according to its judgment, but that where we are acting as trustees for a race subject to our rule, we have no right to exclude the trade or the intercourse of other nations.

Mr. Chamberlain's views of the mission of the British Empire are well known. According to him, the purpose of the exercise, by England, of the Imperial power is to extend the Pax Britannica over all the people of the Empire, and to keep the peace by arbitrating disputes with and between the strong Colonies, and equalizing economic conditions between all parts of the Empire. In a speech before the Royal Colonial Institute, delivered in 1897, he declared that with respect to the self-governing Colonies "the sense of possession has given place to the sentiment of kinship"; and that with respect to those not capable of self-government, "the sense of possession has given place to the sense of obligation." Speaking of this obligation, he said:

We feel now that our rule over these territories can be. justified only if we can show that it adds to the happiness and prosperity of the people. Such a mission involves great responsibility. Great is the task, great is the responsibility, but great is the honor; and I am convinced that . . . we shall be able to fulfil the mission which our history and national character have imposed upon us.

Upon the whole, it seems not too much to say that the sentiment of the English people for humanity and justice has rendered obsolete the theory for which England stood in the war with the American Colonies, and that the British Empire of to-day is a Federal Empire.

THE

CHAPTER XXVI

AMERICAN ADMINISTRATION, 1787-1902

HE first Congress which assembled after the adoption of the Constitution, by an Act passed at its first session in the year 1789, recognized that it was its duty to withdraw from the direct administration of the dependencies in the Northwest Territory. Although, under the Ordinance of 1787, the reports of the Governor were required to be made to the Congress, and the Congress had power to appoint and remove all the officers concerned in the Local Government of the Northwest Territory, Congress, by this Act, recognized that these functions ought properly to be performed by the President. The officers of the Local Government of the Northwest Territory were not considered to be "officers of the United States" which, under the Constitution of the United States, the President was authorized to appoint by and with the advice of the Senate. If they had been, no Act of Congress would have been necessary. The provisions of the Constitution would have controlled, and would have superseded the inconsistent provisions of the Ordinance of 1787. The preamble stated that the purpose of the Act was to "adapt " the Ordinance of 1787 to the Constitution. If the Constitution had controlled the Ordinance, it would not have been proper to speak of "adapting" the Ordinance to the Constitution. The Ordinance was plainly recognized as a "needful rule and regulation respecting" the Northwest Territory, made in the exercise of the power of

disposition, and forming a part of the Imperial Constitution relating to the Northwest Territory, and the purpose of the Act was to "adapt" the Imperial Constitution to the Constitution of the American Union-that is, to apply a similar rule where the local conditions and circumstances of the Union and its dependencies were the same, and a different rule where the local conditions and circumstances of each were different. Only that which is coordinate with another thing can be "adapted" to it.

During the period from 1787 to 1799, the Governor and Judges, acting as the Local Legislature, framed laws such as they considered to be adapted to the needs of the inhabitants of the Territory, the provision of the Ordinance which required them to select laws from the laws of some one of the States having been found to be impracticable. Though these laws were obviously void, Congress refrained, after careful consideration, from taking any action to nullify them, and in 1799 they were re-enacted by the General Assembly, upon the establishment of the Temporary Government. During all this period Congress also refrained from enacting any local legislation for the Northwest Territory, thus recognizing the statehood of this dependent region, and recognizing the Governor and Judges as the Substituted and Trustee Government for the people of the region, as a dependent State.

The same system of government which was applied to the Northwest Territory by the Ordinance of 1787, as adapted to the Constitution by the Act of 1789, was applied to the dependencies southeast of the Ohio River as they were formed, it being made a condition in the deeds of cession from North and South Carolina and Georgia that this system should be applied, with the exception of the anti-slavery provision.

When the Louisiana Purchase was being discussed in Congress in December, 1803, Henry W. Livingston, then a Member of Congress from New Jersey, wrote to Gou

verneur Morris to obtain from him his views concerning the scope and meaning of the clauses of the Constitution relating to the disposition of the dependencies, and to the admission of new States into the Union. Morris replied that the Convention intended both these clauses to have an inclusive and universal meaning. Relating to the former, he wrote:

I always thought that when we should acquire Canada and Louisiana it would be proper to govern them as provinces and allow them no voice in our councils. In wording the third section of the fourth Article I went as far as circumstances would permit to establish the exclusion. Candor obliges me to add my belief that, had it been more pointedly expressed, a strong opposition would have been made.

After Jefferson had once become satisfied that Louisiana had, by the operation of the treaty of cession, become a dependency of the American Union, he seems to have felt no doubt but that the power of the Union over Louisiana was unconditional and unlimited. The Act of 1804, entitled "An Act Erecting Louisiana into Two Territories and Providing for the Temporary Government thereof," in fact provided for the government of that region, without any reference to any specific period of duration, by a more absolute form of government than was ever imposed by Great Britain upon any of the American Colonies. The whole political power in the Local Government of the region was vested in a Governor and a Council of thirteen members, all appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Governor and his Council constituted a Legislative Assembly, with legislative powers extending to all rightful subjects of legislation, except that no law was to be valid that was inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States. Certain specified Acts of

Congress were to be regarded as in force in the region, and Congress assumed that it had the right to make laws of sufficient force and validity to bind the inhabitants of the region in all cases whatsoever, according to its mere will.

The committee of the House of Representatives appointed to consider and report upon the petition of the inhabitants of Louisiana to be relieved from some of the more arbitrary provisions of the Act of 1804, in their report, made January 25, 1805, said:

Relying on the good sense of the people of Louisiana to point out to them that the United States cannot have incurred a heavy debt in order to obtain the Territory, merely with a view of exclusive or especial benefit of its inhabitants, your committee at the same time earnestly recommend that every indulgence not incompatible with the interests of the Union may be extended to them. Only two modes present themselves, whereby a dependent province may be held in obedience to a Sovereign State -force and affection. The first of these is not only repugnant to all our principles and institutions of government, but it could not be more odious to those on whom it would operate than it would be hostile to the best interests as well as the dearest predilections of those by whom, in this instance, it would have to be exercised. The United States form the patrimony of a free and enlightened people who control, while they constitute the fund from which men and money, of which military power is composed, can be drawn.

It can never be the interest, therefore, of the people of the United States to subject themselves to the burthens and their liberties to the dangers of a vast military force, for the subjugation of others. The only alternative, then, which presents itself, is believed to be not more congenial to the feelings than to the best interests of the Union.

Government by "affection" as the only alternative to a government by "force" had been expressly repudiated