How would the SCOTUS of the 1840s, 1850s, 1860s or 1870s rule on the Insular Cases?

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
The question before the court in the OTL insular cases (1901) was basically "Does the Constitution follow the flag?" SCOTUS ruled that it did not have to. America could annex and rule imperial possessions without having to treat their people as US citizens or without following the rules used on the mainland for establishing territorial self-government and eventual admission into the Union as states equal to all the other states.

The territorial gains of the Spanish-American war, above all, the Philippines, compelled the court to examine these questions.

If the US had somehow acquired imperial possessions it did not intend to let into the Union, say, the Philippines in an earlier Spanish-American war, the Ryukyu islands or possibly had it acquired portions of Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean deemed unassimilable, would the courts have ruled as they did in 1901, or would they insist that any territory taken and retained by the US must be granted the territorial self-government and statehood process?

Would the court's of Roger B. Taney, Salmon P.Chase or Morrisson Waite have ruled any differently than the court of Melville Fuller in 1901 ?
 

TFSmith121

Banned
It's a great question; I think the foundation,

It's a great question; I think the foundation, however, is if it even comes to that?

As an example, the question of citizenship in the previous territorial acquisitions where a nation state other than the US was recognized (i.e Louisiana in 1803, Florida in 1819, the Mexican Cession and Oregon Country in the 1840s, and the Gadsden Purchase in the 1850s) was worked out as part of the purchase price and/or diplomatic settlements.

Essentially, anyone who was assimiliated under the "previous" nation state (as citizen or subject) was able to claim US citizenship; they were grandfathered in, basically. Tougher for free people of color in (for example) Lousiana, but identities are always somewhat fungible on a frontier, so - in California, for example - there were Californios who were "darker" than many of those enslaved east of the Mississippi who went on to full citizenship under the US. Same thing in New Mexico...

So the question is, how would any additional territorial aquisitions come about, what would the "other" nation state doing the negotiations insist on as a requirement of the settlement?

The answer there, of course, is "it depends" on whether said territory is "independent" (the Kingdom of Hawaii, for example, or the Republic of Haiti) or a "colony" in its own right (the Phillippines or Guam, for example).

So, basically, it is case by case.

Best,
 
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