Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/429

409 GOVERNMENT OF ISLAND TERRITORY. 409 Statutes relating to that subject (Sections 1859, i860). Can we properly leave the restriction upon the States, and relieve Hawaii from its operation? It is true that it has never been enforced against the States, but it may be, at the pleasure of Congress, at any time. 2. An objection against the permanent incorporation of the Philip- pines into the United States remains for consideration which, if sound, is insurmountable. This nation is the United States of America. That name was assumed on July 4, 1776, by the "Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled," who signed the Declaration of Independence. The first Article of our first Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, is that "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" The preamble of our present Constitution states its adoption by "the People of the United States in order to form a more perfect Union . . . and secure the Blessings of Liberty" to themselves and their "Posterity." What they did was summarized at the close of the preamble. It was to "ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." The United States of America is a plural term. The union of separate States in one political body does not extinguish their separate existence, nor vary the force of their having formed this "more perfect union" in order to promote their several as well as their common interests. Can the United States oj America ever include a State erected on islands off the coast of Asia, and having no possible tie of connection with the American continent? I be- lieve that to this a negative answer may be safely given. Can they, then, annex such islands to a union into which they can never enter on equal terms? This question cuts deeper than the one propounded to the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case. The opinion given there was that we could not acquire any American territory to hold permanently as a dependent province. If that position be unsound, it would not follow that islands appertaining to another continent could be so acquired and held. To acquire, of course, is ohe thing, and to keep, another. I believe we have unquestionable power to acquire the Philip- pines as the spoils of war; but a conqueror is not bound and may not be able to retain what he receives.