482 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. not appointed for the same term, nor is the jurisdiction . . . part of the judicial power conferred by the Constitution on the general government. The courts are the legislative courts of the territory, created in virtue of the clause which authorizes Congress to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States." ^ But now observe, if the restraints of this part of the Constitution do not operate in the territories, why should those of the rest of it reach them ? If the judicial system of the United States was meant only for the United States in the narrower sense, as including the States themselves, the conclusion seems, as I am inclined to believe it, a just one, that the Constitution generally was not meant for the territories, except as it may in any place expressly or plainly indicate otherwise; and that its provisions committing the territories to that full control of Congress which is expressly mentioned, and to its implied authority to govern, involved in the power to acquire, carry an absolute authority over them, except as there may be any plain expression of restraints. Such was the opinion of Chan- cellor Kent as expressed in his Commentaries in 1826, and never changed. He said : " If . . . the government of the United States should carry into execution the project of colonizing the great valley of the Columbia or Oregon River to the west of the Rocky Mountains, it would afford a subject of grave consideration what would be the future civil and political destiny of that country. It would be a long time before it would be populous enough to be created into independent States; and in the mean time upon the doctrine taught by the Acts of Congress and even by the judicial decisions of the Supreme Court, the colonies would be in a state of the most complete subordination, and as dependent upon the will of Congress as the people of this country would have been upon the king and Parliament of Great Britain, if they could have sus- tained their claim to bind us in all cases whatsoever." Let me refer to a valuable paper on this particular question in a magazine called the "Review of Reviews," for January, 1899, by Professor Judson of Chicago. He examines the subject carefully and with references to some of the decisions, and reaches the con- clusion that only in an international sense can it be said that the territories are a part of the United States, as that phrase is used in the Constitution.^
- Clinton v. Englebrecht, 13 Wall. 434.
2 See also the very valuable investigation of the text of the Constitution by Profes- sor Langdell, in the last number of this Review, leading up to the same conclusion.
