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3750
extend, however many things it may reach, however extraordinary it 
maybe, must be a ceded power, and therefore not superior to the 
higher power which grants it.   Is there any trouble with that 
proposition?   What gentleman dare assert that the warrant for 
Congressional action is found in the Constitution and yet deny, 
when the extent of the Congressional power is questioned, when the 
question is as to what Congress can do and what Congress can not do 
with a Territory, that the Constitution itself must be appealed to for 
answer? When a dispute arises as to whether Congress has or has 
not any particular power, or extent of power, logically, naturally, 
constitutionally, the controversy must be settled by appealing to the 
Constitution, by getting the correct decision from the words of the 
Constitution, or, if necessary, from the proceedings of those who 
founded it, by the aid of the light of concurrent history, or from the 
decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States interpreting the 
Constitution,    The Constitution is the fountain head, the Congress 
one of the streams flowing from it.   Can the stream rise higher than 
its source?   Hardly, 1 think, even under the pressure of 
"expansion."   I care not to dwell longer upon that proposition.   I 
know how easily one may be wrong while most confident that he is 
right; and although I am confident of the correctness of my 
proposition, I may be entirely in error: but I would be very much 
obliged to any gentleman on the other side if he would be kind 
enough to show me wherein I err, if that be error. If you quote the 
Constitution for the power, you are bound by the Constitution; your 
power must be derived from it.   Whether you have it or have it not 
in any particular instance must be determined by the Constitution 
and the exposition of the Constitution by the only authority 
appointed by itself to give us an exposition of it, the Supreme Court 
of the United States.   Now, if that be not true, tell me wherein lies 
the fallacy.   If it be true, tell me what goes with your doctrine that 
the Constitution must be extended to a Territory; "that the 
Constitution, so far as locally applicable, shall have the same force 
and effect within the said Territory (or any Territory) as elsewhere 
in the United States" only when Congress is pleased to say so.   How 
can Congress determine what the power and the effect of the 
Constitution is or shall be?   How can Congress determine that the 
Constitution shall have a certain effect in one place and a different 
effect in another place?   How is that possible, as a matter of law or 
as a matter of reason?   Can a director of a corporation cast aside 
the charter which created the corporation which made him? But 
perhaps the Congressional power is derived from some other 
source than the Constitution.   The difficulties are no less great in 
the way of the man or party who would maintain that doctrine.   Do 
you choose to take the position that the Constitution does not give to 
Congress the unrestrained power to legislate for the Territories, but 
that Congress has it independent of the Constitution?   Who takes 
that position?  Who is here to maintain that doctrine?   I will be 
under great obligations to the proponent of that doctrine if he will 
explain it and give us the philosophy upon which it rests.   Then we 
would have the Constitution, not the supreme law of the land; then 
we would have the Constitution, made to govern the affairs of the 
American people, not governing in all particulars; then we would 
have Congress, which can not exist independent Of the Constitution, 
to which it is subject with everything it does and can do, completely 
independent of the Constitution, by reason of some power derived 
elsewhere. Now, who dares to state that proposition and endeaver to 
maintain it? Upon what ground other than one of these two can the 
contention be made that the Constitution has to be carried by an act 
of Congress to a Territory to get there at all; that the Constitution 
for its vitality anywhere, respecting any subject, depends upon 
Congressional legislation?   Where can such a proposition have 
started?   I submit - I do it confidently - I submit that nowhere in 
authority, nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere in the decisions of 
the Supreme Court, nowhere in reason and logic, can the warrant for 
the contention or the support for it be found. And yet our friends 
are put into such sore straits; they put themselves into such an 
awkward position; they so recklessly and defiantly entered upon the 
work of doing this, that, and the other thing, without reference to 
the Constitution; of legislating in ways new and strange to our 
people and contrary to the genius of our Government; that, relying to-
day upon this and the next day upon that, proclaiming to-day free 
trade and to-morrow protection, in grasping for straws, hoping by 
their aid to float, they fastened upon this new and strange doctrine 
that we have the Constitution outside of the State just where, and 
only where, the Congress chooses to put it. Now, then, let us look at 
this question in another light.   What is the Constitution in the 
Territory when Congress carries it there? Is it there as a Constitution 
or is it there as statute law?   When Congress, by a provision like this 
section 5, extends to Hawaii the laws of the United States locally 
applicable, Congress does no more and no less than Congress 
would do if it were to write out

