the 21st, and shall hope the District Court will give me an opportunity of seeing you. Accept my affectionate salutations, and assurances of cordial esteem and respect. MARSHALL ON THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF EXPANSION AMERICAN INSURANCE COMPANY AND OTHERS V. CANTER. The American Insurance Company insured certain bales of cotton from New Orleans to France. The vessel in which it was shipped was wrecked on the coast of Florida, but the cotton was saved, and sold in order to pay the claim of those who saved it. This sale was made under the order of a territorial court of Florida. The owners having abandoned to the Insurance Company, the Company claimed part of the cotton which went to Charleston, and commenced suit for it in the United States district court, and obtained a judgment in their favor. Canter, who had bought at the sale in Florida, appealed to the circuit court, which reversed the decree of the district court; whereupon the Insurance Company appealed to the supreme court, the opinion of which was delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, as follows: The plaintiffs filed their libel in this cause in the district court of South Carolina, to obtain restitution of three hundred and fifty-six bales of cotton, part of the cargo of the ship Point à Petre, which had been insured by them on a voyage from New Orleans to Havre de Grace, in France. The Point à Petre was wrecked on the coast of Florida, the cargo saved by the inhabitants, and carried into Key West, where it was sold for the purpose of satisfying the salvors, by virtue of a decree of a court, consisting of a notary and five jurors, which was erected by an act of the territorial legislature of Florida. The owners abandoned to the underwriters, who, having accepted the same, proceeded against the property; alleging that the sale was not made by order of a court competent to change the property. David Canter claimed the cotton as a bona fide purchaser, under the decree of a competent court, which awarded seventy-six per cent. to the salvors on the value of the property saved. The district judge pronounced the decree of the territorial court a nullity, and awarded restitution to the libellants of such part of the cargo as he supposed to be identified by the evidence; deducting therefrom a salvage of fifty per cent. The libellants and claimant both appealed. The circuit court reversed the decree of the district court, and decreed the whole cotton to the claimant with costs, on the ground that the proceedings of the court at Key West were legal, and transferred the property to the purchaser. From this decree the libellants have appealed to this court. The cause depends, mainly, on the question, whether the property in the cargo saved was changed by the sale at Key West. The conformity of that sale to the order under which it was made has not been controverted. Its validity has been denied, on the ground that it was ordered by an incompetent tribunal. The tribunal was constituted by an act of the territorial legislature of Florida, passed on the 4th July, 1823, which is inserted in the record. That act purports to give the power which has been exercised; consequently, the sale is valid, if the territorial legislature was competent to enact the law. The course which the argument has taken will require, that, in deciding this question, the court should take into view the relation in which Florida stands to the United States. The constitution confers absolutely on the government of the union the powers of making war, and of making treaties; consequently, that government possesses the power of acquiring territory, either by conquest or by treaty. The usage of the world is, if a nation be not entirely subdued, to consider the holding of conquered territory as a mere military occupation, until its fate shall be determined at the treaty of peace. If it be ceded by the treaty, the acquisition is confirmed, and the ceded territory becomes a part of the nation to which it is annexed; either on the terms stipulated in the treaty of cession, or on such as its new master shall impose. On such transfer of territory, it has never been held that the relations of the inhabitants with each other undergo any change. Their relations with their former sovereign are dissolved, and new relations are created between them and the government which has acquired their territory. The same act which transfers their country transfers the allegiance of those who remain in it; and the law which may be denominated political is necessarily changed, although that which regulates the intercourse and general conduct of individuals remains in force, until altered by the newly created power of the state. On the 2d of February, 1819, Spain ceded Florida to the United States. The sixth article of the treaty of cession contains the following provision: "The inhabitants of the territories, which his Catholic majesty cedes to the United States by this treaty, shall be incorporated in the union of the United States, as soon as may be consistent with the principles of the federal constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of the privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States." This treaty is the law of the land, and admits the inhabitants of Florida to the enjoyment of the privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States. It is unnecessary to inquire whether this is not their condition, independent of stipulation. They do not, however, participate in political power; they do not share in the government, till Florida shall