Ordinance are strikingly like the rights guaranteed in the Constitution. The representatives composing the
Continental Congress, which enacted the Ordinance, and those of the Federal Convention were not, in
most instances, the same men. The same States were represented in each, however, and only four years
expired between the passing of the Northwest Ordinance and the date that the Bill of Rights went into
effect. If these facts suggest that it was the intent of the framers of our Constitution that constitutional
liberties should extend equally to the territories, such an argument was not acknowledged in the opinions
of the insular cases. The Northwest Ordinance was not mentioned in any of the foregoing cases and the
principle of equality, manifest in that document, has been obscured by the doctrine of incorporation.

 THE EXAMPLE OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

 It has been shown that the extension of civil rights to the territories depends upon whether or not
their status is one of "incorporation". This, in turn, depends upon the will of Congress. Neither the
Supreme Court nor Congress have revealed what constitutes incorporation, and the President's
Committee on Civil Rights virtually ignored this problem. It may follow, therefore, that clarification of the
status of civil liberties in our extra-continental territories might result through a comprehensive analysis of
one of those possessions, in this case the Virgin Islands.


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