Note 1 — Chapter XIII · America and the Philippines.

Besides these states, there have always been large possessions of the nation called territories. These territories are extensive countries, too sparsely inhabited or too undeveloped politically to be admitted, in the judgment of the American Congress, to statehood in the Union. Their inhabitants do not have the right to vote for the president; neither have they representation in the American Congress. These territories are governed by Congress, through territorial governments, and over them Congress has full sovereign powers. That is, as the Supreme Court of the United States has decided and explained, while Congress when legislating for the states in the Union has only those powers of legislation which have been specifically granted by the Constitution, in legislating for the territories it has all the powers which the Constitution has not specifically denied. The only limitations on Congress are those which, under the American system of public law, guarantee the liberty of the individual,—his freedom of religious belief and worship; his right to just, open, and speedy trial; his right to the possession of his property; and other precious privileges, the result of centuries of development in the English-speaking race, which make up civil liberty. These priceless securities, which no power of the government can take away, abridge, or infringe, are as much the possession of the inhabitants of a territory as of a state.1