Opinion of the Court. for the States; in the other as a local legislature for the District of Columbia. In the latter character, it was admitted that the power of levying direct taxes might be exercised, but for District purposes only, as a state legislature might tax for state purposes; but that it could not legislate for the District under Art. I, sec. 8, giving to Congress the power "to lay and collect taxes, imposts and excises," which "shall be uniform throughout the United States," inasmuch as the District was no part of the United States. It was held that the grant of this power was a general one without limitation as to place, and consequently extended to all places over which the government extends; and that it extended to the District of Columbia as a constituent part of the United States. The fact that Art. I, sec. 20, declares that "representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers," furnished a standard by which taxes were apportioned; but not to exempt any part of the country from their operation. "The words used do not mean, that direct taxes shall be imposed on States only which are represented, or shall be apportioned to representatives; but that direct taxation, in its application to States, shall be apportioned to numbers." That Art. I, sec. 9, ¶ 4, declaring that direct taxes shall be laid in proportion to the census, was applicable to the District of Columbia, " and will enable Congress to apportion on it its just and equal share of the burden, with the same accuracy as on the respective States. If the tax be laid in this proportion, it is within the very words of the restriction. It is a tax in proportion to the census or enumeration referred to." It was further held that the words of the ninth section did not "in terms require that the system of direct taxation, when resorted to, shall be extended to the territories, as the words of the second section require that it shall be extended to all the States. They therefore may, without violence, be understood to give a rule when the territories shall be taxed without imposing the necessity of taxing them." There could be no doubt as to the correctness of this conclusion, so far, at least, as it applied to the District of Columbia. This District had been a part of the States of Maryland and Opinion of the Court. Virginia. It had been subject to the Constitution, and was a part of the United States. The Constitution had attached to it irrevocably. There are steps which can never be taken backward. The tie that bound the States of Maryland and Virginia to the Constitution could not be dissolved, without at least the consent of the Federal and state governments to a formal separation. The mere cession of the District of Columbia to the Federal government relinquished the authority of the States, but it did not take it out of the United States or from under the ægis of the Constitution. Neither party had ever consented to that construction of the cession. If, before the District was set off, Congress had passed an unconstitutional act, affecting its inhabitants, it would have been void. If done after the District was created, it would have been equally void; in other words, Congress could not do indirectly by carving out the District what it could not do directly. The District still remained a part of the United States, protected by the Constitution. Indeed, it would have been a fanciful construction to hold that territory which had been once a part of the United States ceased to be such by being ceded directly to the Federal government. In delivering the opinion, however, the Chief Justice made certain observations which have occasioned some embarrass ment in other cases. "The power," said he, "to lay and collect duties, imposts, and excises may be exercised, and must be exercised, throughout the United States. Does this term designate the whole, or any particular portion of the American empire? Certainly this question can admit but of one answer. It is the name given to our great republic, which is composed of States and territories. The District of Columbia, or the territory west of the Missouri, is not less within the United States than Maryland and Pennsylvania; and it is not less necessary, on the principles of our Constitution, that uniformity in the imposition of imposts, duties and excises, should be observed in the one, than in the other. Since, then, the power to lay and collect taxes, which includes direct taxes, is obviously coextensive with the power to lay and collect duties, imposts and excises, and since the latter extends throughout the United States, it follows, that the power to impose direct taxes also extends through Opinion of the Court. out the United States." So far as applicable to the District of Columbia, these observations are entirely sound. So far as they apply to the territories, they were not called for by the exigencies of the case. In line with Loughborough v. Blake is the case of Callan v. Wilson, 127 U. S. 540, in which the provisions of the Constitution relating to trial by jury were held to be in force in the District of Columbia. Upon the other hand, in Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U. S. 258, the District of Columbia, as a political community, was held to be one of "the States of the Union" within the meaning of that term as used in a consular convention of February 23, 1853, with France. The seventh article of that convention provided that in all the States of the Union, whose existing laws permitted it, Frenchmen should enjoy the right of holding, disposing of and inheriting property in the saine manner as citizens of the United States; and as to the States of the Union, by whose existing laws aliens were not permitted to hold real estate, the President engaged to recommend to them the passage of such laws as might be necessary for the purpose