Political Quotes

Whitelaw Reid: Does anybody seriously think, then, that though we have held New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma as territory organized or…

On the record
Does anybody seriously think, then, that though we have held New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma as territory organized or unorganized, part of it nearly a century and all of it half a century, our representatives believed all the while they had no constitutional right to do so?
Said by
Whitelaw Reid

Editor's note · Context

Reid argues that the long-standing practice of holding territories suggests a constitutional right to do so, challenging the notion of illegitimacy.

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