Amendment. And we do not think that the amendment was intended to supplant that part of the third article which relates to trial by jury. There is no necessary conflict between them. Mr. Justice Story says that the amendment, "in declaring that the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State or district wherein the crime shall have been committed (which district shall be previously ascertained by law), and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, and to be confronted with the witnesses against him, does but follow out the established course of the common law in all trials for crimes." Story on the Constitution, § 1791. And as the guarantee of a trial by jury, in the third article, implied a trial in that mode and according to the settled rules of the common law, the enumeration, in the Sixth Amendment, of the rights of the accused in criminal prosecutions, is to be taken as a declaration of what those rules were, and is to be referred to the anxiety of the people of the States to have in the supreme law of the land, and so far as the agencies of the general government were concerned, a full and distinct recognition of those rules, as involving the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and property. This recognition was demanded and secured for the benefit of all the people of the United States, as well those permanently or temporarily residing in the District of Columbia, as those residing or being in the several States. There is nothing in the history of the Constitution or of the original amendments to justify the assertion that the people of this district may be lawfully deprived of the benefit of any of the constitutional guarantees of life, liberty, and property especially of the privilege of trial by jury in criminal cases. In the draft of a constitution reported by the Committee of Five on the 6th of August, 1787, in the convention which framed the Constitution, the 4th section of Article XI. read that the trial of all criminal offences (except in cases of impeachment) shall be in the States where they shall be committed; and shall be by jury." 1 Elliott's Deb. (2d ed.), 229. But that article was, by unanimous vote, amended so as to read: 66 The trial of all crimes (except in cases of impeachment) shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, then the trial shall be at such place or places as the legislature may direct." Ib. 270. Ib. 270. The object of thus amending the section, Mr. Madison says, was "to provide for trial by jury of offences committed out of any State." 3 Madison Papers, 144. 3 Madison Papers, 144. In Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 154, it was taken for granted that the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution secured to the people of the Territories the right of trial by jury in criminal prosecutions; and it had been. previously held in Webster v. Reid, 11 How. 437, 460, that the Seventh Amendment secured to them a like right in civil actions at common law. We cannot think that the people of this district have, in that regard, less rights than those accorded to the people of the Territories of the United States.

It is next insisted that the constitutional guarantee of trial by jury in all criminal prosecutions - even supposing it to exist for the people of the district has not been denied.

The argument, made in behalf of the government, implies that if Congress should provide the police court with a grand jury, and authorize that court to try, without a petit jury, all persons indicted even for crimes punishable by confinement in the penitentiary such legislation would not be an invasion of the constitutional right of trial by jury, provided the accused, after being tried and sentenced in the police court, is given an unobstructed right of appeal to, and trial by jury in, another court to which the case may be taken. We cannot assent to that interpretation of the Constitution. Except in that class or grade of offences called petty offences, which, according to the common law, may be proceeded against summarily in any tribunal legally constituted for that purpose, the guarantee of an impartial jury to the accused in a criminal prosecution, conducted either in the name, or by or under the authority of, the United States, secures to him the right to enjoy that mode of trial from the first moment, and in whatever court, he is put on trial for the offence charged. In such cases a judgment of conviction, not based upon a verdict of guilty by a jury, is void. To accord to the accused a right to be tried by a jury, in an appellate court, after he has been once fully tried otherwise than by a jury, in the court of original jurisdiction, and sentenced to pay a fine or be imprisoned for not paying it, does not satisfy the requirements of the Constitution. When, therefore, the appellant was brought before the Supreme Court of the district, and the fact was disclosed that he had been adjudged guilty of the crime of conspiracy charged in the information in this case, without ever having been tried by a jury, he should have been restored to his liberty.

For the reasons stated,

The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded with directions to discharge the appellant from custody,

IN Mormon Church v. United States, 136 U. S. 1, 42-43 (1889), MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY (for the court) said:

"The principal questions raised are, first, as to the power of Congress to repeal the charter of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; and, secondly, as to the power of Congress and the courts to seize the property of said corporation and to hold the same for the purposes mentioned in the decree.

