The Constitution of the United States contains a number of express limitations upon the federal legislative power. In addition to those contained in the first ten amendments relative to freedom of religion, speech, and press, the quartering of troops, the right of the people to assemble, to petition, to keep and bear arms, to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, to presentment or indictment by jury, to speedy trial, to juries in civil suits, to immunity from excessive bail and fines and cruel and unusual punishments, etc., it is elsewhere provided in the Constitution that all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States, that the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, except under certain specified circumstances, that no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed, no capitation or other direct tax laid except in proportion to population, no duty laid upon goods exported from a State, no commercial preferences given to the ports of one State over those of another, no money drawn from the treasury but in consequence of an appropriation made by law, no title of nobility .granted, etc. The Thirteenth Amendment also declares that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

When legislating for the States or for their inhabitants these limitations have of course to be observed. The question whether the same is true when Congress is legislating for the territories and their populations has now to be examined.

In the preceding chapters we have learned the sources whence is derived the power of Congress and of the President to govern annexed Territories. We have learned that by mere military occupation a territory, though for the time being subject to the de facto control of the President as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, is not annexed to the United States, that is, does not become permanently subject de jure as well as de facto to its sovereignty. Only by treaty, or by statute, or by joint resolution of Congress, may this annexation be effected.