Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/433

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413
HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
413

GOVERNMENT OF ISLAND TERRITORY. 413 "In one sense, the term sovereign has for its correlative, subject. In this sense, the term can receive no application; for it has no object in the Constitution of the United States. Under that Constitution there are citizens, but no subjects. 'Citizen of the United States.' 'Citizens of another State.' 'Citizens of different States.' 'A State or citizen thereof.' The term subject occurs, indeed, once in the instrument; but to mark the contrast strongly, the epithet 'foreign' is prefixed." ^ In respect to the mode of trial for crimes committed in Puerto Rico and the Philippines, should they be annexed and civil govern- ment established there by Act of Congress, I think it probable though not certain that a jury would be indispensable. Article IV, Section 2, declares expressly that "the Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury," and this wsls clearly intended to embrace those committed outside of any State. But this provision is contained in a section dealing exclusively with the subjects of judicial power particularly granted. It is S3ttled (whether logically or illogically) that the courts of Terri- tories do not exercise the power thus conferred. Congress finds its warrant for them in quite different parts of the Constitution, and it is a sufficient warrant for investing them with jurisdiction over every kind of act against the peace of the United States which the laws of the United States may forbid. True, jurisdiction of similar extent may be and has been given under this particular section to the regular courts of the United States; but the source of power under which the different tribunals act is different. The source of power for the ordinary courts gives it with a limitation in favor of trial by jury. The source of power for territorial courts might, I think, be read as giving it with no such limitation. While this would give rather a strict construction to the constitutional guaranty, it would be quite in line with that which the Supreme Court has as- signed to other provisions hardly less important, such as that secur- ing the tenure of judicial office during good behavior. The court, however, made a decision a few years since, which tends strongly in the opposite direction. A man was convicted of a misdemeanor, in the police court of the District of Columbia, upon a trial before the Judge, after a demand for a jury had been refused. He sought relief, by a writ of habeas corpus, from con- finement under the sentence. The Act of Congress, passed under its authority "to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases what-

  • 2 Dallas, 419, 456.