THE QUESTION OF TERMINOLOGY.

BY ALPHEUS H. SNOW.

Mr. President, Members of the Association and Section, Ladies and Gentlemen:

You have heard ably discussed certain questions which arise out of the relationship between the American Union and the annexed Insular regions, viewed in its sociological and economic aspect. I now ask your attention to a question of immediate interest and importance growing out of this relationship viewed in its political, that is to say, its legal aspect. This question, which the Committee on Arrangements has called "The Question of Terminology," is: What are the correct terms to use in describing the political and legal relationship between the American Union and its distant annexed regions, assuming that this relationship is to be permanent and is to be on terms which are just to all parties?

More specifically, the question which I shall discuss will be, whether we, as Americans, ought, according to American principles, to use, in our political and legal language, the terms colony," "dependence," and "empire," or whether we ought, according to those principles, to substitute for the term colony," the term "free state,' free state," for "dependence," just connection," and for "empire", "union."

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It is needless to say that I shall accept the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States as final in regard to all the matters adjudicated in them. But the Supreme Court has jurisdiction only for the purpose of determining the rights of individuals. The political relations between the Union and the Insular regions, it determines only so far as may be necessary to ascertain individual rights. Its present doctrine-that the American Union has power over the Insular regions subject to "fundamental principles formulated in the Constitution," or subject to "the applicable provisions of the Constitution," protects the civil rights of individuals, but under it the

power of the Union for political purposes remains absolute. The proposition which I shall offer for your judgment, will, I believe, not only not be in conflict with the proposition laid down by the Supreme Court, but will give a reason why they are right. It will, too, I believe, give a reasonable basis for our holding that the power of the American Union over the Insular regions, while ample for the maintenance of a just and proper permanent relationship with them under our control, is not absolute even as respects their political rights.

I have said that I shall discuss this question upon American principles. I shall not base myself on the Constitution of the United States, though I shall try to show the relation of that document to the question, as I understand it. I shall assume it to be settled by the decisions of the Supreme Court,—as it seems clearly to be that with the exception of the "Territory" clause of that instrument, it is, and of right ought to be, the Constitution of the thirteen original States of he American Union and of the other States which they have admitted into their Union, and of no other States or communities; and that therefore it does not extend of its own force outside the American Union in any constitutional or legal sense, but only in a metaphorical sense this being as I understand it, the meaning of the Court when they hold, as they do, that, though the "Territory clause" is of present and universal significance as respects all the regions annexed to the Union, yet, with this exception, only "the applicable provisions of the Constitution" or "the fundamental principles formulated in the Constitution" are in force in the annexed regions. "Extensions," so-called, of the Constitution by Act of Congress, are of course mere Acts of Congress, and whether such metaphorical "extensions" are permanent will depend upon the terms and conditions of the "extension."

But though I shall not base myself on the Constitution of the United States, I shall nevertheless base myself on a great American document, which preceded the Constitution as a statement of American principles, and which is so far from being inconsistent with it that the Democratic party, in its platform of 1900, called it "the Spirit of the Constitution "—

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I refer to the Declaration of Independence. It is the American principles set forth in that document which I shall try to discover. If I shall be adjudged to have rightly interpreted that instrument, it will follow that we ought to substitute, in our political and legal language, for the term "colony," the term free state,” for “dependence," "just connection," and for "empire," ""union." In making such substitution, however, it will be necessary to give to the terms "free state" and "union," a scientific meaning which will differ from that which they now have in the popular mind, but which will, I believe, be the same as was given to these terms by the Revolutionary statesmen.

I shall not allow myself to be embarrassed by the fact that in my first published writing I used the terms "colony,” “dependence" and "empire;" for at the same time that I used these terms, I based myself on principles which were those of free statehood, just connection and union, to which I adhere to this day.

Taking the Declaration of Independence, therefore, as the exposition of the fundamental principles on which all American political theory is based, and to which all American policy must conform, let me state briefly the general meaning and purpose of this instrument, as I understand it.

As a result of the discussion for twelve years preceding the Declaration, the doctrine of the extension of the British Constitution to the American Colonies, which from their situation, could never be represented on equal terms in Parliament, was found to be useless for the protection of American rights, political or civil; and the doctrine that their rights were dependent on the Colonial Charters was found to be inadequate, for these Charters, while protecting the civil rights of the Americans to some extent, proceeded on the theory that they held all their political rights at the will or whim of Great Britain. The Americans felt and knew that they were entitled to political, as well as civil rights, and they all firmly believed that each so-called "colony" was a free state and subject to no external control beyond what was necessary to preserve their relationship with Great Britain on just terms to all the parties.

The only question which the Americans discussed, as soon as they comprehended the whole situation, was, Why was each so-called "colony colony" a free state and why had it always been such? The Declaration of Independence, as I understand it, gave to the world their solution of this problem. Their answer, as I understand it, was, that the American Colonies were and always had been free states, because their relations with the State of Great Britain were not under the British Constitution and were not wholly under the Colonial Charters, but were under a supreme and universal common law, which governs the relations between men, communities, bodies corporate, states and nations, and which they called in the Declaration "the Law of Nature and of Nature's God," according to which every community on the earth's surface, within reasonable limits for the formation and execution of a just public sentiment, is entitled to be a free state,—that is, to be free from external control, in executing its just public sentiment, except so far as may be necessary to enable it to conform to the terms of its just connections with other free states. This doctrine of free statehood as a universal right is, as I understand it, the central idea of the Declaration.

Assuming this to be the central idea, let us see how this idea is reached; and for that purpose, let us notice the exact language of the Declaration. The first paragraph reads:

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

The "causes of separation are prefaced by a number of propositions determining the nature of the "political bands " by which one people may be "connected with" another. These propositions are all rules of human conduct, and are therefore principles of law, though they are called "self-evident truths." This part of the Declaration reads:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

The conception of the universal right of free statehood is reached, in the Declaration, through a series of three propositions, each stated to be self-evident, and yet all forming a sequence. The basal proposition is, that "all men are created equal." Rufus Choate and John James Ingalls have declared this proposition and the succeeding one that "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," to be "glittering generalities." Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, in his speech at Gettysburg, at the most solemn and stirring moment in the country's history, declared that the proposition that all men are created equal was the foundation-idea of the nation, to which it was dedicated by the Fathers.

The doctrine of equality arising from the common creation of all men as the spiritual offspring of a common Creator, was the doctrine of the Reformation in its broadest form, as declared by Penn. Taking into consideration the religious character of the Americans, as well as the learning and acumen of that most remarkable body of men who constituted the Continental Congress, it seems not only not improbable, but probable, and indeed necessary to conclude, that the proposition that "all men are created equal" was intended to be the epitome of the doctrine of the Reformation, as that doctrine was broadened by the influence of Penn and his followers. As the Governments of Europe were at that time acting on the political philosophy of feudalism and medievalism, which in its last analysis was based on the proposition that all men are