Talk:Historic incorporated territories of the United States

Shouldn't this page be merged with United States territory? --mav 04:10, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Dear god no. :) We have determined that the "territory" held by the U.S. is very distinct from a territory of the United States, and we had a whole big debate that resulted in United States territory, Political divisions of the United States and then, Historic incorporated territories of the United States, which I feel strongly deserves its own page. Anyway, everybody seems pretty happy with the Pol-Div v. Territory split. jengod 04:13, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

Well, I hope I haven't inadvertently stirred things up -- I went through a bunch of the historic territory articles (most are still stubs) and tried to standardize the language to include a link back to this page. However, Decumanus pointed out on my talk page that the link to Organized territory was correct rather than linking to this article. I told him that I'd put things back tomorrow. If there's still some disagreement, then perhaps I should wait? Bkonrad 04:31, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There is overlap--a territory can be both organized and incorporated, but the key is that while both Oregon Territory and Puerto Rico were/are organized (they have governments and are in some way overseen by the U.S. fed government), but of the two only Oregon Territory was incorporated--it was part of specific process guiding it toward statehood. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory, and historic Oregon Country was unorganized territory. This is somewhat fuzzy to the modern mind, because there just aren't any incorporated territories anymore, but an incorporated territory is something like a proto-state, and unincorporated territory is something like a possession (we're keeping it, but we don't really want it at the same time), while the difference between organized and unorganized is a legalistic distinction. Is that confusing enough? jengod 04:55, Mar 7, 2004 (UTC)

OK - fair enough. :) --mav

Regarding removal of material

I have been doing a bit of research into the exact meaning of incorporated territory (and just rewrote that article) in order to determine exactly what it means, since it is being used a lot in articles. Specifically what I have found is this:

• Incorporated in this sense has nothing to do with creating a civil goverment entity, such as the incorporation of a city or town.
• Rather, it is synonymous with "fully included", as in "territory that was been fully incorporated into the U.S."
• The distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territory was moot until the acquisition of U.S. possessions in the 1890s. Before then, all U.S. territory was, in some sense, de facto incorporated territory (although see counterargument below).
• Even after the acquisition of U.S. possessions, the distinction in law betweeen inc. and uninc. was murky until 1937 following a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the appliction of the Sherman Antitrust Law (which simply used the word "territory") to Puerto Rico, which is not an incorporated territory, although it is organized territory.
• Following things above, organized/unorganized and incorporated/unincorporated have nothing to do with each and are complete separate systems of classification. That is, a territory can be organized without being incorporated, and vice versa.

The issue at hand is whether or not most historic territories of the U.S. were actually incorporated territories. This is a little murky, considering the definition of "incorporated territory" as elaborated in the 1937 decision and its further codification into U.S. law (I'd point to the Dept. of Interior web site on this, but it is down right now because of a court decision).

Certainly the Alaska Territory and Hawaii Territory were incorporated (and organized) territories, because they were in existence in the 20th century.

But in regard to previous ones, here's the issue: certainly territories such as the (unorganized) Northwest Territory, and the organized ones created of it (e.g. Michigan Territory), as well later ones like the Arizona Territory satisfied the criterion of being "fully included" in the U.S. The problem is that the definition of "incorporated territory" as elaborated by the Supreme Court defined such as territory as one for which the full U.S. constitution applied. Here's where it gets murky, in that it is quite arguable whether or not the framers would have intended that meaning in regard to the Michigan Territory, etc., since such issues were not actually brought before the Supreme Court.

My point is that I'm not sure what to do with this article per se, in that strictly speaking, the title of the article may refer only to three territories: Palmyra Atoll, Alaska Territory, and Hawaii Territory. I could be wrong about this, regarding the retroactive application of the term to historic territories in the 19th century. I think it might take a bit of legal research to figure this out, and it may not have even a definite answer, as I've said.

In the meantime, I've removed some of the material from the article which is really about organized territory. Some of it was in error (for example incorporated territory has nothing to do with eventual statehood). Other material is now better covered in incorporated territory. The other disincluded part is below. Some should perhaps be put into the organized territory article, but I'm not up to doing it right now. Maybe later.

