600 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 



that is, to a temporary civil despotism or something of that nature, 

 and for this it is extremely questionable whether there is any war- 

 rant in the constitution. In order to meet the wishes of the govern- 

 ment, or perhaps the necessities of the government, in this respect, 

 the Supreme Court of the United States has so strained its powers 

 of constitutional interpretation as virtually to enact, in the opinion of 

 a large number of the best citizens of the country, constitutional 

 legislation, constitutional legislation, too, which, upon one point 

 at least, contradicts the prime purpose of the only legitimate im- 

 perial policy which a free republic can have. It is quite possible 

 that the state of society and of the population in a newly acquired 

 district may necessitate more summary judicial processes than 

 those of the juries, and that public security and even individual 

 liberty will be better protected under the more summary forms, 

 and that, therefore, a judicial interpretation of the constitution 

 relieving the government from these limitations as to process in such 

 districts would have a moral ground at least to stand on, but when 

 the court allows the Congress to overstep the constitutional limita- 

 tions on the government in behalf of the freedom of trade and inter- 

 course between the people of such districts and the people in other 

 parts of the United States, and to erect a special tariff against such 

 trade and intercourse and thus to destroy, or at least greatly weaken, 

 the prime means of extending civilization to the inhabitants of such 

 districts, viz., a free commerce in mind and things, then neither the 

 court nor the Congress nor the administration has any ground of 

 any sort on which to stand, and we need an amendment to the 

 constitution to express the reason and the will of the sovereign upon 

 that subject. 



We have in this whole question of territorial expansion one of 

 the greatest problems of the constitutional law of this Republic, 

 one which affects the whole world. It affects first of all the Republic 

 itself, because upon its rightful solution depends the moral right of 

 the Republic to have any imperial policy at all. It affects the peoples 

 of the dark places of the world, who, though apparently unable to 

 secure the blessings of civilization for themselves, certainly have 

 the right to be left in their barbarism unless the intruding nation 

 comes with a chiefly altruistic purpose. And it affects the other 

 civilized powers in the example which it shall furnish them for their 

 own work in the spread of civilization, for if the great Republic pur- 

 sues an egoistic policy, they will certainly do likewise, and it is to 

 be hoped that if it takes the other and the true course, they will not 

 go in the opposite direction. No grander mission can be imagined 

 than that which is now open to this American nation, and the time 

 is now ripe for the sovereign people to discuss it in all its bearings, 

 independently of ordinary party politics, and to write in the consti- 



