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inhabitants thereof; and also it follows that the government so to be
established by it must be such as meets the requirements of the case.
If we should acquire territory populated by an intelligent, capable, and
law-abiding people, to whom the right of self-government could be safely
conceded, we might at once, with propriety and certainly within the
scope of our constitutional power, incorporate that territory and people
into the Union as an integral part of our territory, and, by making them
a State, as a constituent part of the United States, and extend to them at
once the Constitution and laws of the United States; but if the territory
should be inhabited by a people of wholly different character, illiterate,
and unacquainted with our institutions, and incapable of exercising the
rights and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution to the States of the
Union, it would be competent for Congress to withhold from such people
the operation of the Constitution and the laws of the United States,
and, continuing to hold the territory as a mere possession of the United
States, so govern the people thereof as their situation and the necessities
of their case may require.
But while this power of Congress to legislate for newly acquired territory
does not flow from, and is not controlled by, the Constitution as an
organic law of the Territory, except when Congress so enacts, yet as to
all prohibitions of the Constitution laid upon Congress while legislating
they operate for the benefit of all for whom Congress may legislate, no
matter where they may be situated, and without regard to whether or
not the provisions of the Constitution have been extended to them:
but this is so because the Congress, in all that it does, is subject to and
governed by these restraints and prohibitions. As, for instance, Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; no title of nobility shall be granted; no bill of
attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed; neither shall the validity of
contracts be impaired, nor shall property be taken without due process of
law; nor shall the freedom of speech or of the press be abridged; nor shall
slavery exist in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
These limitations are placed upon the exercise of this legislative power without
regard to the place or the people for whom the legislation, in a given case,
may be intended; and for this reason they inure to the benefit of all for whom
Congress may undertake to legislate, without regard to whether the provisions