Territorial Form of Government in the United States.--The American Union is composed of a number of states or commonwealths which, while differing vastly in wealth and population, are on absolutely equal footing in the Union. The inhabitants of these states form politically the American sovereignty. They elect the president and Congress, and through their state legislatures may change or amend the form of the American state itself. Besides these states, there have always been large possessions of the nation called territories. These territories are extensive countries, too sparsely inhabited or too undeveloped politically to be admitted, in the judgment of the American Congress, to statehood in the Union. Their inhabitants do not have the right to vote for the president; neither have they representation in the American Congress. These territories are governed by Congress, through territorial governments, and over them Congress has full sovereign powers. That is, as the Supreme Court of the United States has decided and explained, while Congress when legislating for the states in the Union has only those powers of legislation which have been specifically granted by the Constitution, in legislating for the territories it has all the powers which the Constitution has not specifically denied. The only limitations on Congress are those which, under the American system of public law, guarantee the liberty of the individual,--his freedom of religious belief and worship; his right to just, open, and speedy trial; his right to the possession of his property; and other precious privileges, the result of centuries of development in the English-speaking race, which make up civil liberty. These priceless securities, which no power of the government can take away, abridge, or infringe, are as much the possession of the inhabitants of a territory as of a state. [95] The government of these territories has varied greatly in form and may be changed at any time by Congress, but it usually consists of a governor and supreme court, appointed by the president of the United States, and a legislature elected by the people. Since 1783 there has always been territory so held and governed by the United States, and if we may judge from the remarkable history of these regions, this form of government of dependent possessions is the most successful and most advantageous to the territory itself that has ever been devised. At the present time, the territories of the United States are Oklahoma, the Indian Territory, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands, Porto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam.