WEBVTT - The Insular Cases 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:13.840 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:14.640 I'm Tracy V. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.840 Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Today we're going to talk 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:22.640 about some US Supreme Court cases, although not comical ones 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:26.480 like Nicks versus Headen, which we covered recently and was 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.800 about tomatoes. We are going to be talking more about 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:35.000 tariffs though this time. It's a collection of cases that 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:39.760 followed the Spanish American War, and these cases together limited 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.280 the rights of people living in certain US territories. These 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.680 cases still stand today. They still affect the lives and 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.240 civil rights of people in places like American Samoa, Guam, 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.920 the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.160 So people who were born in all of these territories, 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:03.360 with the exception of Americans, are considered US citizens by birth, 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:07.240 but while living on any of these any of these 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:10.800 islands territories, they don't have the same constitutional rights or 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.720 representation in Congress as citizens who live in one of 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.680 the fifty States. Some of those court cases involved the 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.240 Philippines also, that was a US territory at the time 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.959 but has since become independent. So together these cases are 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:29.440 known as the Insular Cases, with insular meaning related to islands, 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.160 and they were in the news last year because the 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.680 US Supreme Court declined to her case that was challenging them. 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.720 Before we start with this, I want to note there's 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.960 a whole range of opinion in all of these places 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:48.680 about their relationships to the United States, Like, for example, 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.120 there are American Samoans who think that they should be 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.800 considered US citizens from birth, but then others who think 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.400 that would erase their existing culture and traditions. Or as 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.560 another example, there is a movement for Puerto Rican statehood 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.640 that's been going on for decades, but there are also 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.680 people who opposed that movement, with some of the opponents 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:15.320 advocating instead for an independent Puerto Rico. So this episode 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.720 is really focused on the court cases and the context 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.720 around them. It is not about the lived experiences and 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.320 opinions of the people living in all of these territories. 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:27.040 I don't think the two of us are the best 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.960 people to try to like embody that no, and even 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:32.680 if we were, I feel like that is a podcast 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.239 of its own and not an episode of ARM. 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:37.760 Not an episode of ours for sure. 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.639 Before we talk about these cases, we need to set 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:43.480 the stage on how the US had approached its territories 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:47.560 before the Spanish American War. The original borders of the 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.800 United States were set under the seventeen eighty three Treaty 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.800 of Paris, which formally ended the Revolutionary War between Britain 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:59.160 and its North American colonies. This treaty did not acknowledge 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.120 the indigenous names and peoples who had been in North 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:06.280 America for thousands of years prior to europeans arrival, or 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.160 contain any reference to borders of their own lands and territory. 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.960 For a time, the Articles of Confederation formed the basis 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:18.360 for the US government. These were ultimately replaced by the 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:22.320 US Constitution, which went into effect on March fourth, seventeen 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:28.359 eighty nine. The Constitution didn't include anything specifically about adding 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.680 new territory to the United States, but it did include 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:36.800 language about adding states. An Article four, Section three quote, 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.480 New states may be admitted by the Congress into this Union. 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.080 But no new state shall be formed or erected within 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.520 the jurisdiction of any other state, nor any state be 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.360 formed by the junction of two or more states or 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:54.440 parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.960 the states concerned, as well as of the Congress. Section 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.000 three also incl language about territory that was not considered 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.120 part of a state, quote, the Congress shall have power 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.840 to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:14.480 respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States. 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.200 And nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.600 to prejudice any claims of the United States or any 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:26.640 particular state. Soon, new states were being added to the Union. 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.080 The first state that wasn't one of the thirteen original 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:34.560 colonies was Vermont in seventeen ninety one. Kentucky became a 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.159 state in seventeen ninety two from land that had previously 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:42.240 been considered part of Virginia. Tennessee became a state four 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.159 years later, formed from the Southwest Territory that was land 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:50.080 that North Carolina had ceded to the federal government. Ohio 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.360 joined the Union in eighteen oh three and was formed 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:57.760 from part of the Northwest Territory. With the exception of Vermont, 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:02.159 which had considered itself an independent republic before becoming a state, 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.080 these newly added states had all been formed from organized, 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.839 incorporated territory that was already considered to be within the 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:14.279 US borders under the Treaty of Paris. So incorporated in 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.120 this case means that the territory is considered to be 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.800 fully part of the US under the Constitution, and the 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.120 only parts of the Constitution that don't apply to incorporated 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:29.800 territory are articles that specifically apply to the states. Organized 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.279 means that Congress had passed an organic act or a 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:36.839 body of laws establishing a government and usually a bill 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:40.359 of rights for the territory. So, for example, the Northwest 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:45.480 Territory was unorganized before Congress passed the Northwest Ordinances. The 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.760 Northwest Ordinances of seventeen eighty seven also outlined a process 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.920 for the territory to be admitted into the Union as 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.279 no less than three and no more than five states. 