boundaries of the United States nor extend the operations of
our institutions and laws beyond the limits before assigned
them by the legislative power.1
 
        It is true that in the case in which these
observations are
made, the point to be determined was, whether enemies'
territory, which in the course of hostilities had come into
our military possession, became a part of the United
States, and subject to our general laws.  But they are
important to this case as defining the power of the
President in war, to be merely that of the military
commander-in-chief; that territory can be acquired only by
the treatymaking and legislative authority, and,
consequently, that the fact that hostilities are by the
military authority directed against a particular portion of
the enemy's territory, cannot be said to make the
acquisition of that territory the object of the war."
(Underscoring ours).
 
           Again in Swaim v. United States (1896) 165 U. S.
553 the
Supreme Court, in holding that it is within the power of
the President as Commander-in-Chief to convene a general
court-martial by virtue of the authority granted to him as
a military officer and flatly rejecting a contrary view,
the Supreme Court said at page 556:
 
       "This view of the President's powers, in this
particular,
was asserted in Runkle's case, 19 C. Cl. 396, 409, but was
not approved by the Court of Claims, which held that when
authority to appoint courts-martial was expressly granted
to military officers, the power was necessarily vested in
the commander in chief, the President of the United States.
Chief Justice Drake, after quoting from writers on military
law in support of the statement that the authority of the
President to appoint general courts-martial, had, in fact,
been exercised from time to time from an early period,
said:
 
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