long been exercised in accordance with the judgment of the Judicial Committee, a court selected from the Council according to rules established by Parliament. This court of appeal has a broad and varied jurisdiction. For example, it will entertain an appeal from the act of a colonial governor in imprisoning an African chief," from the order of a colonial court denying certain powers and privileges to a colonial legislature, from the judgment of a police magistrate in a petty colony ;8 and it will receive appeals in criminal cases generally whenever it appears that " by a disregard of the forms of legal "process, or by some violation of natural justice or “otherwise, substantial and grave injustice has been “done.”+ Under the British system, then, the subjects of the Queen in all parts of her dominions may, , in certain cases, appeal for redress of injuries to a tribunal whose territorial jurisdiction expands with the expansion of the empire. Furthermore, the courts at Westminster have a common law right to grant the writ of habeas corpus: “which writ,” said Chief Justice Cockburn, "in the absence of any pro“hibitive enactment, goes to all parts of the Queen's “dominions." 6
Our Supreme Court has, as we have seen, an original jurisdiction so restricted as to exclude all citizens of the republic from invoking its protection as a constitutional right. Especially noticeable, in contrast with English practice, is its inability to grant the writ of habeas corpus in virtue of organic power; 1 except, of course, in cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls.? The appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, including the matter of habeas corpus, is conferred by Congress, and it can hear appeals from such courts only as Congress shall designate. The designation of these courts in annexed territory is, therefore, a condition precedent to the opening of the Supreme Court to the inhabitants, to their enjoyment of the means of redress accorded to the rest of the community.
1 Sprigg v. Sigcau (1897), A. C. 238.
3 Falkland Islands Co. v. The Queen, 1 Moore P. C. C., N. S. 299.
4 Dillet's Case, 12 App. Cas. 459.
After the authority of the United States shall have been established in the Philippines, federal courts opened, and necessary laws enacted, after the government shall have done its part toward confirming the rule of the Constitution, the islanders must learn to live up to it before it can mean to them what it means to us. We do not hand down the Constitution to the Filipinos in the anticipation of an early acceptance of its principles. Indeed, the unanimous opinion that the islands should never be admitted to statehood affirms our conviction that the islanders ought never be trusted with a share of the political power of the republic. We do not believe the enthusiastic prophecy with which the First Philippine Commission closes its preliminary report: “When peace and prosperity shall have been estab“lished throughout the archipelago, when education “shall have become general, then, in the language “of a leading Filipino, his people will, under our “guidance, 'become more American than the Ameri"cans themselves.''
A hostile environment does not annul, though it may impair, the efficiency of the Constitution. In the Philippine Archipelago, as in all United States territory, the Constitution confers rights upon the ignorant and the unwilling as well as upon those who value them; enjoins our public servants to respect it always; justifies resistance to forbidden acts; and, in theory of law, renders void every command and illegal every act disregarding its prohibitions. For by the law of this Constitution all land under the sovereignty of Congress is one country; all people within its jurisdiction are one people, who enjoy life, liberty, and property of constitutional right without regard to which side of a boundary line between State and Territory or of lines of latitude or longitude they happen to live; and these lines cannot be made a hindrance to the course of legitimate commerce.
A few months ago this statement was generally accepted, and it would not be attacked to-day had the Treaty of Paris limited our acquisitions to American territory. It is the circumstance of conquest in Asia, with its suppressed but inevitable suggestion of further aggrandizement in the East, that provokes the assertion that at last we have gone beyond the proper sphere of the Constitution.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that this assertion is true, or at all events that it expresses the deliberate wish of the American people, how shall we deal with the question it presents ? Certainly not by accepting an injurious rule as a perpetual obligation, or by refusing to admit that the Constitution must come at last to reflect a matured public opinion. If the application of the Constitution in the Philippines will cause serious embarrassment, the approbation of law will not make it endurable. Or, if the American people are unwilling to treat the islands as United States territory in any circumstances, no rule of law will long compel them. I am convinced that either event should move us to relinquish sovereignty over the country we cannot, or will not govern according to our Constitution. The taking over of millions of Asiatics who are deemed unfit for fellowship must increase our burdens without bringing new strength to bear them; and we may yet need the strength that inheres only in a people united by the bonds of sympathy, and of equality before the law.
Withholding the Constitution from the Philippines must tend to lessen respect for it here. It is impossible that we, who have maintained the necessity of constitutional restraints for the ordering of our intelligent and self-governing community, should disregard them anywhere without weakening our faith in their virtue.
Should the Constitution be denied to the Philippines upon any pretext a drawback from indiscriminate expansion will be removed. While acquisition of territory means the enlargement of the United States and the reception of new citizens, while Congress must govern all country within its jurisdiction as a social and commercial unit, the American people will not covet outlying land if its acquisition means fellowship with uncongenial multitudes. It is objected that
upon appropriating territory as spoil of war will embarrass our military arm. Must we survey land before invading it, lest we stumble upon an unwelcome addition to the United States? Shall we sacrifice the right to indemnify ourselves for the cost of successful war? Surely these questions are not serious. A wise policy of expansion is promoted by a determination to gain desirable territory, not by a weakness for seizing anything within reach. The theory that conquest entails perpetual responsibilities is, too often, merely the conqueror's excuse for keeping coveted land. As for indemnity, it is gained directly by exactions of money, or, indirectly, by retaining desirable land. It is a contradiction in terms to say that it may
be gained by keeping undesirable land.
Recognition of the Constitution in the Philippines will not check the expansion of our republic: It will tend to guide the course of expansion aright.
Should the above considerations be overborne by a determination to hold the Philippines as a subject province at all cost, let the Constitution as it stands remain unspoiled by interpretations restricting it to the States, or conditioning its efficacy in national territory upon the pleasure of Congress, or the treatymaking body. Let us frankly admit that in ruling