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:01.440 When the United States started acquiring new terrance, that new 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:06.159 territory was also incorporated. The first big addition of land 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.160 to the United States was the Louisiana Purchase in eighteen 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.200 oh three. The Treaty of Session that was part of 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.839 the Louisiana Purchase agreement said, quote, the inhabitants of the 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.919 cated Territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.680 United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.040 the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:30.480 all these rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:35.159 United States. Florida was also incorporated when it became part 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:38.040 of the United States under the Adam Zonice Treaty, which 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:42.160 took effect in eighteen twenty one. States formed from these 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.719 territories were added to the Union, following the same basic 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.880 template that had been outlined in the Northwest Ordinance of 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:53.440 seventeen eighty seven. As the nineteenth century continued, the United 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:58.560 States approach to expansion was described as manifest destiny. That's 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.159 a term first used in Right Blace in eighteen forty 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:04.040 five as part of an argument that the United States 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.839 should annex the Republic of Texas. This came to mean 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.880 that the United States was destined to expand across the 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.360 whole of North America, and this idea framed the United 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:19.600 States expansion as necessary and inevitable, and as the nation's duty. 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.800 This also was connected to a series of removals, wars, 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:28.040 and genocidal policies against the indigenous nations of North America, 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.760 in which tens of thousands of people were forced to 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.000 leave their homelands and move to land known as Indian 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:37.880 Territory west of the Mississippi River, primarily in what is 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:43.440 now Oklahoma. Support for the philosophy of manifest destiny was 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:47.360 not as universal as it sometimes described. There were people 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.040 within and outside of the US government who argued against 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.800 such aggressive expansion, and there were people of a range 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:59.280 of backgrounds, races, ethnicities, and religions who didn't want the 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.840 place they were already living to be annexed or purchased 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.920 by the United States for all kinds of reasons. Thousands 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.000 of Indigenous people also died as a result of the 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.680 force removals that were involved in making way for this expansion. 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.960 But the underlying assumption was that any territory the US 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:22.520 was acquiring would become one or more states. Assumption is 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:24.920 not even a strong enough word. It was obvious and 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.160 unquestioned that newly acquired territory would be admitted into the 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:33.280 Union as states. There were debates about whether slavery would 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:37.319 be allowed in newly organized territory and newly admitted states, 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:41.200 and a number of compromises and appeasements maintained a balance 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.360 between slave states and free States in Congress, but there 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:48.320 was really no debate about whether this new territory was 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:51.240 on a path to statehood. There was no sense at 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:56.200 all that a territory could be unincorporated. The only real 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.840 exception to this pattern involved the islands that were claimed 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.920 under the Guano Islands Act of eighteen fifty six. This 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.760 act allowed US citizens to claim uninhabited islands as sources 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.319 of guano or bird poop, so these islands didn't need 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.800 to be incorporated they did not have a permanent human population. 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:20.640 Alaska's status was also kind of vague for a while 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:23.720 after the US purchased it from Russia in eighteen sixty seven. 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.400 The US made this purchase just two years after the 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:29.960 end of the Civil War, it was still in the 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.200 middle of trying to rebuild itself. In Secretary of State 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:37.600 William H. Stewart's decision to buy Alaska was widely criticized 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:42.680 and lampooned. Alaska was organized as the District of Alaska 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.320 in eighteen eighty four, but at the very end of 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.480 the nineteenth century, the United States acquired territory that it 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.280 didn't necessarily want to incorporate. We're going to get to 0:09:54.320 --> 0:10:06.880 that after we have a sponsor break. The United States 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:11.480 approach to its territories really shifted during and after the 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:16.880 Spanish American War. This war evolved from Cuba's struggle for 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:21.400 independence from Spain, and it was also influenced by sensationalized 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.960 news reporting in the United States and the explosion of 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.960 the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on February fifteenth, eighteen 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:33.280 ninety eight. The Treaty of Paris that formally ended the 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:37.160 Spanish American War was signed on December tenth, eighteen ninety eight. 