Speech #570083139

They organize civil government and extend the judicial power to those people without any qualification of time or condition. They contemplate and prepare for situations of neverending complications and attachments. They create obligations calling for the continued ownership and dominion of national sovereignty. and in doing this can they hereafter be permitted to say that it was temporary and that by their action they have not accomplished a permanent sovereignty and thus completed the naturalization of the present body of the population of those islands? I wish also to present the case in another aspect. Grant. for the sake of the argument. that the passage of either one of these bills presented by the majority may not confer upon the people of the Philippine Islands American citizenship. and that if it should in fact do so. the Supreme Court can be relied upon to amend the Constitutidn by judicial interpretation and hold that it does not. the condition upon which you are entering. for which you are preparing. and which you evidence by the long peiod that you say will be necessary to prepare those people for selfgovernment. and the pledge to it. in the proud boast which all of you are felicitous in making. that you will solve the problem of selfgovernment for them. will inevitably lead to a condition of American citizenship for them through the operation of other wellsettled constitutional principles. The priceless boon of American citizenship may be conferred. as evidenced by the following provisions of our Constitution: The Congress shall have power to establish an uniform rule of naturalizat ion. AndAll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. This latter provision might seem at first glance to be a limitatioi upon the first. but in the case of The United States v. WongKim Ark (169 U. S.). decided in March. 1898. it was held that it does not affect or qualify the right of naturalization conferred in the previous section. but was in addition thereto. The whole subject of citizenship and the history of our naturalization laws are very thoroughly discussed in this case. and I commend it. and the authorities therein cited. to the careful investigation of those who are to vote upon this bill. Another observation is to be made with reference to this latter provision. and that is it recognizes citizenship of the United States to be distinct and independent from citizenship in a State. and that citizenship. by birth or naturalization. may be acquired without residence in a State. Mr. Justice Miller in the Slaughterhouse Cases (16 Wallace. p. 36) said of this provision: It had been said by eminent judges that no man was a citizen of the United States except as he was a citizen of one of the States comprising the Union.