Benjamin Harrison

“ How would the pioneers of the West have regarded a declaration that they were not citizens of the United States, or a duty laid upon the furs they sent to the states, or upon the salt and gunpowder sent from the states in exchange, even if a preference of 85 per cent, had been given them over the people of Canada? It is safe to say that no such interpretation of the constitution or of the rights of the people of a territory, will ever be offered to men of American descent. ”

“ Is it not likely to be true that the moral tone of the republic —our estimation of constitutional liberty—will be lessened by the creation of a body of civilized people over whom our flag waves as an emblem of power only? ”

“ But do we not incur a greater loss and peril from the new doctrine, that our congress and executive have powers not derived from the constitution, and are subject to no restraints or limitations in the territories, save such as they may impose upon themselves?
Are the civil rights of the dwellers on the mainland well secured against the insidiousness of greed and ambition, while we deny to the island dwellers, who are held to a strict allegiance, the only sure defense that civil rights can have—the guarantees of constitutional law? ”

“ When the constitution says that "treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort," there is a limitation of the legislative power; and it necessarily extends to every venue where the crime of treason against the United States may be laid, and to every person upon whom its penalties may be imposed. ”

“ God forbid that the day should ever come when, in the American mind, the thought of man as a "consumer" shall submerge the old American thought of man as a creature of God, endowed with "unalienable rights." ”

“ If the court shall hold that the constitution, in the parts not in themselves inapplicable, covers all territory made a permanent part of our domain, from the moment of annexation and as a necessary part of the United States, then we will conform our legislation, with deep regret that we assumed a construction contrary to liberty, and with some serious embarrassments that might have been avoided. ”

“ For we are convinced, beyond a doubt, that a system of dependence which leaves no security to the people for any part of their freedom in their own hands, can not be established in any inferior member of the British empire without consequently destroying the freedom of that very body in favor of whose boundless pretensions such a scheme is adopted. We know and feel that arbitrary power over distant regions is not within the competence, nor to be exercised agreeably to the forms or consistently with the spirit, of great popular assemblies. ”

“ If the act of annexation does not carry the constitution into a territory, I can think of nothing that will, save the act of admitting the territory as a state. The situation of the Porto Rican people is scarcely less mortifying to us than to them; they owe allegiance but have no citizenship. Have we not spoiled our career as a delivering nation? ”

“ No one contends that every provision of the constitution applies to the territories. Some of them explicitly relate to the states only. The contention of those who oppose the Porto Rican legislation is that all of those general provisions of the constitution which impose limitations upon the powers of the legislative, executive and judicial departments must apply to all regions and people where or upon whom those powers are exercised. And, on the other hand, those who deny most broadly that the constitution applies to the territories seem practically to allow that much of it does. ”

“ We are however, not only at liberty, but under a duty, to take account also of the quality and disposition of the people, and we have in one or two instances done so. The written constitution prescribes no rule for these cases. The question whether the United States shall hold conquered territory, or territory acquired by cession, without the consent of the people to be affected, is quite apart from the question whether, having acquired and incorporated such territory, we can govern it otherwise than under the limitations of the constitution. ”

“ If Great Britain, with her accepted methods of territorial growth, finds the problem of growth by expansion increasingly hard, it will be harder for us, for we are fettered by our traditions as to popular rights, at least—if not by our constitution. ”

“ When a man strictly limits the powers of an agent of his own choice, and exacts a bond from him, to secure his faithfulness, he does not occupy strong ground when he insists that another person, who had no part in the selection, shall give the agent full powers without a bond.
If there is anything that is characteristic in American constitutions, state and national, it is the plan of limiting the powers of all public officers and agencies. ”

“ There has been with many a mistaken apprehension that, if the constitution, of its own force, extends to Porto Rico and the Philippines, and gives American citizenship to their free civilized people, they become endowed with full political rights ”

“ If the absolute power of congress is affirmed, we shall probably use the power with discrimination by "extending" the constitution to Porto Rico and by giving to its people a full territorial form of government, and such protection in their civil rights as an act of congress can give. ”

“ Liberty was a divine gift to be claimed for ourselves only upon the condition of allowing it to "all men." They would write the law of liberty truly, and suffer for a time the just reproach of a departure from its precepts that could not be presently amended. ”

“ The man whose property may be taxed arbitrarily, without regard to uniformity within the tax district and without any limitation as to the purposes for which taxes may be levied, does not own anything; he is a tenant at will.
But if these supposed "laws of our civilization" are not enforcible by the courts, and rest wholly for their sanction upon the consciences of presidents and congresses, then there is a very wide difference. The one is ownership; the other is charity. The one is freedom; the other slavery—however just and kind the master may be. ”

