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3749
Now, according to this bill, as I understand it, we are providing that 
great numbers of Chinese, resident in the Hawaiian Islands, not 
only those who were there when we acquired those islands, but the 
many thousands brought there under contract since, shall obtain 
certificates and possess the right to go anywhere in the United 
States and, in any line of business which they may see proper to 
enter upon, to compete with our own laborers.   This is one of the 
fruits of reaching out and gathering in islands here and there, 
without reference to what the islands are, without reference to the 
people who inhabit them, and without proper care to prevent those 
islands from being overrun, while under our own control, with the 
most undesirable class of Asiatics. We have in the Hawaiian 
Islands not only many who are entirely undesirable, but many 
others who are a serious menace to our own institutions, and 
provision is here made for domesticating them. I find in this bill 
another provision not novel, but worthy, I think, of a word of 
comment.   That is section 5, which provides -
That except as herein otherwise provided, the Constitution and all the laws of 
the United States locally applicable shall have the same force and effect 
within the said Territory as elsewhere in the United States.
In this is not only a formal enactment but a philosophy com-
paratively new in the United States and, I suppose, tolerably new to 
philosophers in general.   This section is to be made an exem-
plification of the doctrine that the Congress of the United States 
possesses power to extend the Constitution, to limit the force and 
scope of the Constitution, to determine when and where the Con-
stitution, shall have effect and when and where it shall have none. 
Now, the old doctrine was, and the correct doctrine to-day, I 
think, is, that Congress is absolutely without any power to float the 
Constitution anywhere, to anchor it at any place, or to deprive 
any inch of the territory of the United States legislated for as a 
continuing possession or any of its inhabitants from coming and 
being under the influence and effect and domination of the 
Constitution.   . I do not know exactly what the draftsman of this 
bill meant; whether he meant to extend the laws so far as locally 
applicable or whether he meant also to extend the Constitution so 
far as locally applicable.   The phraseology would bear either 
construction.   . The Constitution as extended, "shall have the same 
force and effect within the said Territory as elsewhere in the United 
States!" That is, perhaps, the Constitution, wheresoever locally 
applicable, shall have the same force and effect within the 
Territory of Hawaii as elsewhere in the United States! Now, to me it 
is a strange thought, although it is a very popular one, I admit, with 
a certain element (and in that sense it has lost its strangeness) , 
that the Constitution, the supreme law of the land - that by which 
the Congress itself is created; that which is made to govern 
everything that belongs to the American Republic and to control 
every agency under the Republic - is itself so trivial and 
insignificant a thing that the Congress can extend it to any 
Territory or any part of any Territory where "locally applicable," 
or restrain its operations and prevent its having effect in any 
Territory or in any part of any Territory. It may seem singular that 
this new doctrine should have been evolved as it has been in the 
last year or two.   The exigencies which called it forth certainly 
must be extraordinary.   It is not a natural deduction; it is not a 
natural development.   I submit that it is not a natural inspiration.   