"The power of Congress over the Territories of the United States is general and plenary, arising from and incidental to the right to acquire the territory itself, and from the power given by the Constitution to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States. It would be absurd to hold that the United States has power to acquire territory, and no power to govern it when acquired. The power to acquire territory, other than

the territory northwest of the Ohio River (which belonged to the United States at the adoption of the Constitution), is derived from the treatymaking power and the power to declare and carry on war. The incidents of these powers are those of national sovereignty, and belong to all independent governments. The power to make acquisitions of territory by conquest, by treaty, and by cession is an incident of national sovereignty. The Territory of Louisiana, when acquired from France, and the Territories west of the Rocky Mountains, when acquired from Mexico, became the absolute property and domain of the United States, subject to such conditions as the government, in its diplomatic negotiations, had seen fit to accept relating to the rights of the people then inhabiting those Territories. Having rightfully acquired said Territories, the United States government was the only one which could impose laws upon them, and its sovereignty over them was complete. No State of the Union had any such right of sovereignty over them; no other country or government had any such right. These propositions are so elementary, and so necessarily follow from the condition of things arising upon the acquisition of new territory, that they need no argument to support them. They are self-evident. . . . Mr. Justice Nelson delivering the opinion of the court in Benner v. Porter, 9 How. 235, 242, speaking of the territorial governments established by Congress, says: They are legislative governments, and their courts legislative courts, Congress, in the exercise of its powers in the organization and government of the Territories, combining the powers of both the Federal and State authorities.' Chief Justice Waite, in the case of National Bank v. County of Yankton, 101 U. S. 129, 133, said: In the organic Act of Dakota there was not an express reservation of power in Congress to amend the Acts of the territorial legislature, nor was it neces sary. Such a power is an incident of sovereignty, and continues until granted away. Congress may not only abrogate laws of the territorial legislatures, but it may itself legislate directly for the local government. It may make a void Act of the territorial legislature valid, and a valid Act void. In other words, it has full and complete legislative authority over the people of the Territories and all the departments of the territorial governments. It may do for the Territories what the people, under the Constitution of the United States, may do for the States.' In a still more recent case, and one relating to the legislation of Congress over the Territory of Utah itself, Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 44, Mr. Justice Matthews said: The counsel for the appellants in argument seem to question the constitutional power of Congress to pass the Act of March 22, 1882, so far as it abridges the rights of electors in the Territory under previous laws. But that question is, we think, no longer open to discussion. It has passed beyond the stage of controversy into final judgment. The people of the United States as sovereign owners of the national Territories, have supreme power over them and their inhabitants. In the exercise of this sovereign dominion, they are represented by the government of the United States, to whom all the

powers of government over that subject have been delegated, subject only to such restrictions as are expressed in the Constitution, or are necessarily implied in its terms.' Doubtless Congress in legislating for the Territories would be subject to those fundamental limitations in favor of personal rights which are formulated in the Constitution and its amendments; but these limitations would exist rather by inference and the general spirit of the Constitution from which Congress derives all its powers, than by any express and direct application of its provisions." 1

1 "It would seem, from these various congressional regulations of the Territories belonging to the United States, that Congress have supreme power in the government of them, depending on the exercise of their sound discretion. That discretion has hitherto been exercised in wisdom and good faith, and with an anxious regard for the security of the rights and privileges of the inhabitants, as defined and declared in the ordinance of July, 1787, and in the Constitution of the United States. All admit,' said Chief Justice Marshall (4 Wheaton, 422), 'the constitutionality of a territorial government.' But neither the District of Columbia, nor a Territory, is a State, within the meaning of the Constitution, or entitled to claim the privileges secured to the members of the Union. This has been so adjudged by the Supreme Court. Hepburn v. Ellzey, 2 Cranch, 445; Corporation of New Orleans v. Winter, 1 Wheaton, 91. Nor will a writ of error or appeal lie from a territorial court to the Supreme Court, unless there be a special statute provision for the purpose. Clarke v. Bazadone, 1 Cranch, 212; United States v. More, 3 Ib. 159. If, therefore, the government of the United States should carry into execution the project of colonizing the great valley of the Columbia or Oregon River, to the west of the Rocky Mountains, it would afford a subject of grave consideration, what would be the future civil and political destiny of that country. It would be a long time before it would be populous enough to be created into one or more independent States; and in the mean time, upon the doctrine taught by the Acts of Congress, and even by the judicial decisions of the Supreme Court, the colonists would be in a state of the most complete subordination, and as dependent upon the will of Congress as the people of this country would have been upon the king aud Parliament of Great Britain, if they could have sustained their claim to bind us in all cases whatsoever. Such a state of absolute sovereignty on the one hand, and of absolute dependence on the other, is not congenial with the free and independent spirit of our native institutions; and the establishment of distant territorial governments, ruled according to will and pleasure, would have a very natural tendency, as all proconsular governments have had, to abuse and oppression.” 1 Kent's Com. * 385.

