Territorial legislature

“ The Territory should be divided into at least two districts, and an additional judge, district attorney, marshal, and other appropriate officers be provided.
There is practically no organized form of government in the Territory. There is no authority, except in Congress, to pass any law, no matter how local or trivial, and the difficulty of conveying to the Congress an adequate conception and understanding of the various needs of the people in the different communities is easily understood. I see no reason why a more complete form of Territorial organization should not be provided. ”

“ The Constitutions of almost every State provide that it shall be districted from time to time by the legislature for the purpose of electing certain officers or local representatives, and that this shall be so done as to make the districts as nearly equal in population as conveniently may be, and composed of contiguous territory. ”

“ However, where the exercising of a power requires the combined action of several territorial communities, one of those communities or one of their associations may be authorised by statute to organise such combined action. In the territorial communities of the Republic, the State representative, representing each of the Members of the Government, shall be responsible for national interests, administrative supervision and compliance with the law. ”

“ Each district shall contain a population, excluding nonresident military personnel, as nearly equal as practicable to the population of any other district. To the extent reasonable, each district shall contain contiguous territory, shall be compact and convenient, and shall be separated from adjoining districts by natural geographic barriers, artificial barriers, or political subdivision boundaries. The commission's plan shall not provide for a number of legislative districts different than that established by the legislature. ”

“ For all the new States composed territory belonging, or chiefly so to the federal government, the Congress of the United States became the local legislature, that is to say, in the place of a local legislature in all the legislation that relates to the primary disposition of the soil. ”

“ The national laws require that all congressional districts within a state shall be approximately equal in population and that they shall be composed of contiguous territory. Apart from these restrictions, the state legislatures are free to map out the districts as they see fit and they do this, very frequently, with an eye to gaining advantage for the political party which happens to control the legislature. ”

“ Places containing a large and close population need a different government from that of ordinary towns or townships. Many of the laws regulating the affairs of towns thinly inhabited, are not suited to a place where many thousand persons are closely settled. Besides, the electors in such a place would be too numerous to meet in a single assembly for the election of officers or the transaction of other public business.
§2. Whenever, therefore, the inhabitants of any place become so numerous as to require a city government, they petition the legislature for a law incorporating them into a city. ”

“ It shall have the power to form state, territorial, or district councils, and to grant dispensations for the formation of such bodies, when five subordinate councils shall have been put in operation in any state, territory, or district, and application made. ”

“ The formula adopted in an Act of Congress organizing a Territory, is "An Act to provide a provisional government, etc., etc., etc." In course of time, no doubt, all the Territories will be admitted as States, as the territorial form of government is not provided for as a permanency by the Constitution, and is moreover anomalous in the American system. The people residing in the Territories are to a considerable extent disfranchised politically, and are not, in fact, full-fledged American citizens. ”

“ That the Government of a Territory organized by an Act of Congress, is provisional and temporary; and, during its existence, all citizens of the United States have an equal right to settle with their property in the Territory, without their rights, either of person or property, being destroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial Legislation ”

“ That nothing contained in the said Constitution is to be construed to prevent the legislature of any state from passing laws at its discretion, from time to time, to divide such state into convenient districts, and to apportion its representatives to and amongst such districts. ”

“ Good municipal institutions should be established.The establishment of a good system of municipal institutions throughout these Provinces is a matter of vital importance. A general legislature, which manages the private business of every parish, in addition to the common business of the country, wields a power which no single body, however popular in its constitution, ought to have ”

“ Two wants are now felt: roads, or at least paths from house to house, from hamlet to market town, and a school-house for the multiplying children. There is no strong central authority to provide these things, but the settlers meet and vote to tax themselves. The services of a supervisor, collector, clerk, constable and justice of the peace are required." [1] This is the beginning of the township and county. As population increases, other wants arise which only a stronger government can supply. A territorial, and then a State government are consequently formed. ”

“ Congress can endow territorial governments and municipal corporations with legislative powers, as the possession of such powers for certain purposes of local administration is indispensable to their existence. ”

“ In fact, the principal reason for an isolated legislative body is that the sentiments of the different localities may be expressed in legislation. The practical result is that 95 per cent of our city governments are based upon ward representation, nor can an instance be cited in all American political theory which shows the creation of a successful political organization based upon an isolated legislative body in which there has not been an accompanying representation by territorial districts. ”

“ Instead of that, the constant practice is to divide large municipalities and to consolidate small ones, or set off portions of territory from one and annex it to another, to meet the wishes of the residents or to promote the public interests as understood by the legislature,-it being everywhere understood that the legislature possesses the power to make such alterations and to apportion the common property and burdens as to them may seem just and equitable. ”

