Henry Billings Brown

“ Under this power Congress may deal with territory acquired by treaty; may administer its government as it does that of the District of Columbia; it may organize a local territorial government; it may admit it as a state upon an equality with other states; it may sell its public lands to individual citizens, or may donate them as homesteads to actual settlers. In short, when once acquired by treaty, it belongs to the United States, and is subject to the disposition of Congress. ”

“ It is no infringement upon the ancient maxim of the law that consent cannot confer jurisdiction, to hold that, where a party has procured the removal of a cause from a state court upon the ground that he is lawfully entitled to a trial in a Federal court, he is estopped to deny that such removal was lawful if the Federal court could take jurisdiction of the case, or that the Federal court did not have the same right to pass upon the questions at issue that the state court would have had if the cause had remained there. ”

“ Our laws impose duties only on goods imported into the United States from some foreign port or place. If, there fore, in the case put, the importation be, in contemplation of law, an importation from the Floridas, the case is not within our laws, because at the time of the importation the Floridas were not foreign ports or places.' The learned Attorney General evidently took the view that the Floridas ceased to be a foreign country upon a delivery of possession under the treaty. ”

“ A collector, though appointed by a military commander, may be presumed to have the ordinary power of a collector under an act of Congress, with authority to grant clearances to ports within the United States, though, of course, he would have no power to make a domestic port of what was in reality a foreign port. ”

“ The consent of the people is irresistibly inferred from the fact that no civilized community could possibly desire to abrogate an existing government, when the alternative presented would be to place themselves in a state of anarchy, beyond the protection of all laws, and reduce them to the unhappy necessity of submitting to the dominion of the strongest.' These letters will be alluded to hereafter in treating of the action of the executive departments. ”

“ Gallatin, then Secretary of the Treasury, expressed the opinion that all the duties on exports, now payable at New Orleans by Spanish laws, should cease, and all articles the growth of Louisiana, which, when imported into the United States, now pay duty, should continue to pay the same, or at least such rates as would on the whole not affect the revenue. ”

“ The practice of the executive departments, thus continued for more than half a century, is entitled to great weight, and should not be disregarded nor overturned except for cogent reasons, and unless it be clear that such construction be erroneous. ”

“ As the action in this case was brought March 13, 1900, eleven days before the act was passed, the right to recover the money sued for could not be taken away by a subsequent act of Congress. Plaintiffs sue in assumpsit for money which the collector has in his hands, justly and equitably belonging to them. To say that Congress could by a subsequent act deprive them of the right to prosecute this action would be beyond its power. ”

“ A foreign country was defined by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall and Mr. Justice Story to be one exclusively within the sovereignty of a foreign nation, and without the sovereignty of the United States. The Eliza, 2 Gall. ”