Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/431

411 GOVERNMENT OF ISLAND TERRITORY. 411 Let me briefly summarize the conclusions which, it would seem to me, we must accept. There is no constitutional objection to the acquisition of any or all of our new possessions, or to subjecting them to a temporary government of military or colonial form. There is no constitutional objection to our taking temporary possession of Cuba, as a friend of the Cubans, and maintaining peace and order by a military occupation, under the President of the United States, imtil such time as we may deem its people fit to govern themselves. It is a practical application of the Monroe Doctrine in its modern form. Until Congress acts, the President can govern our new posses- sions with no other authority than that with which his great office is clothed by the Constitution in its grant of executive power. ^ If the Spanish treaty should be ratified. Congress could replace the temporary government which the President has set up in Puerto Rico by whatever form of administration it may think proper, not inconsistent with the principles and provisions of the Constitution of the United States, and maintain it until the inhab- itants may be fit to govern themselves. No fixed limit of time can be assigned for the duration of such a regime. We have held Alaska under such conditions already for thirty years, and she is hardly more deserving of autonomy now than when she was a Russian province. We have held New Mexico, under different forms of administration, for nearly fifty years, and the character and traditions and laws of a Latin race are still so deeply stamped upon her people and her institutions that no demand of party exigency has been strong enough to secure her admission to the privilege of statehood. Here, as in so many other matters where constitutional law and legislative policy may come in conflict, every presumption is to be made in favor of the good faith of Congress and the wise exercise of its discretion. Upon the ratification of the treaty, Puerto Rico would become (and for the first time become) a part of the United States, but our customs laws would not have full operation there until Con- gress created the necessary collection districts and ports of entry .^ Until then, the temporary government of the President would con^ • Leitensdorfer v. Webb, 20 Howard, 176, 178. 88, 97.
 * Fleming v. Page, 9 Howard, 602, 616, 617; Hamilton v. Dillin, 21 Wallace, 73,