362 WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE POLITICAL DECISIONS. 



199. Power of Congress to Annex Territory. 



Texas and Hawaii were acquired by joint resolution of Congress. 

 Commentators have had difficuUy in locating the clause on which the 

 power of Congress to annex territory is founded. Chief Justice 

 Marshall implied the power to annex territory from the powers to 

 make treaties and to declare war,^^ but the former does not apply 

 to Congress nor the latter to these cases, and as Willoughby com- 

 ments after citing the cases : ^'^ 



" It is to be observed that in none of these cases is there any argument 

 to show just why, and in what manner, the acquiring of the foreign territory 

 is a necessary or proper means by which war may be carried on, or treaties 

 entered into. In fact, it will be seen that the acquiring of foreign territory 

 has been treated as a result incidental to, rather than as a means for, the 

 carrying on of war and the conducting of foreign relations." 



It has been argued that the power to annex territory is implied in 

 the powers to admit new states to the Union.*^ That clause might 

 apply to Texas which was immediately admitted as a state but hardly 

 to Hawaii ; and Gouverneur Morris who drafted the Constitution, 

 replied to Livingston's query, " whether Congress can admit as a 

 new state territory which did not belong to the United States when 

 the Constitution was made " : ^^ 



" In my opinion they cannot. I always thought, v/hen we should acquire 

 Canada and Louisiana, it would be proper to govern them as provinces and 

 allow them no voice in our councils. In wording the third section of the 

 fourth article, I went as far as circumstances would permit to establish the 

 exclusion. Candor obliges me to add my belief that had it been more point- 

 edly expressed, a strong opposition would have been made." 



If Congress has the power at all, as it doubtless has, it has it as a 



resultant of the various powers connected with foreign relations 



which together confer all sovereign powers necessary for national 



defense.*'' 



43 Am. Ins. Co. v. Canter, i Pet. 51 1- 

 ** Willoughby, op. cit., p. 340. 



45 55th Cong., 2d sess., Sen. Report, No. 681 ; Willoughby, op. cit., p. 346. 



46 Morris, Life and Writings (Sparks), 3: 185, 192; Willoughby, op. cit., 

 p. 328. 



4T Willoughby, op. cit., p. 340. 



