Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/493

OUR NEW POSSESSIONS. 473 long as the political department finds it desirable ; and it should continue long enough to allow of the most dehberate attention to the problems involved. There is an instance, as a learned friend informs me, in South America, still continuing, of a region taken from Bolivia by Chili and held under military government, pending negotiations, for the past fifteen years. As regards permanent arrangements, we may, if we please, set up a native government, with or without a protectorate, or we may perhaps establish some other status of partial allegiance analogous to that of our tribal Indians, or we may govern them precisely as we have governed our territories heretofore. And this brings us to the question of the government of these territories, — a great, important, and ill-understood topic. Hawaii, as I said, has become a " territory." The other islands have not. What is it, to be a "territory" of the United States? It is this: It is to be a region of country belonging to the nation, and under its absolute jurisdiction and control, except as the fulness of this control may be qualified in a few particulars by the Constitution. As regards self-government and political power, a territory has no constitutional guaranties; its rights, in these respects, are what Congress or the treaty-making power thinks it well to allow. It has no right to become a State unless it shall have been so stipu- lated with the former owner when ceding it. The opinion that we can only hold territory for the purpose of nursing it into a State is merely a political theory. We have the constitutional power to do what it seems wise to do ; that matter is left wholly open to the political department. A territory may be governed directly by Con- gress, as the District of Columbia, formerly called the Territory of Columbia, now is; or it may have such portion of self-government as Congress chooses to allow it. But if any is allowed, it may all be taken away at any moment. We send out from Washington to the territories, and always have sent to them, their governors, secretaries, marshals, and judges. Their whole executive and judi- cial power is imposed upon them by the United States. They have not, always, even had legislative power; and we may and do abolish and change their laws when we please. Now observe, this is exactly the process of governing a colony. In fact these territories are, and always have been, colonies, dependencies. There is no essential difference between them and the leading colonies of England, except that England does not, and would not dare to exercise as full a control over her chief colonies