Between 1898 and 1901, the United States invented a new tradition of territorial expansionism with a corresponding constitutional doctrine to rule the Spanish ultramarine territories annexed during the War of 1898. Anchored on the prevailing racist ideologies of Anglo-American exceptionalism, the ensuing constitutional interpretation has been described as the “doctrine of territorial incorporation,” the “Third View,” the “Insular Cases doctrine” or the doctrine of “separate and unequal.” Central to this constitutional interpretation is the idea that the United States can selectively rule “unincorporated territories” as foreign territorial possessions that belong to but are not a part of the United States.
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