word for word the entire body of those laws, embrace them in a 
bill, or in any number of bills, pass them, let them be approved by 
the President, and written anew in the statute book.   That is just 
exactly what extending laws to the Territory amounts to-just that; 
no more and no less.   This is the short way of enacting for the 
Territory the existing laws locally applicable to it.   Now, then, is 
there anything more done with respect to the Constitution? Does the 
Congress of the United States make a constitution, as we 
understand the term - make a constitution (as the Constitution of 
the United States is for the.States) the constitution also for a 
Territory by embodying it in an act of the Congress of the United 
States?   Can that be done?    Is that the way constitutions are 
made?   Can constitutions be made in that way? Then in extending 
the Constitution so far as "locallv applicable" to Hawaii, the 
Congress of the United States is doing no more, and can do no 
more, than the Congress would do if we were to embody in a bill the 
Constitution of the United States word for word: "Be it enacted by 
the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled," and then follow with the words of 
the Constitution.   Let the President, after both bodies have passed 
the bill containing the Constitution and nothing else, affix his 
signature in approval, and then you have the Constitution 
"extended" to Hawaii just as completely, and no more completely, 
than it is extended by this act. When the legislation is completed, 
what have yon done?   Yon have put the Constitution into the 
statute law of Hawaii, if you have done anything.   That precisely 
and nothing more.   Now, then, is that what gentlemen wish to 
accomplish by this measure? Did the gentleman who drew the bill 
wish to enact the words of the Constitution of the United States into 
statute law for Hawaii? Is that the purpose?   I venture to say that it 
is not. Assume, if you please, that the Constitution is not in force 
in Hawaii - those islands so very desirable for us, as so many people 
have said; those islands where the plague prevails, where contract 
labor is the rule, and slavery the result; where slavery, in fact, has 
been fostered and built up since the islands came under the control 
of the United States; the islands overrun with the cheapest labor of 
the Orient - if the Constitution is not over Hawaii, if the 
Constitution has not force and effect there, what force and effect 
will this legislation give it?   Can yon make a constitution for 
Hawaii by legislation of Congress?   Why, sir, heretofore when our 
States have required constitutions they have made them 
themselves; they have been made by the people of the State. Then 
can you make the Constitution of the United States the 
constitution of Hawaii by Congressional enactment?   It seems to me 
it is ridiculous to make such a contention. Then how does this 
enactment carry the Constitution there? How can it carry the 
Constitution to Hawaii?   How can a legislative act make over Hawaii 
a law supreme, as the Constitution of the United States is supreme over 
every sovereign State of this Union? How can it be done?   And then 
when it is done, if it can be done, what about this vast 
Congressional power of which we have heard?   The Congress 
which has the power to extend the Constitution to Hawaii - the 
Congress which, if it is right in now maintaining that Hawaii has not 
the Constitution of the United States and that it can put Hawaii 
under the shadow and protection of that Constitution - if it 
possesses that ample power - if it possesses that power which can 
not be derived from the Constitution, does it possess also the power 
to unmake, to undo?   If it be true that the Constitution of the 
United States does not throw its protection over Hawaii and the 
people who dwell there to-day - if it be further true that after the 
passage of this act, if this section remains in it (but not otherwise), 
the Constitution of the United States will be over Hawaii - then I 
ask whether it is not also true that the same power which gives 
Hawaii the Constitution of the United States could take from 
Hawaii that Constitution?   Who denies that proposition?   If it is 
denied, why is it denied?   [Applause on the Democratic side.] Now, 
can it be that Congress possesses this ample power-power so vast, 
so transcendent, that the Constitution does not restrain it, either 
because the Constitution has granted the power beyond recovery or 
because the power is derived from some other source - can it be true 
that the Congress of the United States possesses the vast and ample 
power to determine that a particular Territory of the United States 
or all of the territory outside of the States shall or shall not have 
the Constitution of the United States as the supreme governing 
law?   Can that be true?   And can it be true also that having once 
exercised this power, having once spread the Constitution over the 
Territory, Congress is powerless to withdraw it? I suppose these 
gentlemen who contend for this ample power on the part of Congress 
will hardly assume or hardly assert that Congressional legislation, 
from the time of the extending of the Constitution to a Territory, 
and during the time the Constitution is permitted to have an 
abiding place there, can be independent of the Constitution.   I 
think that can not be true.   When the Constitution is there or gets 
there, when the aegis of the Constitution is over Hawaii, then, for 
the time being, Congress, in legislating

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