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.000 It recognized Cuba as an independent nation while giving the 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:45.520 United States control of Puerto Rico and Guam. Under the treaty, 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.959 the United States was also allowed to purchase the Philippines 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.720 from Spain, which it did, although the Philippines had declared 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:56.479 its own independence, and the US takeover of the Philippines 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.120 sparked the two year Philippine American War. There are many 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.280 treaties of Paris. This is obviously a different one than 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.920 the one that formerly ended the Revolutionary War. Paris is 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:09.600 where all the cool treaties happen, where we always go 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.600 to negotiate a peace. I mean, yeah, any excuse to 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.920 go to Paris. While the Spanish American War was ongoing, 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:21.400 the United States had also annexed Hawaii. For some very 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:24.840 brief context on that, in eighteen seventy five, the US 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.120 and the Kingdom of Hawaii had signed a reciprocity treaty 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.959 that allowed Hawaii to freely export goods like sugar. 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:32.800 To the US. 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.240 In exchange, the US took control of an area known 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:39.800 as Puuloa, now home to the Pearl Harbor Naval Base. 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.240 This treaty led to a huge explosion in the sugar 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:47.240 industry in Hawaii, driven by US business interests, which made 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:52.480 the Hawaiian economy increasingly dependent on these exports. Then, in 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:55.800 eighteen ninety three, Sandford Dole, a lawyer who was born 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:59.360 in Hawaii to American parents, led a committee of sugar 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:04.040 planters and other American businessmen to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.880 with the backing of the US military. Dole petitioned the 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.440 US to annex Hawaii in eighteen ninety four, and one 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.400 reason the US did so four years later was to 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:17.400 ensure that it did not lose control of Pearl Harbor 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.960 while fighting a war with Spain. That is, like the 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.080 most brief abridged synopsis, and we're about to have another 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.840 one because then in eighteen ninety nine, the US took 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:35.200 control of part of the Samoan archipelago again incredibly briefly. 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.920 In the nineteenth century, Germany, Britain, and the US all 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:44.120 established business interests in Samoa and became heavily involved in 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:49.839 Samoan politics. Each of these nations backed different political factions, 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.600 and when a civil war began in eighteen eighty nine, 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:55.199 one side was backed by the US and the other 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:59.240 was backed by Germany. The first phase of fighting ended 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.440 in eighteen eighty ten, nine, mostly because most of the 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:05.920 Western powers ships were either damaged or destroyed in a cyclone. 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:10.280 Violence resumed in eighteen ninety three, continuing for about a year, 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:15.320 again with Germany and the US backing opposing factions. Then, 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:19.720 when Marito lal Peppe, leader of Samoa, died in eighteen 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.880 ninety eight, the Chief Justice who issued the decision on 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:28.960 who his successor would be was an American citizen, so 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:33.760 a lot of Samoans and Germans in Samoa opposed this decision. 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:38.760 This led to renewed hostilities. Ultimately, Britain, the United States, 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:43.920 and Germany negotiated the Tripartite Convention without the involvement of Samoans, 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:48.800 and this partitioned the archipelago between the United States and Germany. 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.319 Just as a note, German Samoa was placed under control 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.319 of New Zealand after World War One. It became independent 0:13:56.400 --> 0:14:01.240 in nineteen sixty two. The US portion still a US territory. 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.280 So by eighteen ninety nine, the US had taken control 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.599 of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, Hawaii, and part of Samoa, 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.439 and it had a number of reasons to want access 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.360 to territory in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Many of 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.320 these islands had strategic military importance and could also serve 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:24.760 as refueling points for trading ships. Investors saw range of 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:29.400 agricultural and commercial opportunities. This was also happening as the 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.520 Panama Canal was being built, a project that the US 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.600 took over just a few years after taking control of 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:39.400 these new territories, so people were seeing new potential for 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.640 international shipping. There was also an argument for the US 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.960 to take over these islands that was explicitly racist, that 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.280 they were not capable of governing themselves, so the United 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:54.440 States needed to take them over, an argument not to 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.960 keep control of all of these islands was also racist. 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.520 There were basically people who did it want islands full 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:05.880 of people who were predominantly indigenous or Hispanic to suddenly 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:10.480 become US citizens. In some cases, religious prejudice was also 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.680 a factor, since some of these areas were predominantly Catholic. 