The acquisition of the insular dependencies raised again the old problem as to the power of Congress over territories, which had been so extensively debated during the slavery conflict. The question now took the form: "Does the Constitution restrict Congress in the government of the Islands as if they were physically and politically a part of the United States, and particularly, do the limitations in behalf of private rights, freedom of press, trial by jury, and the like, embodied in the first ten Amendments, control the power of Congress?" Strict constitutionalists answered this question in the affirmative without hesitation, citing the long line of constitutional decisions which had repeatedly affirmed the doctrine that Congress is limited everywhere, even in the territories by the Amendments providing for the protection of personal and property rights; but practical politicians, supporting the McKinley administration, frankly asserted that the Constitution and laws of the United States did not of their own force apply in the territories and could not apply until Congress had expressly extended them to the insular possessions. The abstract question was given concrete form in several decisions by the Supreme Court, known as "the Insular Cases." The question was speedily raised whether importers of commodities from Porto Rico should be compelled to pay the duties prescribed by the Dingley act, and the Court answered in the case of De Lima _v._ Bidwell in 1901 that the Island was "domestic" within the meaning of the tariff act and that the duties could not be collected. In the course of his remarks, the Justice, who wrote the opinion, said that territory was either domestic or foreign, and that the Constitution did not recognize any halfway position. Four Justices dissented, however; and American interests, fearing this new competition, had dissented in advance,--so vigorously, in fact, that Congress during the previous year had passed the Foraker act imposing a tariff on goods coming into the United States from Porto Rico and _vice versa_. This concession to the protected interests placed the Supreme Court in a dilemma. If Porto Rico was domestic territory,--a part of the United States,--was not the Foraker act a violation of the constitutional provision that duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States? This question was judicially answered by the Court in the case of Downes _v._ Bidwell, decided on May 27, 1901, which upheld the Foraker act on grounds so various that the only real point made by the Court was that the law was constitutional. None of the four justices who concurred with Justice Brown in the opinion agreed with his reasoning, and the four judges, who dissented entirely from the decision and the opinion, vigorously denied that there could be any territory under the flag of the United States which was not subject to the limitations of the Constitution.