over, whatever territory it may desire and can obtain by any method recognized by international law, and also to extend such sovereignty over all of the inhabitants thereof.1

§ 44. Methods of acquisition of Territory. There are various ways in which a sovereign power may increase its territory and extend its sovereignty. Those recognized by international law (besides accretion by the acts of the elements) are as follows: 1

I. DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION.-The original title to all of North and South America is based upon this method of acquisition. The United States added the Oregon district to its domain by the discovery of the mouth of the Columbia River by Captain Gray, the expedition of Lewis and Clarke, and the Astoria settlement. The title of the United States to the Guano and Midway Islands also rests upon discovery and occupation.

II. CONQUEST. The right of the victorious nation to retain the ownership of invaded and conquered territory is still recognized by international law. Few recent titles rest exclusively upon conquest, however, as it has practically become a universal custom to settle ownership of territory and boundary lines after every war by a treaty; the conquering power generally, and properly, insists upon an unequivocal cession of the territory which it accepts as indemnity, or retains as conquered, so as to avoid all subsequent questions of ownership and sovereignty. For this reason it is sometimes difficult to determine whether territory so acquired is conquered or ceded; this applies to our Mexican territory acquired in 1848, as well as to our latest acquisitions. In both instances we held, and could have retained, them as conquered, but we obtained cessions thereof in the treaties of peace concluded on terminating the wars.

4 American Ins. Co. vs. Canter, U. S. Sup. Ct. 1828, 1 Peters, 511, MARSHALL, Ch. J.

Jones vs. United States, U. S. Sup. Ct. 1890, 137 U. S. 202, GRAY, J.

$ 44.

1 See report of Charles E. Magoon, law officer, Division of Insular Affairs, War Department February, 1890. Senate Document 234, 56th Congress, 1st session, for the legal aspects of the territorial acquisitions of the United States.

III. CESSION BY ONE SOVEREIGN POWER TO ANOTHER.-This may be either,

a. For a monetary consideration, without the element of conquest or coercion, as was the case when we purchased Louisiana from France in 1803, Florida from Spain in 1819, Arizona from Mexico in 1853, and Alaska from Russia in 1867.

b. By exchange of territory, which, to some extent was an element of our purchase of Florida, when we ceded to Spain a part of Texas, which, up to that time, we had claimed was included in the Louisiana purchase.

c. At the end of a war, partly for indemnity and partly for other considerations, as was the case when California and other Mexican territory was ceded in 1848, and the Philippines, Porto Rico and Guam were transferred to us in 1898.

d. Without any consideration except good-will, as was the case when Great Britain ceded Horse Shoe Reef in Lake Erie to the United States in 1850.

IV. BY ANNEXATION, WHEN TWO GOVERNMENTS BY TREATY OR RECIPROCAL LEGISLATION, UNITE UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF ONE OR THE OTHER.-This was the case when Texas was admitted to the Union as a State and surrendered her independent government for the conditions of statehood in the United States in 1845, and also when Hawaii became a part of the territory of the United States under congressional resolution in 1898.

The title of the present domain of the United States, therefore, rests upon every different method of acquisition known to international law, but as to every portion thereof the title is clear and recognizable by that law as well as by our own laws, as they have been defined and construed by the Supreme Court.2

NOTE BY AUTHOR ON ACQUISITIONS OF TERRITORY BY UNITED STATES.

In December, 1898, immediately after the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris between the United States and Spain, the author published a pamphlet entitled "OUR TREATY WITH SPAIN," in which the various territorial annexations of the United States were enumerated as follows (The treaty volume referred to is the edition of 1889):

The right of the United States to acquire territory has been the sub

§ 45. Cessions of Territory to other powers than United States. All the instances of transfer given above relate to

ject of a vast amount of debate in Congress and in the papers. There are some who deny the right, but it is difficult to conceive on what authority. The Supreme Court has decided that the United States is a nation, and as such has all the rights of sovereignty that every other sovereign nation has, and can exercise them just as broadly, including the right of acquisition of territory.

As to right of acquisition and the right to govern territory when acquired, see also, Pomeroy's Constitution, 494-498, Jones vs. U. S. (the Navassa Islands case), 137 U. S. pp. 202–212; Justice Miller's Lectures on the Constitution, 35, 36, 55, 57; Justice Curtis's Opinion (Dred Scott case), 19 Howard, 612-614.

These cases and opinions are all based upon the broad declaration made by Chief Justice Marshall, in 1824, in American Ins. Co. vs. Canter, 1 Peters, 511, p. 542: “The Constitution confers absolutely on the Government of the Union the power to make war and to make treaties; consequently that government possesses the power of acquiring territory either by conquest or by treaty."

Cessions of Territory made to the United States.-This (the cession of territory in the treaty of Paris of 1898) is the second cession of territory made by Spain to the United States, and, at least the eleventh acquisition of territory, by the United States, increasing its original area of less than a million square miles to its present magnificent domain three times as large in area and over fifteen times as great in population; the first cession made by Spain was in 1819 under the Adams-de Onis Treaty, by which Spain ceded Florida to the United States, in consideration of $5,000,000, which was the liquidated amount of the claims owed by Spain to citizens of the United States for depredations upon our commerce and in territory adjoining Florida.

The United States has acquired Territory as follows:

By the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain after the Revolutionary War, when the original boundaries of the United States were fixed, and Great Britain renounced all jurisdiction over the territory therein, which included not only the thirteen original States themselves, but also a part of what was afterwards included in the Northwest Territory; the original territory extended from what is now Canada on the north-the boundary line between which and the United States has been fixed by several subsequent treaties and arbitrations-to the northerly line of Florida on the south; from the Atlantic on the east, to the Mississippi on the west, containing about eight hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles. (U. S. Treaty Volume, p. 375.)

