THE FEDERAL AND STATE

CONSTITUTIONS

COLONIAL CHARTERS, AND OTHER

ORGANIC LAWS

OF THE

STATES, TERRITORIES, AND
COLONIES

NOW OR HERETOFORE FORMING

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Compiled and Edited

under the Act of Congress of June 30, 1906

By

FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE, Ph. D., LL. D.
Member of the Pennsylvania Bar; Fellow and Professor of American Constitu-
tional History at the University of Pennsylvania, 1885-1898; Member of
the American Historical Association; Author of The Constitutional History
of the United States, 1765-1895; A (State) Constitutional History of
the American People, 1776-1850; A Short Constitutional History
of the United States; A (Social and Economic) History of the
American People; A History of the Civil War; Editor of the His-
tory of North America, Volumes IX, XV, XVI, XVIII, XIX,
XX; Author of The Government of the People of the
United States; Benjamin Franklin and the University
of Pennsylvania; The Life of William Pepper, etc.

VOL. VI

Porto Rico-Vermont

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

1909

PORTO RICO

For Treaty of Cession, 1898, see Philippines, p. 3153.

CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF PORTO RICO-1900

[FIFTY-SIXTH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION]

An Act temporarily to provide revenues and a civil government for Porto Rico, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the provisions of this Act shall apply to the island of Porto Rico and to the adjacent islands and waters of the islands lying east of the seventy-fourth meridian of longitude west of Greenwich, which were ceded to the United States by the Government of Spain by treaty entered into on the tenth day of December, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight; and the name Porto Rico, as used in this Act, shall be held to include not only the island of that name, but all the adjacent islands as aforesaid. SEC. 2. That on and after the passage of this Act the same tariffs, customs, and duties shall be levied, collected, and paid upon all articles imported into Porto Rico from ports other than those of the United States which are required by law to be collected upon articles imported into the United States from foreign countries: Provided, That on all coffee in the bean or ground imported into Porto Rico there shall be levied and collected a duty of five cents per pound, any law or part of law to the contrary notwithstanding: And provided further, That all Spanish scientific, literary, and artistic works, not subversive of public order in Porto Rico, shall be admitted free of duty into Porto Rico for a period of ten years, reckoning from the eleventh day of April, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, as provided in said treaty of peace between the United States and Spain: And provided further. That all books and phamphlets printed in the English language shall be admitted into Porto Rico free of duty when imported from the United States.

SEC. 3. That on and after the passage of this Act all merchandise coming into the United States from Porto Rico and coming into Porto Rico from the United States shall be entered at the several ports of entry upon payment of fifteen per centum of the duties which are required to be levied, collected, and paid upon like articles of merchandise imported from foreign countries; and in addition thereto. upon articles of merchandise of Porto Rican manufacture coming into the United States and withdrawn for consumption or sale upon