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.640 This can seem like an odd argument considering that the 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.280 US had already incorporated a lot of territory in North 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:25.640 America that had previously been colonized by Spain and had 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.520 some demographic similarities to these islands, like under the Treaty 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.920 of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican American War in 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:37.080 eighteen forty eight, Mexico ceded more than half its territory 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.120 to the US. People living there had been given a 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.960 year to decide if they wanted to become US citizens, 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.360 and by the time the Spanish American War ended, multiple 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:51.480 states had been formed from that territory. But as an example, 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.840 when California became a state in eighteen fifty, formed from 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.320 territory that had been part of Mexico, it had a 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:03.480 population of about ninety two thousand people. Meanwhile, at the 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.200 end of the Spanish American War, the population of Puerto 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.400 Rico was more than ten times that, and there were 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:14.280 roughly seven million people living in the Philippines. The entire 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:17.680 United States population at this point was about seventy six 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.240 million people, So there were a lot of people who 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.920 just completely freaked out about the idea that if the 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.280 Philippines became a state, Filipinos would make up almost ten 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.800 percent of the population of the United States. Also, with 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.320 the exception of Puerto Rico, these newly acquired islands were 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:38.640 geographically very far from continental North America, and that added 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:42.200 to the perception that they were more foreign than something 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:46.560 like the southwestern part of the continent was Also, to 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.920 be clear, we're not suggesting that racism and prejudice were 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.680 directed only at the people in these newly acquired island territories, 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.680 or that everyone living in the continental US had the 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.680 same constitutional rights at this point as exact samples. After 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.320 the US Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment had granted citizenship 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:08.159 to anyone born or naturalized in the United States and 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:12.160 subject to US jurisdiction, and the fifteenth Amendment had given 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.760 black men the right to vote, but in practice, many 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.840 black men could not freely exercise their right to vote, 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.359 and women did not have a constitutional right to vote 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.919 at all. Native Americans were not considered US citizens, and 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:30.520 immigrants from many Asian countries were banned from becoming citizens. 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.320 So the idea that the US might apply constitutional rights 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.840 and protections only to some people also was not. 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:38.480 At all new. 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:41.440 What was new was the idea that the US could 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:47.159 acquire territory without that territory ultimately becoming a state. That 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:49.959 is where we get to these Supreme Court cases. On 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.280 May twenty seventh, nineteen oh one, the US Supreme Court 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:57.200 issued its decision in six cases that had all been 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:01.520 argued over the course of nineteen hundred and nineteen. Most 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.080 of these were related to Puerto Rico. There was also 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.679 one case relating to Hawaii and one related to the Philippines. 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:13.720 Some constitutional law scholars frame these six decisions as the 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.520 core insular cases. There are others who include two other 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.760 cases that were decided in December of that same year. 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:24.240 There are others who include a lot more cases that 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.720 were decided over the next two decades, for up to 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.800 a total of thirty five cases. So like the argument 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.320 over which cases are the insular, cases can really vary 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:34.680 depending on whose opinions. 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:35.200 You're reading. 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.600 The idea that at least some of these cases would 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.560 be grouped together as the Insular Cases was there right 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.159 from the beginning. Some of the court's opinions collectively refer 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.119 to the Insular Tariff Cases. In February of nineteen oh one, 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:52.439 after the cases had been argued but before they were decided, 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.080 the House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for the 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:58.639 briefs and arguments from five of the cases to be 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:03.160 printed together as a book called the Insular Cases. That 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.040 book is one thousand and seventy five pages long, well 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:09.720 light reading. Yeah, clearly we're not going to be talking 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:13.840 about all of these cases in detail to quickly tick 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.280 through these nineteen oh one cases. That's not just the 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.240 first six, it's the other two as well. One outlier 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.320 was Who's versus New York and Puerto Rico Steamship Company. 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.600 This looked at the question of whether Puerto Rican ports 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.320 were domestic or foreign ports in the context of US 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.879 shipping law and New York laws around the pilotage of 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:39.440 nautical vessels. Most of the other cases addressed the core 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:43.840 question of whether Puerto Rico, Hawaii, or the Philippines should 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.640 be considered a foreign country in terms of tariff law. 