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404 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. made in the mode of statement. In 1850, the court considered the letter as well as the spirit of the Constitution to have a con- troUing force. In 1884 what is to be implied or derived from its spirit is treated as the main if not the only source of restraint. This mode of expression may have been adopted in order to leave the way open to hold, should occasion arise, that the United States could not lawfully acquire territory to hold permanently or for an indefinite period as a dependent province or colony. If, however, it means what it seems to declare, and is of general appHcation, then the utterance of Taney on this point seems intrinsically en- titled to the most respect. That is in line with what Chief Justice Marshall said in the great case of Cohens against Virginia,^ in dis- cussing the not dissimilar power of Congress to legislate for the District of Columbia, and meeting the objection that such legis- lation had simply a local effect. "Congress," he observed, "is not a local legislature, but exercises this particular power, like aU its other powers, in its high character as the legislature of the Union. The American people thought it a necessary power, and they con- ferred it for their own benefit. Being so conferred, it carries with it all those incidental powers which are necessary to its complete and effectual execution. Whether any particular law be designed to operate without the district or not, depends on the words of that law. If it be designed so to operate, then the question, whether the power so exercised be incidental to the power of exclusive legis- lation, and be warranted by the Constitution, requires a considera- tion of that instrument. In such cases the Constitution and the law must be compared and construed." Any other construction leaves the rights of the citizen too much at the will of the judiciary, and ignores the natural meaning of our bill of rights.^ The main privileges and immunities guaranteed by the amendments to the Constitution, which serve that office, are shared by every foreigner who may be found within our jurisdic- tion.^ They must then certainly be the heritage of every settled inhabitant of the land. Such is their force in every organized Territory by Act of Congress (Revised Statutes, Section 1891) and I beheve it to be the same in every unorganized territory ' 6 Wheaton, 264. ^ See Pomeroy, Constitutional Law, § 498; Cooley, Principles of Constitutional Law, 36. ' Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U. S. 228, 238, 239, 242.