“ That the state legislature may itself be properly apportioned does not exempt subdivisions from the Fourteenth Amendment. While state legislatures exercise extensive power over their constituents and over the various units of local government, the States universally leave much policy and decisionmaking to their governmental subdivisions. Legislators enact many laws but do not attempt to reach those countless matters of local concern necessarily left wholly or partly to those who govern at the local level. ”

“ Each state has the right to make political subdivisions of its territory for municipal purposes, and to regulate their local government. As respects the administration of justice, it may establish one system of courts for cities and another for rural districts, one system for one portion of its territory, and another system for another portion. ”

“ As to the territories, it is said to be all legislative power—all that any parliament ever had or ever claimed to have, and as much more as we may claim—for there can be no excess of pretension where power is absolute. No law relating to the territories, passed by congress, can, it is said, be declared by the supreme court to be inoperative, though every section of it should contravene a provision of the constitution. ”

“ A coalescence of the people into bodies politic in territorial areas now became complete.
The territorial series enters into the plan of government of modern civilized nations. Among ourselves, for example, we have the township, the county, the state, and the United States; the inhabitants of each of which are an organized body politic with powers of local self-government. Each organization is in full vitality and performs its functions within a definite sphere in which it is supreme. ”

“ Our decision today is only that the Constitution imposes one ground rule for the development of arrangements of local government: a requirement that units with general governmental powers over an entire geographic area not be apportioned among single-member districts of substantially unequal population. ”

“ That body may place one part of the state under one municipal organization, and another part of the state under another organization of an entirely different character. These are matters of a purely local nature, in respect to which, the federal constitution does not limit the power of the state. 'Whether territory shall be governed for local purposes by a county, a city, or a township organization, is one of the most usual and ordinary subjects of state legislation.' Kelly v. ”

“ The Territories Clause provides without qualification that " [t] he Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States." U.S.C.onst., Art. IV, § 3, cl. 2. An unincorporated Territory "exists at the behest of Congress. By a simple vote of the Congress, the Organic Act under which the unincorporated territory exists may be repealed and the limited self government which it enjoys nullified." ”

“ The power of congress to legislate for the territories is full. That is, there is no legislative power elsewhere than in congress, but it is not absolute. The contention is that all the powers of congress are derived from the constitution—including the power to legislate for the territories— and that such legislation must necessarily, always and everywhere, be subject to the limitations of the constitution. ”

“ Only by slow degrees does the notion of territorial membership arise and make good its claim to legal recognition. Gradually the government and the laws cease to be exclusively national and personal, and become in part territorial also. ”

“ In the conditions determined by an Institutional Act, draft decisions or acts within the powers of a territorial community may, on the initiative of the latter, be submitted for a decision by voters of said community by means of a referendum When the creation of a special-status territorial community or modification of its organisation are contemplated, a decision may be taken by statute to consult the voters registered in the relevant communities. Voters may also be consulted on changes to the boundaries of territorial communities in the conditions determined by statute. ”

“ The counties, with their chief cities, should be so many little independent communities, each with its legislative council, its law-courts, and its other institutions, employing and tasking the political energies and abilities of the citizens or inhabitants of the district. ”

“ The provincial council was for the whole state; the district committee for the safety of each district, and the county and town committees for each county and town.
It was through the thought, loyalty and enduring bravery of the men who constituted these committees, that we of today have a constitution that gives us "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"—in whatever manner pleases us, so long as it does not trespass on another's well being.
We do not give half the honor we should to our ancestry, who have done so much for us! ”

“ When an application by a Territory for Statehood is made, it is considered by Congress, and, if approved, the inhabitants of the Territory are authorized to form for themselves out of such Territory a State government, and thus prepare themselves for admission into the Union. ”

“ No set of standards can guide a court which has to decide how many legislative districts a State shall have, or what the shape of the districts shall be, or where to draw a particular district line. No judicially manageable standard can determine whether a State should have single member districts or multi-member districts or some combination of both. No such standard can control the balance between keeping up with population shifts and having stable districts. ”

“ The next subject in order of importance should be the organization of government in the larger administrative divisions corresponding to counties, departments, or provinces, in which the common interests of many or several municipalities falling within the same tribal lines, or the same natural geographical limits, may best be subserved by a common administration. ”

“ Where the township government is strong, as in New England, it takes the place of county government. Where people live in cities, they look to the city government to serve them rather than to the county government. In rural districts the people have come more and more to look to the state and national governments for such service as they expect government to give. ”