292 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. ernment of the Union the powers of making war and of making treaties ; consequently that government possesses the power of acquiring territory either by conquest or by treaty." ^ A State may add to its domain by discovery and settlement, and the Supreme Court has recognized this method of acquisition as one approved by the law of nations ;'^ though perhaps it may be ap- proved more accurately as necessarily inferred from larger con- stitutional powers. Surely if a nation can buy or seize land it can find and keep land. The power of expansion is illimitable in point of law. Whenever the President and Congress join in extending the sovereignty of the United States over a particular territory, their action must be respected by the courts without regard to its location. " Who is the sovereign de jure and de facto of a territory is not a judicial but a political question, the determination of which, by the legislative and executive departments of any government, conclusively binds the judges as well as all other officers, citizens, and subjects of that government. This principle has always been upheld by this court, and has been affirmed under a great variety of circumstances." ^ Is the power to annex conditioned upon the formation of States out of the new territory ? This question is not suggested by the acquisition of small tracts for specific governmental uses, such as coaUng stations, or of vacant guano islands under the Act of 1856.* Nor can it be urged as a legal objection to annexation that the land in question is not to be annexed as a State, for the admission of a State is, like the selection of territory, a political matter beyond the competency of the courts. But, according to the spirit of the Constitution, the subjection of annexed territory to exclusive federal control is an abnormal and temporary stage necessarily preceding the normal and permanent condition of statehood. Chief Justice Marshall described the Territories as being " in a state of infancy advancing to manhood, looking forward to complete equality so soon as that state of manhood shall be attained." ^ Chief Justice Taney said that the power to admit new States 1 American Ins. Co. v. Canter, i Peters, 511, 541. 2 Jones V. United States, 137 U. S. 202, 212; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. i, 5a
- Jones z/. United States, 137 U. S. 202, 212,
- U. S. Revised Statutes, § 5570.
^ Loughborough v. Blake, 5 Wheaton, 317, 324.
