Historic Supreme Courts--14th Amendment, Episode 8: When the Constitution Stops at the Shore: The Insular Cases Explained

Beginning to wrap up the series. and this episode dives into the Insular Cases: how the U.S. won overseas territory after 1898 and the Supreme Court quietly created “unincorporated” places where the Constitution only sometimes applies.

It’s a sharp, unsettling legal move—tinted with racial reasoning—that still shapes life in Puerto Rico, Guam, and elsewhere. Let’s unpack how the Court made the Constitution negotiable depending on geography.