“ The president's instructions apparently proceed upon the theory that the Filipinos, after civil government has superseded the military control, are not endowed under our constitution, or otherwise, with any of the rights scheduled by him; that, if he does nothing, is silent, some or all of the things prohibited in his schedule may be lawfully done upon, and all the things allowed may be denied to, a people who owe allegiance to that free constitutional government we call the United States of America. ”

“ Some one must determine when and how far the people of a territory, part of our national domain, can be entrusted with governing powers of a local nature, and when the broader powers of statehood shall be conferred. ”

“ That we give back to Porto Rico all of the revenue derived from the customs we levy, does not seem to me to soften our dealings with her people. Our fathers were not mollified by the suggestion that the tea and stamp taxes would be expended wholly for the benefit of the colonies. It is to say: We do not need this money; it is only levied to show that your country is no part of the United States, and that you are not citizens of the United States, save at our pleasure. ”

“ Any person in Porto Rico, in civil life, may be put upon trial for capital or other infamous crimes upon the information of the public prosecutor, without the presentment or indictment of a grand jury; may be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense; may be compelled to be a witness against himself, and may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and his property may be taken for public uses without compensation. ”

“ The islands of Hawaii, of Porto Rico and of the Philippine archipelago have been taken over, not for a temporary purpose, as in the case of Cuba, but to have and to hold forever, as a part of the region over which the sovereignty of the United States extends. We have not put ourselves under any pledge as to them, at least not of a written sort. ”

“ It can not be admitted that the king of Spain could by treaty, or otherwise, impart to the United States any of his royal prerogatives; and much less can it be admitted that they have capacity to receive or power to exercise them. ”

“ It is contended, by most of those who defend the Porto Rican bill, that the constitution expends itself wholly upon that part of the national domain that has been organized into states, and has no reference to, or authority in, the territories, save as it has constituted a government to rule over them. ”

“ He thinks it like a bicycle, which must fall when it comes to a standstill. It is an awkward result of this doctrine that when there is no more room for expansion, and a time must come, perhaps soon, when there will be no more room, the empire will begin to decline. ”

“ This constitutional provision defining the crime of treason and prescribing the necessary proofs is a bill of rights provision. In England, under Edward II, "there was," it was said, "no man who knew how to behave himself, to do, speak or say, for doubt of the pains of such treasons." The famous statute of Edward III, defining treasons, James Wilson declares, "may well be styled the legal Gibraltar of England." ”

“ The courts may not refuse to give to the explicit words of a law their natural meaning, because of the ill consequences that may follow; but they may well take account of consequences in construing doubtful phrases, and resolve the doubts so as to save the purpose of the law-makers, where, as in the case of the constitutional provision we are considering, that purpose is well known. ”

“ But expansion is not necessarily of a healthy sort; it may be dropsical. If judgment is passed now, the attempted conquest of the Boer republics has not strengthened Great Britain. She has not gained esteem. She has not increased her loyal population. She has created a need for more outlying garrisons—already too numerous. She has strained her military and financial resources, and has had a revelation of the need of larger armies and stronger coast-defenses at home. The recent appeal of Lord Salisbury at the lord mayor's banquet for more complete island defenses is more significant. ”

“ The fact that a treaty must be constitutional, as well as an act of congress, seems to have been overlooked by those who refer to the treaty of cession as giving congress the right to govern the people of Porto Rico, who do not retain their Spanish allegiance, according to its pleasure. ”

“ If the constitution leaves the question open whether the inhabitants of Porto Rico shall or shall not upon annexation become citizens, then the president and the senate may exercise that discretion by a treaty stipulation that they shall or shall not be admitted as citizens ”

“ We have taken over peoples rather than lands, and these chiefly of other race stocks—for there are "diversities of tongues." The native labor is cheap and threatens competition, and there is a total absence of American ideas and methods of life and government among the eight or more millions of inhabitants in the Philippines. ”

“ The necessity for this radical departure from the established practice of the government seems to have been to find a safe basis for the holding and governing of regions, the free introduction of whose products might affect the home industries unfavorably, and the admission of whose people to citizenship might imply future statehood—or at least the right of migration and settlement in the states of an undesirable population. ”

“ We have, for the most part, in our history given promptly to the people of the territories a large measure of local government, and have, when the admission of a state was proposed, thought only of boundaries and population. ”

“ We have now acquired insular regions, situated in the tropics, and in another hemisphere, and hence unsuitable for American settlers, even if they were not, as they are, already populated, and their lands already largely taken up. ”