Text of the Treaty of Peace: Porto Rico and Constitution

"As a matter of fact, free Porto Rican sugar and tobacco will not greatly disturb the market, if the entire crop comes in free. The island's export of sugar is to our production of cane and sorghum sugar as one to six; and its export of tobacco as one to one hundred and eighty-two. As to the tobacco, it is very different from that which is raised in this country; and if we get it we shall manufacture it and send much of it back to Porto Rico in that form. Formerly the bulk of the crop went to Cuba to be made into cigars. Our farmers will not be hurt by allowing Porto Rican produce to come in free. They were not hurt when Oklahoma was opened to extensive agriculture."

The question whether or not the legislation of 1900 made Porto Rico an integral part of the United States came before the Supreme court in the form of a group of commercial cases which turned on points testing the validity of the new colonial policy.

The first case was the suit of De Lima & Co., New York, sugar brokers, who imported sugar from Porto Rico during the latter half of 1899 and were made to pay duty thereon. In this case the duty was paid under the tariff fixed by the President after the signing of the treaty of peace. It does not bring into question the constitutionality of the civil government law in any respect, but merely the broad general question as to whether the Island of Porto Rico became an integral part of the United States upon the ratification of the treaty of peace.

This firm sued Collector Bidwell of New York to recover the duties. The case was dismissed in the lower court on a demurrer and from this an appeal went to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Counsel contended that while the form of the government in territory belonging to the United States might be either military or civil, the territory is for that reason none the less a part of the United States, and therefore, according to the Constitution, the duties must be uniform throughout. They must be kept so uniform throughout the United States, and it is a matter of entire indifference under what particular form of government any portion of the United States may be. It was further claimed that the Constitution strictly limited Congress, and the President as well, so that neither of them could lay duties between the mainland and the Island of Porto Rico any more than either, or both of them, could lay duties between the District of Columbia and Virginia, and he closed with the declaration that if it was desirable to change this state of affairs, the only possible method of procedure would be by the people themselves, who have it in their power to amend the Constitution, and who could, if they so desired, relax some of the limitations they had themselves for their own protection put upon the power of the general government. It was further agreed that it had been sufficiently demonstrated that the term United States had been meant by the framers of the Constitution to include both States and Territories, or the entire outlying domain, under the jurisdiction of the United States, and that the Constitution itself showed that the term was used in this sense in the clause regarding the uniformity of taxation. Chief Justice Marshall so interpreted it as the equivalent of "the great American empire," and this meaning is the ordinary and general one in which the term is understood not only by American citizens but by people throughout the world. The American nation is sovereign. It can go where it wishes, act where it wishes, acquire territory where it wishes, treat inhabitants as it wishes, and its powers are only limited by the physical force which may be brought to bear against it by other sovereigns.

But the government is not sovereign. The great salient fact, which those who contend for the government's position now do not recognize, is that the people of the United States are sovereign and that the government is not, which is the great fact that distinguishes the constitutional law from that of most of the civilized nations of Europe. It did not make the United States a crippled nation, as the Attorney-General suggested, but a nation which has permanently protected itself against usurpations against its own agents.

In another of these test cases Ex-Secretary Carlisle appeared in support of the following contentions:

First, at all time since of the ratification of the treaty Porto Rico has been a part of the United States.

Second, as a consequence of the treaty the entire sovereignty over Porto Rico has become vested in the United States, but the executive and legislative departments of the Federal government have only such power in relation to Porto Rico as is granted to them by the Constitution.

Third, the President had not the power, under the Constitution, to make or enforce the order of January 20, 1899, in so far as it imposed duties upon articles brought into Porto Rico from other parts of the United States.

Fourth, Congress had not the power, under the Constitution, to impose the taxes or duties provided by the act of April 12, 1900, upon articles of merchandise brought into Porto Rico from other parts of the United States or into other parts of the United States or into other parts of the United States from Porto Rico. The second point, relating to sovereignty, is elaborated as follows: