determination of our relations with the Insular regions, so that they are to-day free states _de facto_ connected and united with the American Union as the Justiciar State, and so that it needs only our recognition to convert them into free states _de jure_ and to bring into legal existence a Greater American Union of Free States of which our present Union will be the Supreme Justiciary Head, determining the questions arising out of the relationship not by edict founded on will and force, but by decision carefully made in each case after ascertaining the facts and the principles of the law of nature and of nations which are properly applicable. If the principles and the corresponding terms adopted by the Revolutionary Fathers were adopted by them as of universal significance, and if they were right, must we not apply these principles and these terms to-day, when the position of America is reversed and she stands as a great and independent State in relationship with distant communities which are so circumstanced that they can never participate on equal terms in the institution and operation of her government? Must not this law of nature and of nations according to the American System, which for us underlies all other law and which is the Spirit of the Constitution itself, determine for us whether or not we shall continue to use the terms 'colony,' or "dependence," or "empire"? If we must admit as Americans a universal right of free statehood, is it proper to call Hawaii, Porto Rico, the Philippines or Guam 'colonies'? They are inhabited and we do not propose to colonize them. If they are free states in union with the American Union as the Justiciar State and form with it a Greater American Union, is it proper to call them "dependencies," which may imply a direct legislative power over them? And if the American Union is only the Justiciar State of the whole Greater American Union of Free States, composed of the American Union and its Territories and Insular regions, with power of final decision for the common purposes according to the law of nature and of nations why speak of this as "Empire," which may imply absolute power and a denial that there exists a universal law of nature and of nations protecting alike the rights of persons communities states and nations? But it will be said the conception I have outlined is impracticable. Judging from the characteristics of human nature, a state which declares itself the Justiciar of a Union of free states in permanent political connection with it, for the purpose of discovering and applying the principles of the law of nations in the just conduct of the common affairs of the Union, is likely, if it acts as a true Justiciar to accomplish much more by the persuasive effect of justice exercised in accordance with an overruling law of nature and of nations, than is an Emperor-State by the issuing of edicts based on a claim of right to be the supreme legislative power over non-represented regions.