There must be particular occasion for it; there must be particular 
use for it.   There must be necessity for the existence and the 
application of such a doctrine, or certainly it would not have been 
invented, and certainly so many would not be repeating and 
preaching it.   What has called forth this doctrine?   What has 
suggested its promulgation?   What has caused so many gentlemen to 
insist upon it, so often and so loudly, and, apparently, with so much 
sincerity?   I say apparently because 1 wish to cast no reflection 
upon the sincerity of anyone, and yet to me it is strange how a man 
who permits himself to think upon the subject can, in sincerity, 
believe in the soundness of the doctrine.       Of course we have not 
far to go and not much investigation to make to determine why this 
doctrine has been promulgated or why some men cling to it with such 
desperate energy.   If the Constitution takes care of itself, if the 
Constitution is the one masterful law in this country, superior to all 
other laws, the supreme law by which all other laws are tested, then 
what may be done in any particular quarter, at any particular time, 
by any particular agency, must be determined by the Constitution 
itself.   And in ascertaining what the Constitution means and 
what it is, after studying its own words and recurring to the history 
of the convention which framed it, and the concurrent facts 
surrounding it, appeal and reference must be made to the expositions 
of it by the Supreme Court of the United States.   And neither in 
that great instrument itself nor in anything connected with the 
history of its formation, neither in the declarations of those who 
framed it nor

in the decisions of the Supreme Court, can be found any foundation 
or pretext for this new and strange doctrine, which makes the 
Constitution subject to the whim, wish, or will of Congress or any 
incident or accident of Congressional legislation. Ought not our 
friends who invoke this doctrine to pause before they push it as far 
as it seems now their determination that it shall go?   Ought they 
not to realize that it is far better to be upon sound constitutional 
ground, and to do the things which they desire to do only so far as 
the Constitution will permit, and to stop the doing of them at the 
point where their action would become unconstitutional?   Would 
not that be far safer and better than to proceed as they have begun, to 
continue in the way they are going? If the Constitution can be annulled 
by Congress, what is the Constitution worth?   Who can draw the line, 
who can mark the point, to which Congressional interference with the 
Constitution, or Congressional annulment of the Constitution, may 
go, and the point or the line beyond which Congress can not annul, 
limit, check, or interfere with that instrument, regarded by many as 
sacred, and by many more as the supreme law of the land, the test for 
all other laws? Gentlemen would say that only with respect to the 
territory of the United States has Congress this ample power.   That 
as to the States, of course the Congress can not dispense with the 
Constitution or interfere with it, can not carry it to a State and can 
not withhold it from a State; but as to the Territories of the United 
States, there Congress is supreme, and there the Constitution has no 
place unless Congress shall see fit to give it place. How does it 
happen, or how can it happen, that Congress is supreme in the 
Territories, independent of the Constitution? What is the 
foundation for that contention?   What is the support for it, if it has 
any? If one holds to that doctrine, he must maintain either that the 
Constitution gives this power to Congress, this ample and supreme 
power of legislation over the Territories and their inhabitants, or that 
from some other source, independent of the Constitution, 
Congress has acquired it.   Does the Constitution give it to Congress?   
If the Constitution gives the power to Congress, whatever it is, 
then the Constitution goes to the Territory and is in the Territory 
and over the Territory, and Congress legislates under the Constitution, 
exercising the powers given by the Constitution. If the Constitution 
conveys to Congress ample and unrestrained power of legislation in 
the Territories, then how can.you dispense with the Constitution 
when Congress would exercise that power? Why talk about there 
being no Constitution in or over the Territory unless Congress carries 
it there, if by virtue of the Constitution itself and by exercise of the 
power given by the Constitution Congress legislates for the 
Territory and the people who dwell in it? Now, if it be true that the 
power to legislate respecting the Territories is derived from the 
Constitution, then the Constitution must determine the power.   
Then every time the power is exercised - whenever the question of 
exercising it arises - the Constitution must be appealed to, and the 
decision of the Constitution must be final and conclusive. Some 
gentlemen deal with this Congressional power to legislate with 
strange inconsistency.   At one time, in one breath, they say that the 
Constitution does not extend to a Territory except by 
Congressional action, by Congressional extension, and quote from the 
Constitution a clause from which they deduce the power to 
legislate free from constitutional restraint.   They find in the Con-
stitution a clause giving Congress power to deal with the Terri-
tories, and at the same time find that the Constitution has nothing to 
do with the Territories, but that the Congress has complete control 
not only over them but also over the Constitution itself beyond the 
State lines.   And this is the paragraph of the Constitution which not 
only makes the Congress omnipotent, but which at the same time 
makes the Constitution itself impotent indeed - provided always, 
however, that the new school of philosophers are not in error:
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and 
regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United 
States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice 
any claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
Some insist that the power of Congress is absolute, not only over 
the Territories but over the Constitution also, outside the States, 
because the Constitution confers such unlimited power in and by the 
paragraph just quoted; that absolute power is absolutely granted by 
the Constitution over the Constitution. I deny that in creating 
Congress through and under and by the Constitution, the 
Constitution in any particular was made subordinate to Congress.   
The Constitution did not perish in the throes of maternity in giving 
birth to Congress. Moreover, this paragraph refers to the territory 
belonging to the United States at the time of the adoption of the 
Constitution, and there is no convincing reason for believing that 
the framers of the Constitution had any other territory in mind. This 
Congressional power, however great, however far it may

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