validity, were citizens of independent states, which had been theretofore bound together in a confederation, and which were thenceforth to be united under a government which, though limited in its action by the reservation to the several states of all powers not delegated to the United States, should yet be supreme within its defined bounds.11 Therefore, the government created by the Constitution is, to the extent of the powers vested in that government, national in its character, and, by force of the rights reserved to the states, it is also a league of sovereign and independent states; and every citizen of each state, while owing allegiance to his state in all matters not controlled by the powers granted to the United States, owes also a paramount allegiance to the United States in all that is made by the Constitution of federal obligation. In view of this dual, and yet undivided, allegiance due by those who are citizens of the United States and also citizens of a state, it was, in the hour of its formation, and it has ever since been, essential to the right administration of the government of the United States under the Constitution that there should be a clear appreciation of the complex character of that government and a careful maintenance of the balance of power as between the government of the United States and the governments of the several states. The territories. 8. The Constitution 12 dealt with the territory owned at the time of its adoption and with future acquisitions of territory, by providing that "new states may be admitted by the Congress into the Union," and that 13 "the Con "Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304, 325. 12 Art. IV, Sec. 3, Par. 1. 13 Art. IV, Sec. 3, Par. 2. gress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." In Dred Scott v. Sandford 14 the court held that the power of making rules and regulations was intended to operate only in the territory belonging to the United States in 1787, and not to extend to subsequently acquired territory; but that narrow view is inconsistent with the judgment in the earlier case of A. I. Co. v. Canter 15 and with the doctrine of many later cases, and has never been recognized in the administration of the government. There is nothing in the words of the Constitution, nor in the history of the times, to show that the framers of the Constitution looked upon any territory of the United States, excepting the future seat of government, in any other light than as territory to be organized into states so soon as the increase of population should render that advisable.16 The relation between the United States and the states obviously differs from the relation between the United States and the territories, in that, while the reservation to the states of the right of local self-government forbids the United States to exercise within a state any power of local government, the United States may, as respects any territory, under the express power of making rules and regulations, govern and administer that territory. In other words, Congress holds a single relation to the states, but it holds a two-fold relation to the territories. It regulates the foreign and interstate relations of the states and their relations with the territories. It also regulates the relations of the territories with foreign countries, with the states, and with each other, and in addition to that, it regulates the internal affairs of each 14 19 How. 393. 15 1 Pet. 511. 16 McAllister v. U. S., 141 U. S. 174, 187. territory. Congress is, therefore, the paramount and sole authority for every territory. As such, it may for any territory, as it has by an unbroken line of precedents from the adoption of the Ordinance of the Confederation for the government of the Northwest Territory to the Porto Rico Act in 1900, create a territorial form of government, and limit or deny the exercise of merely political rights, such as the right of suffrage; 17establish courts, which are local courts, and not courts of the United States, and whose judges hold their offices for such terms 18 and under such conditions 19 as Congress may prescribe; impose taxation; 20 and, generally, exercise all powers of government in matters of merely local concern. But it does not follow from this that Congress may exercise, even within a territory, arbitrary or despotic power. 1 Bradley, J., said,21 "Doubtless Congress, in legislating for the territories, would be subject to those fundamental limitations in favour of personal rights which are formulated in the Constitution and its Amendments; but such limitations would exist rather by inference and the general spirit of the Constitution from which Congress derives all its powers, than by any express and direct application of its provisions." Similar dicta of other eminent jurists could be quoted.22 The objection to Mr. Justice Bradley's view is that, upon every principle of construction, the power in the Constitution to make rules 17 'Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15. 13 A. I. Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511; Benner v. Porter, 9 How. 235; Clinton v. Englebrecht, 13 Wall. 434; Hornbuckle v. Toombs, 18 id. 648; Good v. Martin, 95 U. S. 90; Reynolds v. U. S., 98 id. 145; City of Panama, 101 id. 453. 19 McAllister v. U. S., 141 U. S. 174. 20 Loughborough v. Blake, 5 Wheat. 317. "Mormon Church v. United States, 136 U. S. 44. "Many are cited in the able paper of the late Richard C. Dale on "Implied Limitations upon the Exercise of the Legislative Power," 24 American Bar Association Proceedings, 295. and regulations for the territory of the United States is a power to make only such rules and regulations as may be made in conformity with the other provisions of the Constitution. That Constitution is the only standard of statutory validity, and its powers and restrictions are to be found only in its words as judicially construed. As the Court of Appeals of New York said in a well-considered case,23 "If the courts may imply limitation, there is no bound to implication except judicial discretion, which must place the courts above the legislature and also the Constitution itself." This principle necessarily excludes any reliance upon inference from, or reference to, the general spirit of the Constitution as a satisfactory ground of restraint upon legislative freedom of action. Indeed, it is inconceivable that men who had signed, or approved, the Declaration of Independence, who had fought in the War of the Revolution, or rejoiced in the victory then won for free government, could ever have contemplated the acquisition by the United States of any territory whose laws should be such only as Congress might arbitrarily impose. Those men who had successfully rebelled against the English crown tolerated no despotism, benevolent or otherwise. They believed in a reign of law. With Junius, 24 they thought that "laws are made to guard against what men may do, not to trust to what they will do." They, therefore, framed their written constitution, and they looked to it, and to it only, for an enumeration of the powers which the sovereign people delegated to their government. In conformity with these principles, it has been decided that constitutional restrictions are in force in the territories and in the District of Columbia so far as regards trial by jury,25 Wynehamer v. The People, 13 N. Y. 428. 24 Letter to Sir William Blackstone. 25 Callan v. Wilson, 127 U. S. 540; Thompson v. Utah, 170 id. 343; C. T. Co. v. Hof, 174 id. 1. See also Mormon Church v. U. S., 136 id. 1, 67. and so far as regards the rights secured by the V Amendment.26 If such be the correct view with regard to the legislative power of Congress over the internal affairs of the territories, the case would seem to be even clearer with regard to the regulation of the relations between any one territory and the states and other territories. The main reason for the adoption of the Constitution was to establish a common authority, which would in the interest of the whole country impartially regulate foreign and internal commerce, and secure to the citizens of each state and of every territory equal rights of person and of property in every other state and territory; and to that end the United States was vested with powers, and restrained in the exercise of those powers by certain expressed limitations. No one doubts that, so far as regards the states, Congress, being the creature of the Constitution, cannot exercise any power of legislation other than that which is, expressly, or by necessary implication, vested in it by the Constitution. It would also seem that even if Congress could, in the exercise of the power of making rules and regulations in its untrammelled discretion, create, and provide for the administration of, local governments in the territories, it can, nevertheless, only regulate commerce as between the states and the territories, and impose duties on exports and imports to and from the states and the territories under the powers, and subject to the restrictions, of the Constitution. Nevertheless, in the Insular Cases,27 the Supreme Court has decided, several of the 20 Bauman v. Ross, 167 U. S. 548. "Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 244; De Lima v. Bidwell, ibid. 1; Dooley v. U. S., ibid. 222; Dooley v. U. S., 183 id. 151; Fourteen Diamond Rings, Emil J. Pepke, Claimant, v. U. S., ibid. 176. In Dorr v. United States, 195 U. S. 138, 154, Peckham, J., said that Downes v. Bidwell, supra, "is authority only for the proposition that the plaintiff therein was not entitled to recover the amount of duties |