Text of the Treaty of Peace: Northwest Territory and Constitution

It does not follow that because Spain has yielded her sovereignty Congress has unlimited sovereign powers. Congress has no powers whatsoever derived from any other source than the Constitution. It does not derive any additional powers from internal law or from "the fact that the United States is a sovereign nation," or from the fact that the exercise of such power may be deemed necessary in order to carry out the policy of a particular administration.

Ex-President Harrison took this or a substantially similar position in public address.

Replying on the general question, Attorney-General Griggs reviewed the action of the framers of the Constitution in dealing with the territory belonging to the United States.

He showed that when the Constitution was framed the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory had been in effect three years; that the first Congress ratified that ordinance with modifications, only providing that reports should be made to the President instead of to Congress, and that appointments should be made by the President. It was not until 1790 that North Carolina ceded to the United States the territory not forming a part of North Carolina but belonging to North Carolina. This cession was made by a deed containing stipulations which were accepted by Congress in an act. One of these stipulations was that the government should be executed not in accordance with the Constitution of the United States but in accordance with the Constitution of the United States but in accordance with the government established for the Northwest Territory.

Mr. Griggs then quoted Thomas Benton's historical and legal examination of the Dred Scot case, in which Mr. Benton, referring to the history of the formation of the Constitution, showed that at no time were "Territories" referred to as parts of the United States, but always as property of the States, to be managed and dealt with accordingly. The laws, the administration, and the revenue of the Territories are subject to the absolute control of Congress, which may repeal the whole form of government existing in a Territory, may destroy the Legislature, vacate all the offices, and take over all the public funds and absorb them into the common treasury. It may appropriate out of the Federal Treasury all the money necessary to carry on a Territorial government, omitting all local taxation.

"Has Congress the right to go so far as to decree non-intercourse with a territorial possession?" asked Justice Harlan.

"Yes," replied the Attorney-General, who went on to show that Congress had repeatedly done so, by setting off parts of territory belonging to the United States as Indian reservations, and that in the case of the Prybiloff Islands a line has been drawn around them and they had been made a government reservation to which no one could go without a license from the government.

Taking up the argument of the appellants as to the rule of uniformity of taxation, the Attorney-General pointed out that if the rule applied to tariff taxation in the territory belonging to the United States it applied as well to the internal revenue laws. Aside from the obvious practical impossibility of extending the internal revenue laws of the United States to the newly acquired insular possessions, he claimed that if the contention of the appellants was correct the Porto Rican law had operated to render the whole body of internal revenue laws of the United States void by destroying the uniformity required by the Constitution.

The Attorney-General denied that an act of the treaty-making power conferring vested vested rights on individuals could be repealed by act of Congress. He contended that territories must be governed differently according to different conditions.

The decision of the Supreme Court in the Neely extradition case should be noted in this connection. It is given in the pages dealing with Cuba, following this.