The foregoing passage is found, in substantially the same form, in all the editions of Kent's Commentaries, beginning with the first in 1826.

Compare the doctrine of U. S. v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375 (1886), deciding that the United States has full legislative power over tribal Indians, on reservations in the States as well as the Territories, and the grounds on which it is put. "These Indians," said MILLER, J., for the court, "are within the geographical limits of the United States. The soil and the people within these limits are under the political control of the government of the United States, or of the States of the Union. There exist within the broad domain of sovereignty but these two. There may be cities, counties, and other organized bodies with limited legislative functions, but they are all derived from, or exist in, subordination to one or the other of these. The territorial governments owe all their powers to the statutes of the United States conferring on them the powers which they exercise, and which are liable to be withdrawn, modified, or repealed at any time by Congress. What authority the State governments may have to enact criminal laws for the Indians will be presently considered. But this power of Congress to organize territorial governments, and make laws for their inhabitants, arises not so much from the clause in the Constitution in regard to disposing of

JONES v. UNITED STATES.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1890.

[137 U. S. 202.]

Mr. E. J. Waring, Mr. John Henry Keene, Jr., and Mr. Archibald Stirling, for plaintiffs in error. Mr. Joseph S. Davis and Mr. J. Edward Stirling were with them on the brief.

Mr. Attorney-General, for defendants in error.

MR. JUSTICE GRAY delivered the opinion of the court.

This was an indictment, found in the District Court of the United States for the District of Maryland, and remitted to the Circuit Court under Rev. Stat. § 1039, alleging that Henry Jones, late of that district, on September 14, 1889, "at Navassa Island, a place which then and there was under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, and out of the jurisdiction of any particular State or district of the United States, the same being, at the time of the committing of the offences in the manner and form as hereinafter stated by the persons hereinafter named, an island situated in the Caribbean Sea, and named Navassa Island, and which was then and there recognized and considered by the United States as containing a deposit of guano, within the meaning and terms of the laws of the United States relating to such islands, and which was then and there recognized and considered by the United States as appertaining to the United States, and which was also then and there in the possession of the United States, under the laws of the United States then and there in force relating to such islands," murdered one Thomas N. Foster, by giving him three mortal blows with an axe, of which he there died on the same day; and that

and making rules and regulations concerning the territory and other property of the United States, as from the ownership of the country in which the Territories are, and the right of exclusive sovereignty which must exist in the national government, and can be found nowhere else. Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 44. . . . [It is then laid down that the general government may legislate for tribal Indians on both State and territorial reservations.] They owe no allegiance to the States, and receive from them no protection. Because of the local ill feeling, the people of the States where they are found are often their deadliest enemies. From their very weakness and helplessness, so largely due to the course of dealing of the Federal government with them and the treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power. This has always been recognized by the executive and by Congress, and by this court, whenever the question has arisen. The power of the general gov ernment over these remnants of a race once powerful, now weak and diminished in numbers, is necessary to their protection, as well as to the safety of those among whom they dwell. It must exist in that government, because it never has existed anywhere else, because the theatre of its exercise is within the geographical limits of the United States, because it has never been denied, and because it alone can enforce its laws on all the tribes."

In dealing with the tribal Indians, the United States government has never proceeded on the theory that its action was restrained by the amendments, or by other like clauses in the body of the Federal Constitution. - ED.