, their inferior estate is admitted by the plea that we should embrace them because they are not fit even to govern themselves. Nor can we look forward to the peopling of the islands by Americans, for, whatever may be meant by the warning that " our frontiers are gone," and that we must provide land for " sur- plus population," the Philippines offer no inducements to American home-seekers. But it is argued that the Philippine project is in line with previous annexations which commit us to the proposition that statehood is not the necessary objective of annexed territory. This argument is worthless, and its illustrations are unimportant. It is true that New Mexico and Arizona are not yet States, but the anticipation of statehood in which their domain was acquired will one day be realized. The purchase of Alaska was theoretically a deliberate departure from a sound rule, but it was in line with a policy approving the withdrawal of European sovereignty from America, and, after all, the republic is not actually prejudiced by holding a sparsely peopled territory that will probably become a veritable waste when the fur-bearing animals are exterminated and the gold is carried away. The acquisition of Hawaii was precipi- tated by the very war that has provoked the Philippine project, to which it is too closely related to serve as a precedent ; and, besides, the citizens in Hawaii may yet acquire a constitutional right of self-government by the incorporation of the islands with a Pacific State. As for the guano islet of Navassa, which appertains to the United States, we may decline to perceive a likeness between lighting on a vacant manure heap and seizing one of the greatest of archipelagoes. II. The disclaimer of any intention of carving new States out of the Philippines, whatever it may be worth, is not sufficient to render annexation palatable. It is supplemented by the announcement that the Constitution covers the States only, and that the Philip- pines can be ruled with a free hand. A readiness to rule the Philippines arbitrarily is an unseemly feature of the annexation programme, not mitigated by the promise that justice and mercy will temper force. It will be recalled that a strong objection to the original Constitution was the lack of a Bill of Rights, and that the omission was rectified by the adoption of the first ten amendments. Can it be said that these amendments are