The acquisitions of territory since that time have been:

(1) Louisiana, consisting, including Oregon the discovery and occupation of which grew out of this acquisition, of over a million square miles, ceded by France to the United States under treaty of April 30, 1803, ratified October 21, 1803, by which France, under Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul, through Barbé Marbois, ceded the territory for 60,000,000

our own acquisitions. Numerous examples could be given of similar transfers in every part of the world, and under

francs, and the relinquishment of claims amounting to 20,000,000 francs, (U. S. Treaty Volume, pp. 331-342). Well did Mr. Livingston exclaim to Mr. Monroe, as they arose from signing the treaty: "We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our lives."

(2) Florida, consisting of about sixty thousand square miles, under the treaty with Spain in 1819, above referred to. (U. S. Treaty Volume, p. 1016.)

(3) Oregon and adjoining territory was acquired by the United States under the general rules of discovery and occupancy, based upon the discovery of the mouth of the Columbia River by Captain Gray, master of the good ship Columbia, entering from the Pacific in 1797; by Lewis and Clarke as explorers in an expedition fitted by the United States proceeding from the east about 1804; and by the erection of the furring post by John Jacob Astor at Astoria in 1811. The title to Oregon was subsequently confirmed by treaty with Spain in 1819, so far as the northerly line of the Spanish possessions was concerned, not, however, in the nature of cession, but only of quitclaim. (U. S. Treaty Volume, p. 1016.) The area of territory north of California and east of the Rockies is about three hundred and fifty thousand square miles.

(4) Texas, with an area of over a quarter of a million square miles, in 1845, by joint resolution, adopted by both Houses of Congress, after a proposed treaty had failed, was admitted as a State, the legislature of the Republic of Texas having accepted the terms and conditions contained in a joint resolution adopted by Congress. (For resolution and proclamation, see U. S. Statutes at Large for 1845.)

(5) California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and parts of Arizona and other States, over five hundred thousand square miles in all, were acquired under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo with Mexico in 1848, at the termination of the Mexican War, and in consideration of $15,000,000 paid to Mexico under somewhat similar circumstances as the $20,000,000 is to be paid to Spain under the present treaty. (U. S. Treaty Volume, p. 687.)

(6) Horse Shoe Reef in Lake Erie was ceded to the United States by Great Britian in 1850, without any actual consideration, but under agreement that the United States would erect and maintain a lighthouse thereon. (U. S. Treaty Volume, p. 444.)

(7) The Navassa Islands, near Hayti, and the other Guano Islands in the Pacific Ocean, have been taken and occupied by the United States by discovery in pursuance of statutes of the United States made in regard thereto (U. S. Revised Statutes, secs. 5770-5778); The Midway Islands, situated in the Pacific Ocean, about half way between Hawaii and Japan, were discovered by citizens, and afterwards formally occupied in 1867 by the naval forces of the United States under the direction of Secretary Gideon Welles. (See Senator Platt's Speech, Senate, December 19, 1898, Congress. Rec. p. 325.)

(8) Part of Arizona and New Mexico, consisting of nearly fifty thou

every method, showing that they have all been recognized as legal, and have been acted upon universally and constantly for centuries.

Canada was transferred by France to Great Britain in 1763; Spain and France several times exchanged Louisiana before it was finally ceded to the United States; Cuba and the Philippines were ceded by Spain to England in 1762, and by England back to Spain in 1764; in recent times Germany acquired Alsace and Lorraine from France by conquest and treaty cession; Savoy was ceded to France, the Ionian Islands

sand square miles, were acquired under treaty negotiated by James Gadsden in 1853, and for which the sum of $10,000,000 was paid to Mexico. (U. S. Treaty Volume, p. 694.)

(9) Alaska, in 1867, became United States territory by a treaty negotiated between William H. Seward, as Secretary of State, and Edward Stoekl, Russian Ambassador to the United States, and which conveyed to this Government all of the Russian possessions in America, consisting of over half a million square miles, and to which the name of Alaska has since been applied, for $7,200,000. (U. S. Treaty Volume, p. 939.) (10) Hawaii was annexed by a joint resolution adopted by the Congress of the United States, and approved July 7, 1898, the terms of which were accepted by the legislative body of Hawaii shortly thereafter, and by which joint action all of the islands forming the sovereignty of Hawaii, and which were formerly known as the Sandwich Islands, became a part of the territory, but not as a State of the United States, and subject to the terms of the joint resolution. (30 Stat. at L., p. 750.)

(11) The Philippines, Porto Rico and Guam were annexed by the treaties with Spain of December 10, 1898, (30 Stat. at L., p. 1754; see also INSULAR CASES APPENDIX, p. 000, post) and of November 7, 1900 (31 Stat. at L., p. 1942). This latter treaty transferred a part of the Philippine Islands not included in the boundaries set by the treaty of 1898.

(12) The United States has also acquired the island of Tutuila, one of the group of the Samoan Islands, which contains the harbor of PagoPago. (See treaty with Samoa, U. S. Treaty Volume, ed. 1899, p. 551.) (See the last map of the United States, published by the Government, for most of these additions of territory, showing their area and geographical location).

See also for details of acquisition of territory prior to 1898, The Louisiana Purchase, by Binger Hermann U. S. Land Commissioner, published by the Department of the Interior, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1898.

Volume I of James G. Blaine's Twenty Years in Congress contains an exhaustive review of the causes leading to annexation of territory and the effect of annexation,