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:52.760 These cases were Delema versus Bidwell, Gutsa versus United States, 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:57.960 Armstrong versus United States, two different cases called Duly versus 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:03.600 United States, and fourteen Diamond Rings versus United States. These 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.879 cases all involved similar scenarios. A person or business had 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.720 been required to pay a duty or had something seized 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:14.080 by customs, but they argued that no duties or fees 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.439 should have been required or customs should not have seized 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:19.960 the goods since the goods had not come from a 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:24.200 foreign country. The Court issued decisions in these cases establishing 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.000 that none of these places were foreign countries in the 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:31.320 context of tariff law unless the duty had been imposed 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.240 before the United States annexed them. The last of these 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.960 nineteen oh one cases, not in terms of time decided 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.840 just in terms of us talking about them, was Downs 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.920 versus Bidwell, and that looked at whether parts of the 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:48.879 Forker Act were constitutional. The Foriker Act, also called the 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:52.080 Puerto Rico Organic Act, had been passed in April of 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:57.399 nineteen hundred. Among its many provisions, the Forker Act established 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.080 a fifteen percent tariff on goods that were imported into 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:05.199 Puerto Rico from the United States and vice versa. But 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:10.480 Article one, Section eight, Clause one of the US Constitution, 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:17.119 known as the Uniformity Clause, requires that quote all duties, imports, 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:22.320 and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. So 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.879 if throughout the United States included Puerto Rico, it was 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:31.760 unconstitutional for it to have this separate tariff. The Supreme 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:35.800 Court's plurality decision was that no, the Foriker Act was 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:41.520 not unconstitutional because while Puerto Rico belonged to the United States, 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:46.440 it was not part of the United States. Of all 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:50.480 these cases, Delema versus Bidwell and Downs versus Bidwell have 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.080 gotten the most attention in terms of study and analysis, 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:58.119 and Downs versus Bidwell in particular has become notorious for 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.879 its racist language. To get into more on that, after 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:14.320 a sponsor break, as we noted before the break, in 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:17.240 nineteen oh one, the US Supreme Court issued a decision 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:21.080 in Downs versus Bidwell that described Puerto Rico as belonging 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:25.359 to the United States but not part of it. Downs 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:32.560 versus Bidwell also established a distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territory. 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.639 As we talked about in the first part of this 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:38.600 show like this was a new idea. This was not 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:41.199 how the United States had been doing it before. In 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:44.760 the words of a concurring opinion by Justice Horace Gray, quote, 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:48.760 so long as Congress has not incorporated the territory into 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:53.360 the United States, neither military occupation nor session by treaty 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:57.240 makes the conquered territory domestic territory in the sense of 0:22:57.280 --> 0:23:01.000 the revenue laws. But those laws can so learning foreign 0:23:01.160 --> 0:23:06.119 countries remain applicable to the conquered territory until changed by Congress. 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:10.280 If Congress is not ready to construct a complete government 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:13.760 for the conquered territory, it may establish a temporary government 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:17.680 which is not subject to all the restrictions of the Constitution. 0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:19.480 That doesn't sound. 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:23.680 Like a fat loophole at all. In other words, Puerto 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:27.600 Rico and by extension, the other island territories were not 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.280 foreign countries in terms of tariff law, but also were 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:33.760 not part of the United States in any way that 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:36.800 would bring them under the Constitution's uniformity clause. 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:39.399 This decision sort of. 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:44.280 Read into various parts of the Constitution and previous court decisions, 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:48.879 arguing that you really couldn't infer from the Constitution that 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:54.480 territories were part of the United States, like the thirteenth 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:59.880 Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery quote within the United States, 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:03.960 were in any place subject to their jurisdiction. So, according 0:24:04.000 --> 0:24:07.280 to this argument, that had to mean there were places 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.760 that were subject to US jurisdiction but were not part 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:15.240 of the United States. Or in the fourteenth Amendment quote, 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:19.240 all persons born or naturalized in the United States and 0:24:19.440 --> 0:24:22.879 subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United 0:24:22.920 --> 0:24:26.199 States and the state wherein they reside. So in the 0:24:26.280 --> 0:24:30.560 Court's view, that suggested that in the United States and 0:24:30.960 --> 0:24:34.840 subject to US jurisdiction could be two totally different things. 0:24:35.480 --> 0:24:39.040 To quote from the plurality opinion authored by Justice Henry 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:42.399 Billings Brown quote, We are also of the opinion that 0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:46.080 the power to acquire territory by treaty implies not only 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:49.800 the power to govern such territory, but to prescribe upon 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:53.359 what terms the United States will receive its inhabitants and 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:56.360 what their status shall be in what Chief Justice Marshall 0:24:56.440 --> 0:25:00.520 termed the American Empire. There seems to be no middle 0:25:00.560 --> 0:25:03.480 ground between this position and the doctrine that if their 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:07.800 inhabitants do not become immediately upon annexation citizens of the 0:25:07.920 --> 0:25:13.200 United States. Their children thereafter born, whether savages or civilized, 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:16.840 are such and entitled to all the rights, privileges, and 0:25:16.880 --> 0:25:21.480 immunities of citizens. If such be their status, the consequences 0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:26.120 will be extremely serious. Indeed, it is doubtful if Congress 0:25:26.119 --> 0:25:29.600 would ever assent to the annexation of territory upon the 0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:32.840 condition that its inhabitants, however foreign they may be, to 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:36.320 our habits, traditions, and modes of life, shall become at 0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:42.600 once citizens of the United States. Legal racism. Yeah, it's 0:25:43.359 --> 0:25:48.040 very It's like, it's straightforwardly racist. Uh. 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:51.159 The Plurality opinion concluded. Quote. 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:56.920 If those possessions are inhabited by alien races differing from 0:25:57.119 --> 0:26:01.240