Puerto Rico is a possession of the United States; and so is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States
By Editor
For more than a year the United States, by her officials, has governed the people of Puerto Rico. Those people are therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. The Constitution of the United States says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction are citizens of the United States.” Just now Congress and the national administration are, and for about two weeks have been, earnestly discussing the proposition, and the House has already decided, that, though the Puerto Ricans are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, they are not citizens of the United States, because the Constitution does not extend to Puerto Rico. In order to maintain this proposition, it is held that the term “United States” is restricted to, and is declared to mean, only the States; that it does not include the Territories at all; and that, therefore, the people of the Territories and of the island possessions are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, and can never have any of the benefits of the Constitution as of the Constitution, nor at all unless Congress chooses to extend to them said benefits. This procedure, if confirmed by the Senate, at once inaugurates, as a principle of the United States government, the principle of government without the Constitution. It at once sets Congress above the Constitution; and so makes Congress absolute everywhere except in the States.171 The President of the United States admits that “if the Constitution of itself extends to every possession over which the flag flies,” “it would be necessary to give up the Philippines,” and that “if the Supreme Court [by a decision] compels us to take the archipelago within the Constitution,” he “will advocate abandonment of the islands.” Thus it is admitted on the highest authority that the new career entered upon by the United States can not be followed under the Constitution; but must be followed without the Constitution, or not at all. This is precisely what we have said from the beginning. Every step that has so far been taken in this course, we have called attention to, and shown that it was in principle the abandonment of the Constitution. Now the matter has come to a crisis, and it is not only admitted but declared by the highest possible national authority. The whole country is awake. Congress is all astir. The Senate is now deliberating upon this mighty question in its crisis at the final parting of the ways. Will the nation now consciously abandon its Constitution for empire and absolutism? With intense interest we await the answer which in a few days will be made by the event of national action. For when this nation shall “repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government,” this national apostasy means speedy national ruin.