Legislator State to settle them by edict, or than is an Executive
State to procure a settlement of them by persuading the parties to
confer and compromise.

Is not this theory the true _via media_? The theory of the automatic
extension of the constitution of a state over its annexed insular,
transmarine and transterranean regions which from their local or other
circumstances can never equally participate in the institution and
operation of its government, in some cases protects individual rights,
but it takes no account of the right of free statehood, which is the
prime instrumentality for securing these rights. The theory of a power
over these regions not regulated by a supreme and universal law, is a
theory of absolute power over both individuals and communities in
these regions. The theory of a power over these regions based on the
principles of the law of nature and of nations, granting that this law
is itself based on the divine right of human equality, protects the
rights of persons, of communities, of states and of nations.

This theory is not inconsistent with the present doctrine of the
Supreme Court of the United States. It is an application and extension
of that doctrine. To say, as does the Supreme Court, that the American
Union has power over its annexed Insular regions restricted by "the
fundamental principles formulated in the Constitution," or by "the
applicable provisions of the Constitution," is to say that the power
of the Union over these regions is exercised under a supreme law which
is not the Constitution of the United States; for "principles
formulated in the Constitution" are not the Constitution, and to say
that "the applicable provisions" of the Constitution are the
Constitution is to say that a part is the whole. Such a supreme law
can only be a supreme common law, and a common law can be supreme over