The act set up the government of Puerto Rico, annexed from Spain at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War. Passed in April 1900, it provided that the executive department was to be composed of a council of eleven members appointed by the president of the United States. Legislative authority was vested in this council and in an elective house of delegates. The island's inhabitants were to be considered "citizens of Puerto Rico," not U.S. citizens. A special reduced tariff was levied on all goods moving between the United States and Puerto Rico. Congress took the view that Puerto Rico was not incorporated in the United States and therefore the clauses of the Constitution concerning citizenship and taxation need not be in force. This interpretation was upheld and refined in a series of Supreme Court decisions known as the Insular Cases.
Bibliography
Argüelles, María del Pilar. Morality and Power: The U.S. Colonial Experience in Puerto Rico from 1898 to 1948. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1995.
Montalvo-Barbot, Alfredo. Political Conflict and Constitutional Change in Puerto Rico, 1898–1952. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1997.
Torruella, Juan R. The Supreme Court and Puerto Rico. Río Piedras: University of Puerto Rico Press, 1985.
—William Spence Robertson/T. M.
