WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE POLITICAL DECISIONS. 361 



as Chesapeake and Delaware bays, as territorial waters from long 

 assertion by the United States and tacit acceptance by other powers 

 of that status.^' In general, however, the courts regard the deter- 

 mination of boundaries as a political question.^^ 



197. Recognition of Territorial Limits by the President. 



The President is competent to recognize the acquisition of ter- 

 ritory by discovery and occupation. Thus shall uninhabited islands 

 in the Pacific have been taken possession of by naval commanders.** 

 The President has also applied the Guano Island act passed by 

 Congress in 1856 and as therein provided has registered islands, 

 discovered and worked by American citizens, as within American 

 jurisdiction and protection. In Jones v. United States the Su- 

 preme Court held that the jurisdiction of the United States was 

 thus legally extended.*" 



198. Power to Annex Territory by Treaty and Executive Agree- 

 ment. 



Most of the acquisitions of territory have been by cession, though 

 the competence of the treaty-making power was at first ques- 

 tioned.*^ Louisiana, Florida, Oregon, California and New Mexico, 

 the Messila Valley, Tutuila in the Samoan group, Porto Rico, the 

 Philippines, Guam, and the Virgin Islands have been thus acquired, 

 as has the permanent lease of the Panama Canal Zone, and of 

 a naval base on the Gulf of Fonseca. Reef Island near the outlet 

 of Lake Erie and a lease of a naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba, were 

 acquired by executive agreement. ■*- 



3^ The Grange, Randolph, Att. Gen., i Op. 32; Manchester v. Mass., I39 

 U. S. 240; Moore, Digest, i : 735-743; The Alleganean, Alabama Claims Com- 

 mission, 1885, 32 Albany L. J. 484; Moore, Int. Arb. 4333- 4675; Scott, Cases 

 T)n Int. Law, p. 143. 



38 Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 253; Moore, Digest, i : 743-745, supra, sec. 107. 



3»For acquisition of Midway and Wake Islands, see Moore, Digest, i: 



555. 



"Jones V. U. S., 137 U. S. 202 (1890) ; Moore, Digest, i: 556-5?o. 



41 Willoughby, op. cit., pp. 328 ct seq. See also Wright, Columbia Law 

 Rev., 20: 141, note 100. 



42 Moore, Digest, i : 433-554- 



