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 Citizenship in Ceded Territory. according to the view which the writer holds, that the Territories, not being a part of the United States, their inhabitants are not cit izens of the United States, and for that reason Congress has no rightful authority to legislate for them. If this be true, our Government has no right to take jurisdiction over any foreign territory without the con sent of its inhabitants; nor does any other nation possess the power either by treaty or otherwise to transfer to us its jurisdiction over any of its colonies or dependencies without their consent also; nor can we accept such jurisdiction under the same circumstances. The most common ground on which the power to govern the inhabitants of territory lying outside of the boundaries of the United States, is sought to be justified, is the right to acquire it, this having been asserted in nearly all of the decisions of the Supreme Court relating to this question. But it is difficult to perceive how one nation, by ceding to another any part of the soil which it owns, can also cede to that other political jurisdiction over the people who reside upon it, unless they consent to the latter cession. Territory is property; and as such it can be transferred from one owner to another; but dominion over persons, according to our theory of government, is not property in any sense of that word; and therefore it can neither be given nor sold by one nation to another. Our Government has an undoubted right to purchase, or to receive as a gift, any species of property from any other govern ment or from any person or persons; but it cannot buy or take from either of them that which, according to our Constitution, is not property; and as that instrument now reads, no human being can be owned by another or by others within our domain; and so it is impossible for us either to purchase or to accept as a present the inhabitants of the ceded islands, even if Spain had the right either to sell or to give them to us, which she has not. The right to acquire territory

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therefore, does not include the right either to own or to govern the people who occupy it; and so we can have no rightful juris diction over them without their consent thereto. Although one nation has the power to transfer to another any portion of its own property, it has no such power over that of its citizens or of its subjects; and therefore, if any part of the soil of either of the islands above mentioned is the private property of any of its inhabitants, it cannot be ceded by Spain to the United States. This assertion is in accordance with the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, which was delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of United States v. Percheman, 7 Peters, 87. On this point the court said : — "A cession of territory is never under stood to be a cession of the property be longing to its inhabitants. The king cedes that only which belonged to him. Lands he had previously granted were not his to cede. Neither party could so understand the ces sion. Neither party could consider itself as attempting a wrong to individuals, con demned by the practice of the whole civi lized world." Consequently, if the treaty under consid eration attempts to convey to this country, land or other property owned by the people of the ceded Territories, it is contrary to the above quoted opinion of the Supreme Court. In support of the writer's contention that the mere acquisition of territory does not necessarily include the power to govern its inhabitants, he will quote the following remarks made by the Hon. Lewis Cass of Michigan, in a speech in the Senate of the United States, on January 21, 1850. Dis cussing this point, Mr. Cass said: — "The treaty-making power is clearly com petent to acquire territory; though the prop osition that acquisition necessarily brings with it the authority of legislation is another and quite a different question.