In the treaty with Spain whereby was confirmed the title of the United States to the Floridas the United States agreed that: "The inhabitants of the territories . . . shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States as soon as it may be consistent with the principles of the federal Constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of all the privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States." (8 Stat, at L. 256.)

In the treaty with Mexico by which Mexico relinquished its rights to Upper California and New Mexico the United States promised that: "The Mexicans who, in the territories aforesaid, shall not preserve the character of citizens of the Mexican Republic conformably with what is stipulated in the preceding article, shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States and to be admitted at the proper time (to be judged of by the Congress of the United States) to the enjoyment of all the rights of citizens of the United States according to the principles of the Constitution." (9 Stat, at L. 930.)

In the treaty with Russia for the annexation of Alaska the United States agreed that: " The inhabitants of the ceded territory . . . shall be admitted to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of the United States." (15 Stat, at L. 542.)

6 To the author's mind this is by no means conclusive argument; and for two reasons. In the first place, provisions really unnecessary are often inserted in legal documents from abundance of caution; and, in the second place, foreign countries are not presumed to know the constitutional law of foreign countries, and, therefore, the peculiar constitutional rights of the inhabitants of an annexed territory. It is, therefore, a general practice for countries, when handing over certain of their subjects to the political control of a foreign power, to provide as far as possible for the future welfare of these persons the control over whom is thus abandoned.

Stumming up its doctrine upon this point, the justice reading the opinion declares: " It is, then, as I think, indubitably settled by the principle of the law of nations, by the nature of the government created under the Constitution, by the express and implied powers conferred upon that government by the Constitution, by the mode in which those powers have been executed from the beginning, and by an unbroken line of decisions of this court, first announced by [Marshall and followed and lucidly expounded by Taney,that the treaty-making power cannot incorporate territory into the United States without the express or implied assent of Congress, that it may insert in a treaty conditions against immediate incorporation, and that on the other hand, when it has expressed in the treaty the conditions favorable to incorporation they will, if the treaty be not repudiated by Congress, have the force of the law of the land, and therefore by the fulfilment of such conditions cause incorporation to result. It must follow, therefore, that where a treaty contains no conditions for incorporation, and, above all, where it not only has no such conditions, but expressly provides to the contrary, that incorporation does not arise until in the wisdom of Congress it is deemed that the acquired Territory has reached that state where it is proper that it should enter into and form a part of the American family."

Having established this doctrine, its application to Porto Rico becomes a comparatively simple matter. The treaty with Spain in no clause provided for incorporation, but, upon the contrary, expressly provided that the civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories should be determined by Congress; and since annexation, Congress had carefully refrained from any expression of legislative will from which incorporation might be implied.

"The result of what has been said,"' say the court, "is that while in an international sense Porto Rico was not a foreign country, since it was subject to the sovereignty of and was owned by the United States, it was foreign to the United States in a domestic sense, because the island had not been incorporated into the United States, but was merely appurtenant thereto as a possession. As a necessary consequence, the impost in question assessed on merchandise coming from Porto Rico into the United States after the cession was within the power of Congress, and that body was not. moreover, as to such impost, controlled by the clause requiring that imposts should be uniform throughout the United States; in other words, the provision of the Constitution just referred to was not applicable to Congress in legislating for Porto Rico."