in Bradfield v. Roberts, assistance may be given to worthy public charities managed by religious organi zations. The critical ecclesiastical question in our new possessions concerns the friars in the Philippines. While awaiting full information for a thorough understanding of this question, the fact of discontent. with the friars is patent enough to justify some comment and suggestion. Any discontent caused by the exercise of temporal power, or by the influence of a privileged class, should disappear with the divorce of state from church, and the abolition of class privilege. Discontent arising from any abuse of spiritual power involves ecclesiastical matters placed by our law beyond state interference. The possession of large tracts of land by the friars seems to be the main source of their power, and it is charged that they have not a valid title to the greater part of their holdings. This, I believe, is the first time the United States have been confronted with so serious a question of this kind in new possessions, the mission lands in California having been readily determined to be held in trust for the public because Mexico had secularized them prior to the cession.1 A clause in the Eighth Article of the Treaty of Paris has been criticized, on the erroneous supposition that it assures to the Roman Catholic Church the possession of all property in its occupation. In fact, the clause simply affirms the moral, 1 See U. S. v. Cervantes, 18 Howard 553; Faxon v. U. S., 171 U. S. 244. and, in our case, the constitutional obligation to respect vested rights of property, leaving open the very question of present interest, whether the friars have a legal title. President McKinley has instructed the Philippine Commission to investigate this question,' though not, as I understand, to adjudicate it, for this can be done only by a competent tribunal. It would seem, however, that Congress might adopt a report of the Commission as the basis of a suit before a regular court.2 If after a just settlement of the land question the presence of the friars in the Philippines should be really inimical to the peace of the islands, it is to be hoped that the Church will transfer them to congenial fields and relieve the United States of a vexatious, perhaps an insoluble, problem. Other countries have, at times, found no difficulty in expelling objectionable religious orders and even in confiscating their property, but the United States are bound to respect both religion and property: They are forbidden to interfere at all with the one; they are empowered to take the other only for public use and upon payment of compensation. 1 See message of December 3, 1900. CHAPTER V THE ALIENATION OF THE PHILIPPINES I have investigated the status of the Philippines, and I find that our title to them is as perfect in law as our title to the city of Washington, and that, like that city, they are part of the United States. I have investigated the position of the Constitution with regard to the Philippines, and I find that, being a part of the United States, they are within the purview of many important provisions. I have considered the governing of the Philippines, and I find no want of legitimate power, yet an actual preference for illegitimate power in the intrusion of the President into the domain of Congress. Mainly, I have written as though there were no question of our renouncing the sovereignty of the islands, for the reason that opportunity for renunciation in no wise excuses us from respecting the status quo and its obligations; yet the technical legitimacy of our possession neither palliates its real offense, nor suggests its permanence. The annexation of the Philippines is not a cross to be borne- which seems to be the best that can be said for it. It is a blunder to be retrieved. There is a presumption against the propriety of alienating national territory, and this is generally 144 conclusive where the territory has been deliberately acquired, or long occupied, or, above all, where it is identified with the rest of the country through national unity and community of interest. These considerations are not pertinent in the case of the Philippines. At the outbreak of the war with Spain the American people neither wished nor expected to annex the islands, and, whatever personal expectations of aggrandizement may have lurked behind the plan of campaign in the East, the Administration, though it will not plead ignorance of a probable opportunity, maintains that aggrandizement was not intended. Indeed, the most common argument for annexation is really an apology: The law of war forced us to the islands; the law of necessity chained us there. Never in our history was so important an acquisition undertaken so lightly, and accomplished with so little pride of achievement. Our occupation of the Philippines is not only of recent date, but for an indefinite period is likely to be merely an armed occupation. Race hatred confronts us. National unity is beyond prophecy. Far from even desiring community of interests, we actually tax the trade between the islands and the mainland, and would view an immigration of Filipinos as an Asiatic plague. Add that the Philippines are not even an outer line of defense, but rather a vulnerable outpost, and are neither the home of American colonists nor the location of American investments, and it is perceived that we are not embarrassed by considerations that usually place alienation of territory beyond the pale of discussion, but may consider freely the questions of right, terms, and expediency. ΙΟ THE RIGHT OF ALIENATION The constitutions of some countries forbid any alienation of territory. This prohibition will not stand in the way of a conqueror; and, indeed, throughout this discussion I assume that a ceding state is acting free from the foreign duress that practically effaces domestic law. Nor does it cover a surrender of claims to disputed territory, as appears by the settlement of the boundary controversy between Great Britain and Venezuela, where the latter, though forbidden to alienate territory, accepted an award dismissing certain claims. The purpose of the prohibition seems to be to assure an ill regulated state against loss of territory by the act of improvident or corrupt rulers. Generally, and invariably among the stronger nations, with the right to acquire land there is, logically, a right to cede it. And voluntary cession is not unexampled: Witness the cession of Louisiana by France to the United States, of Alaska by Russia to the United States, of Java and Heligoland by Great Britain to Holland and Germany respectively, of St. Bartholomew by Sweden to France. The law makes the Philippines a part of the United States, but it does not compel us to hold them forever. The right of alienation is conceded by the Administration in the agreement with the Sultan of Sulu, which provides that the United States will not sell the Sulu Islands without his consent. The concession is important as showing that, in the opinion of the Administration, the annexation of the Philip |