The Insular Cases and Unalienable Rights
In the early 1900s, the Supreme Court defied America’s founding philosophy by ruling that Congress has the power to restrict the unalienable rights of people residing in acquired territories.
As a result of the Spanish-American War (1898), the U.S. acquired Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. Prior to this war, whenever the U.S. acquired new territory, the general rule was that the “Constitution follows the flag,” or that residents of acquired territories automatically had full constitutional rights.
But by the turn of the 20th century, the Progressive Era was under way, and Progressives in Washington believed that they had the power to determine whether or not someone was “ready” for the responsibility that came with full constitutional rights. In particular, they did not believe that the “uncivilized” people of Puerto Rico, the Philippines, or Guam were ready to be free. Those who were denied their rights sued to get them, only to be rejected by the Supreme Court in a series of cases decided between 1901 and 1922.
In De Lima v. Bidwell (1901), the De Lima Sugar Company sued New York customs collector George R. Bidwell for charging duties on sugar imported from Puerto Rico. De Lima argued that since Puerto Rico now belonged to the U.S., foreign duties on imports did not apply.
Despite acknowledging that Puerto Rico was no longer a foreign territory, the Court ruled that Congress could determine whether or not the foreign duties still applied. This empowered Congress to deny Puerto Rico the right to free trade within the U.S. that was guaranteed to all other U.S. states and territories. The Court’s opinion was authored by Justice Henry Brown, who also wrote the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) opinion that racial segregation was legal.
In Downes v. Bidwell (1901), an orange importer named Downes sued Bidwell for charging duties on Puerto Rican oranges. Downes argued that since there were no duties on oranges coming from any other U.S. state or territory, this violated Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, under which “all Duties, Imposts, and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”
The Court ruled 5 to 4 against Downes, reasoning that since Puerto Rico was not an “integral” part of the U.S., Puerto Ricans were not necessarily eligible to enjoy constitutional guarantees. This ruling was unprecedented because the Court essentially determined that the residents of some U.S. territories were too unimportant to have their rights respected.
Race was also cited in the Court’s decision: “It is obvious that in the annexation of outlying and distant possessions grave questions will arise from the differences of races, habits, laws and customs of the people, and from the differences of soil, climate and production, which may require action on the part of Congress that would be quite unnecessary in the annexation of contiguous territory inhabited only by people of the same race or by scattered bodies of native Indians.”
The opinion conformed to the Progressive notion that people should have their basic rights restricted or denied if they were a different race or if they practiced different customs than “regular” Americans who could be trusted with freedom. This assumes that rights are not unalienable, but are rather bestowed on the people by government. This directly contradicts the Declaration of Independence, which holds that certain rights are unalienable and cannot be dictated by government. It also contradicts the Constitution, which was drafted to defend America’s founding philosophy as described in the Declaration.
In Balzac v. Porto Rico (1922), Jesus M. Balzac sued when he was denied his Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury after being charged with a crime in Puerto Rico. The Court decided that Balzac was not entitled to full constitutional rights because some provisions were not applicable to territories that were not incorporated into the U.S.
Progressives applauded these rulings because they empowered the U.S. government to exercise control over people who were supposedly unable to take care of themselves. Republican Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana said, “God has not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No!… He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among the savage servile peoples.” President Theodore Roosevelt said, “(W)e have acted up to the highest standard that has yet been set at marking the proper way in which a powerful and advanced nation should treat a weaker people.”
Giving the government the power to dictate what rights the people can have has transformed the United States from a constitutional republic to the colonial empire that it is today. The Insular Cases have enabled the U.S. government to routinely occupy and colonize foreign nations without being inconvenienced by constitutional restraint. They opened the path for the U.S. to become a nation similar to Great Britain, which was the same empire that the American colonists declared their independence from in 1776 for violating their unalienable rights.
