f Free States of which
our present Union will be the Supreme Justiciary Head, determining the
questions arising out of the relationship not by edict founded on will
and force, but by decision carefully made in each case after
ascertaining the facts and the principles of the law of nature and of
nations which are properly applicable.

If the principles and the corresponding terms adopted by the
Revolutionary Fathers were adopted by them as of universal
significance, and if they were right, must we not apply these
principles and these terms to-day, when the position of America is
reversed and she stands as a great and independent State in
relationship with distant communities which are so circumstanced that
they can never participate on equal terms in the institution and
operation of her government? Must not this law of nature and of
nations according to the American System, which for us underlies all
other law and which is the Spirit of the Constitution itself,
determine for us whether or not we shall continue to use the terms
'colony,' or "dependence," or "empire"?

If we must admit as Americans a universal right of free statehood, is
it proper to call Hawaii, Porto Rico, the Philippines or Guam
'colonies'? They are inhabited and we do not propose to colonize them.
If they are free states in union with the American Union as the
Justiciar State and form with it a Greater American Union, is it
proper to call them "dependencies," which may imply a direct
legislative power over them? And if the American Union is only the
Justiciar State of the whole Greater American Union of Free States,
composed of the American Union and its Territories and Insular
regions, with power of final decision for the common purposes
according to the law of nature and of nations why speak of this as
"Empire," which may imply absolute power and a denial that there
exists a universal law of nature and of nations protecting alike the
rights of persons communities states and nations?

But it will be said the conception I have outlined is impracticable.
Judging from the characteristics of human nature, a state which
declares itself the Justiciar of a Union of free states in permanent
political connection with it, for the purpose of discovering and
applying the principles of the law of nations in the just conduct of
the common affairs of the Union, is likely, if it acts as a true
Justiciar to accomplish much more by the persuasive effect of justice