exercised in accordance with an overruling law of nature and of
nations, than is an Emperor-State by the issuing of edicts based on a
claim of right to be the supreme legislative power over
non-represented regions.

Widely scattered free states which are in political connection or
union must necessarily have some charge of their own defence both
physically and commercially, and the right to protect and support
themselves by tariff taxation must necessarily include the right to
lay a tariff against the Central State as well as against the other
connected states and against foreign states. All these conflicting
rights must be harmonized by the Central State, and it must at the
same time provide from the common resources for the common defence and
welfare. The questions growing out of such relations are the most
complicated known to politics. It seems that a Justiciar State acting
upon the advice of properly constituted administrative tribunals,
which habitually act judicially and whose function is to decide all
questions according to law and justice is much more likely to solve
such problems by investigation hearing and adjudication than is a
Legislator State to settle them by edict, or than is an Executive
State to procure a settlement of them by persuading the parties to
confer and compromise.

Is not this theory the true _via media_? The theory of the automatic
extension of the constitution of a state over its annexed insular,
transmarine and transterranean regions which from their local or other
circumstances can never equally participate in the institution and
operation of its government, in some cases protects individual rights,
but it takes no account of the right of free statehood, which is the
prime instrumentality for securing these rights. The theory of a power
over these regions not regulated by a supreme and universal law, is a
theory of absolute power over both individuals and communities in
these regions. The theory of a power over these regions based on the
principles of the law of nature and of nations, granting that this law
is itself based on the divine right of human equality, protects the
rights of persons, of communities, of states and of nations.

This theory is not inconsistent with the present doctrine of the
Supreme Court of the United States. It is an application and extension
of that doctrine. To say, as does the Supreme Court, that the American
Union has power over its annexed Insular regi