Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/327

307 CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF ANNEXATION. 307 by the Treasury Department that goods imported from Pensacola before an Act of Congress was passed erecting it into a collection district, and authorizing the appointment of a collector, were liable to duty. That is, that although Florida had, by cession, actually become a part of the United States, and was in our possession, yet, under our revenue laws, its ports must be regarded as foreign until they were established as domestic by Act of Congress ; and it appears that this decision was sanctioned at the time by the Attorney-General of the United States, the law officer of the government. And although not so directly applicable to the case before us, yet the decisions of the Treasury Department in rela- tion to Amelia Island, and certain ports in Louisiana, after that province had been ceded to the United States, were both made upon the same grounds. And in the latter case, after a custom- house had been established by law at New Orleans, the collector at that place was instructed to regard as foreign ports Baton Rouge and other settlements still in the possession of Spain, whether on the Mississippi, Iberville, or the sea-coast. The Department in no instance that we are aware of, since the estab- lishment of the government, has ever recognized a pl'ace in a newly acquired country as a domestic port, from which the coasting trade might be carried on, unless it had been previously made so by Act of Congress. "The principle thus adopted and acted upon by the executive department of the government has been sanctioned by the deci- sions in this court and the circuit courts whenever the question came before them. We do not propose to comment upon the different cases cited in the argument. It is sufficient to say that there is no discrepancy between them. And all of them, so far as they apply, maintain that tmder our revenue laws every port is regarded as a foreign one, unless the custom-house from which the vessel clears is within a collection district established by Act of Congress, and the officers granting the clearance exercise their functions under the authority and control of the laws of the United States." Conceding the highest authority and the widest significance to this passage, it contemplates merely a transitory condition, — a period between the passing of an old regime and the complete establishment of a new one under the auspices of Congress, during which administrative authority is perforce supreme. In these circumstances the President may levy customs duties in the 40