Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/503

OUR NEW POSSESSIONS. 483 II. So far I have pointed out two things: First, that we no longer have before us the question of whether we will take on extra-continental colonies or not. We actually have them now. Our real question is what to do with them. And, second, as pre- liminary to the question what we shall do with them, I have been considering what is the compass of our power. I have pointed out that after the ratification of the treaty, we shall still have absolute power to determine what the political relation of the Spanish islands to us shall be, and so the scope of our govern- mental control over them ; and that if they should be annexed, so as to be identified, in status, with the territories, we shall still have full power to deal with them, subject only to any applicable re- straints of the Constitution of the United States; so that we may govern these extra-continental dependencies as we have in fact, ever since the beginning of our nation, governed our continental colonies, namely, the territories and the District of Columbia. And I have shown how it is that we have acquired and governed these, namely, in a manner which nearly corresponds to the method of England in governing her freest colonies; only more stringent and less free. I may add that the restraints of the Constitution would probably be found less embarrassing in governing a barbarous or semi- barbarous people than might at first sight be thought; just as they have been found not seriously to interfere with the carrying on of war with rebellious States. That instrument was made, and is to be read and applied, in the atmosphere of the common law and of the law of nations ; and with a constant tacit reference to that accumulation of principles and maxims of sound reason and good sense which temper all applications of it to actual affairs. When our own people, owing allegiance, will not be governed as they should be, they may still be governed somehow ; and under the Constitution they may be governed as it is necessary to govern them, according to the actual circumstances of the case. They cannot throw off the authority of the nation ; they must accept it in such form as is practicable under the circumstances that they themselves create. Let me add, in order to prevent a possible mis- understanding, that in matters of substance the restraints of the Constitution will not often be felt as restraints in the government of colonies by a civilized nation in modern times. Such a nation, like England, is hkely to restrain itself within narrower lines than the Constitution requires, from mere policy, and from its own sense of humanity and justice. 63