I've also gone with the interpretation that historical organized territories prior to the 20th century were indeed "incorporated territories." This preserves the article as meaningful for the time being using its current title. -- Decumanus | Talk 21:00, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

disincluded material to be placed in other articles.

Up until 1959 and the admission of Alaska and Hawaii, large parts of the United States were under the direct control of the federal government, with nominal political autonomy at the territorial level. See the for the several present-day states that were never part of the territorial process.

Territories were organized by an Organic Act and statehood was made possible by an Enabling Act. The U.S. Congress granted some territorial divisions "grades", generally based on population, to move them foward on the path toward statehood--generally just first- and second-grade status, but some began at third-grade status.

Territories were generally governed by a territorial governor and a territorial legislature. These political institutions had to draft a state constitution, to be approved by the Congress, before admission as a state. (For most of the 19th century there was a U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Territories and a U.S. Senate Committee on Territories organized to manage the relevant legislation.)

New Title

Starting a new section here to discuss a possible new title for this article -- based on the work that Decumanus has done above (thanks again).

How about just renaming this article as Historic Organized Territories of the United States and move the bit about Palmyra Atoll to incorporated territories? Or, couldn't we just merge this with List of historic regions of the United States? I think everything on this list is also on that one. Bkonrad | Talk 00:14, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The only thing I think that needs to be brought into the discussion is that there was such a thing as Philippines Territory--or some variation on that spelling and nomenclature--it would have been unincorporated, i'm pretty sure, but...I dunno. Does that fit in with Historic organized territories of the United States? I think so... There's 2c. Tired. So tired. :o) jengod 01:36, Mar 25, 2004 (UTC)~

Okay, some proposals:

• Move to Historic organized territories of the United States
• OR move content to List of historic regions of the United States, and maybe change that to Historic regions of the United States, to accomodate some narrative-style explanation.
• Or...? jengod 00:58, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

I like merging with the List of historic regions of the United States and then renaming that as Historic regions of the United States. I can't see a really good reason to keep essentially the same list in two places. Bkonrad | Talk 01:20, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Some notes: We do have an article on Commonwealth of the Philippines (which I edited today after creating commonwealth (U.S. insular area), although that status covered only a portion of the period of the U.S. sovereignty over the Philippine Islands. I don't know what the status was before 1934.

And we also need to address the Panama Canal Zone (I'm not sure about title of that article at all. Wasn't the official name simply "Canal Zone"?. I had a high school girlfriend who was a native Zonian. I wonder what it says on her passport: but I've long since lost track of her and her personality was much like the nickname :)).

There is Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands which was a UN trust territory administered by the U.S. I don't know if there were any other such US trusteeships.

what to do with Cuba? (the age-old Yankee question)

-- Decumanus | Talk 01:47, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Snerkity snerk snerk snerk. And let's not even get started on Nicaragua, which we kept mildly attacking and taking over for years because we might or might not have wanted to build a canal there. Also, something about sandanistas and communism. ;) Okay, I'm being bold and moving stuff to Historic regions of the United States. Speak now or forever yaddayadda. jengod 01:51, Mar 27, 2004 (UTC)

Good points. I think they could all be handled on a Historic regions of the United States article. Need some new subheads, but they are historic regions of the U.S. They're definitely not incorporated territory. I suppose we could just as readily call it Historic territories of the United States. Not sure if that helps at all, though it seems that region is open to including all sorts of unofficial names people may have used to call someplace. Bkonrad | Talk 01:55, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)

O.K. I guess Cuba is an easy one, since it was never officially under U.S. sovereignty of any kind, in accordance with the Teller Amendment. So it shouldn't be on the list at all, although it had a U.S. military governor for a couple years, and the U.S. wrote the Constitution. Hmmm. Sounds sort of familiar... Can't quite put my finger on it. Oh yeah, I'm thinking of Japan of course. -- Decumanus | Talk 02:51, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)