of conferring this right. The court was of opinion that if these terms, "States of the Union," were held to exclude the District of Columbia and the territories, our government would be placed in the inconsistent position of stipulating that French citizens should enjoy the right of holding, disposing of and inheriting property in like manner as citizens of the United States, in States whose laws permitted it, and engaging that the President should recommend the passage of laws conferring that right in States whose laws did not permit aliens to hold real estate, while at the same time refusing to citizens of France, holding property in the District of Columbia and in some of the territories, where the power of the United States is in that respect unlimited, a like release from the disabilities of alienage, "thus discriminating against them in favor of citizens of France holding property in States having similar legislation. No plausible motive can be assigned for such discrimination. A right which the government of the United States apparently desires that citizens of France should enjoy in all the States it would hardly refuse to them in the district Opinion of the Court. embracing its capital, or in any of its own territorial dependencies." This case may be considered as establishing the principle that, in dealing with foreign sovereignties, the term "United States" has a broader meaning than when used in the Constitution, and includes all territories subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal government, wherever located. In its treaties and conventions with foreign nations this government is a unit. This is so not because the territories comprised a part of the government established by the people of the States in their Constitution, but because the Federal government is the only authorized organ of the territories, as well as of the States, in their foreign relations. By Art. I, sec. 10, of the Constitution, "no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance or confederation, . . or enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power." It would be absurd to hold that the territories, which are much less independent than the States, and are under the direct control and tutelage of the general government, possess a power in this particular which is thus expressly forbidden to the States. It may be added in this connection that, to put at rest all doubts regarding the applicability of the Constitution to the District of Columbia, Congress by the act of February 21, 1871, c. 62, 16 Stat. 419, 426, sec. 34, specifically extended the Constitution and laws of the United States to this District. The case of American Ins. Co. v. Canter, 1 Pet. 511, originated in a libel filed in the District Court of South Carolina, for the possession of 356 bales of cotton, which had been wrecked on the coast of Florida, abandoned to the insurance companies, and subsequently brought to Charleston. Canter claimed the cotton as bona fide purchaser at a marshal's sale at Key West, by virtue of a decree of a territorial court consisting of a notary and five jurors, proceeding under an act of the governor and legislative council of Florida. The case turned upon the question whether the sale by that court was effectual to divest the interest of the underwriters. The District Judge pronounced the proceedings a nullity, and rendered a decree from which both parties appealed to the Circuit Court. The Circuit Court Opinion of the Court. reversed the decree of the District Court upon the ground that the proceedings of the court at Key West were legal, and transferred the property to Canter, the alleged purchaser. The opinion of the Circuit Court was delivered by Mr. Justice Johnson of the Supreme Court, and is published in full in a note in Peters' Reports. It was argued that the Constitution vested the admiralty jurisdiction exclusively in the general government; that the legislature of Florida had exercised an illegal power in organizing this court, and that its decrees were void. On the other hand, it was insisted that this was a court of separate and distinct jurisdiction from the courts of the United States, and as such its acts were not to be reviewed in a foreign tribunal, such as was the court of South Carolina; "that the District of Florida was not part of the United States, but only an acquisition or dependency, and as such the Constitution per se had no binding effect in or over it." "It becomes," said the court "indispensable to the solution of these difficulties, that we should conceive a just idea of the relation in which Florida stands to the United States. And, first, it is obvious that there is a material distinction between the territory now under consideration, and that which is acquired from the aborigines (whether by purchase or conquest) within the acknowledged limits of the United States, as also that which is acquired by the establishment of a disputed line. As to both these there can be no question, that the sovereignty of the State or territory within which it lies, and of the United States, immediately attach, producing a complete subjection to all the laws and institutions of the two governments, local and general, unless modified by treaty. The question now to be considered, relates to territories previously subject to the acknowledged jurisdiction of another sovereign, such as was Florida to the crown of Spain. And on this subject, we have the most explicit proof, that the understanding of our public functionaries, is, that the government and laws of the United States do not extend to such territory by the mere act of cession. For, in the act of Congress of March 30, 1822, section nine, we have an enumeration of the acts of Congress, which are to be held in force in the territory; and in the tenth section an enumeration, in the nature of a bill |