ted States. And as there is nothing differently stipulated in the
treaty with respect to commerce, it became instantly bound and
privileged by the laws which Congress had passed to raise a revenue
from duties on imports and tonnage.... The right claimed to land
foreign goods within the United States at any place out of a Collection
District, if allowed, would be a violation of that provision in the
Constitution which enjoins that all duties, imposts, and excises shall
be uniform throughout the United States."
The court here bases its reasoning distinctly on the treaty by which
California was acquired. But that treaty gave the pledge that
California (an adjacent Territory) should be incorporated into the
American Union. The Treaty of Paris gave no such pledge as to the
Philippines (not adjacent territory, but nine thousand miles away),
could not in the nature of the case have given such a pledge, and did
provide, instead, that the whole question of the civil rights and
political status of the native inhabitants should be determined by the
Congress. Recalling Mr. Justice Story's remark that in a Constitution
"there ought to be a capacity to provide for future contingencies as
they may happen, and as these are ... illimitable in their nature, so
it is impossible safely to limit that capacity," it would seem that
there would certainly be elasticity enough in the Constitution, or
common sense enough in its interpretation, to permit the Supreme Court
to perceive some difference between a requirement of uniform tariff on
this continent over a territory specifically acquired in order to be
made a State, and such a requirement on the other side of the globe
over territory not so acquired. The case becomes stronger when the
treaty (also constitutionally a part of the Supreme Law of the land)
turns over the political status of the latter territory entirely to
Congress.
The Constitution makes the same or similar requirements of uniformity
throughout the United States as to the tariff, internal taxes, courts,
and the right of trial by jury. But in every case the early practice
did not construe this to include the Territories.
_As to uniformity in tariff._ It was not enforced rigidly in Louisiana
for years. So little, in fact, was it then held that Louisiana, as
soon as acquired, became an integral part of the United States
(notwithstanding the treaty provision that in time it should), that
though the directors of the United St
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