become a state. In the meantime Florida continues to be a territory of the United States, governed by virtue of that clause in the constitution which empowers congress "to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory, or other property, belonging to the United States." Perhaps the power of governing a territory belonging to the United States, which has not, by becoming a state, acquired the means of self-government, may result necessarily from the facts that it is not within the jurisdiction of any particular state, and is within the power and jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory. Whichever may be the source whence the power is derived, the possession of it is unquestioned. In execution of it, congress, in 1822, passed "An Act for the Establishment of a territorial Government in Florida;" and on the 3d of March, 1823, passed another act to amend the act of 1822. Under this act, the territorial legislature enacted the law now under consideration. The fifth section of the act of 1823 creates a territorial legislature, which shall have legislative powers over all rightful objects of legislation; but no law shall be valid which is inconsistent with the laws and constitution of the United States. The seventh section enacts, "That the judicial power shall be vested in two superior courts, and in such inferior courts, and justices of the peace, as the legislative council of the territory may from time to time establish." After prescribing the place of session, and the jurisdictional limits of each court, the act proceeds to say: "Within its limits, herein described, each court shall have jurisdiction in all criminal cases, and exclusive jurisdiction in all capital offences, and original jurisdiction in all civil cases of the value of one hundred dollars, arising under, and cognizable by, the laws of the territory, now in force therein, or which may at any time be enacted by the legislative council thereof." The eighth section enacts, "That each of the said superior courts shall, moreover, have and exercise the same jurisdiction, within its limits, in all cases arising under the laws and constitution of the United States, which, by an Act to establish the Judicial Courts of the United States, approved the 24th of September, 1789, and an Act in addition to the Act entitled an Act to establish the Judicial Courts of the United States, approved the 2d of March, 1793, was vested in the court of Kentucky district." The powers of the territorial legislature extend to all rightful objects of legislature, subject to the restriction that their laws shall not be "inconsistent with the laws and constitution of the United States." As salvage is admitted to come within this description, the act is valid, unless it can be brought within the restriction. We think, then, that the act of the territorial legislature, erecting the court by whose decree the cargo of the Point à Petre was sold, is not "inconsistent with the laws and constitution of the United States," and is valid. Consequently, the sale made in pursuance of it changed the property, and the decree of the circuit court, awarding restitution of the property to the claimant, ought to be affirmed with costs. NORTHERN TENDENCIES TOWARD SECESSION WE ARE OFTEN apt to think that the idea of secession was one that took its rise and remained popular entirely in the South, but a fair investigation will show that this is not the case. While the Federalists were in power during the administrations of Washington and Adams. the dissatisfaction of the Republicans showed itself in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, but when the Republicans came into power the Federalist strongholds were the ones to show dissatisfaction. The purchase of Louisiana occasioned mutterings in New England. The embargo act of 1807 again gave rise to threats of nullification, the questions arising in the war of 1812 gave rise to the Hartford convention which, in spite of many attempts to whitewash it, certainly believed in the doctrines of State sovereignty and the right of secession as a final resort: later the abolitionists came to think that the constitution was a "covenant with hell and a compact with death," and declared for no union with slaveholders. Yet it must be remembered that though such ideas were more common in the North from 1803 to 1828 than in the South, yet they were always confined to a radical and most dissatisfied minority. It was only after 1850 and in the South that the idea of secession grew until it was held by a majority of people in any wide territory. JOSIAH QUINCY JOSIAH QUINCY was born in Boston, Feb. 4, 1772. He graduated from Harvard college in 1790 and studied law. From 1804 to 1813 he was one of the most radical of the Federalists in Congress and went to great lengths in his opposition to the admission of Louisiana and the war of 1812. Much of the opposition to these acts of the Republicans must be considered mere party politics, but Quincy might have been far-sighted enough to see that the admission of Louisiana would eventually bring about the struggle over slavery. From 1823 to 1829 he was Mayor of Boston and from 1829 to 1845 president of Harvard University. He supported Fremont in 1856, and confessed that the great civil war had made him know his countrymen as he had never known them before. He died in July, 1864. MR. SPEAKER: ON THE ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JAN. 14, 1811 I address you, sir, with anxiety and distress of mind, with me, wholly unprecedented. The friends of this bill seem to consider it as |
