Public Law 600, 1950

On July 3, 1950 Congress approved Public Law 600, 64 Stat. 319. The law authorized the people of Puerto Rico to organize a government under a constitution of their own adoption. It was described as in the nature of a compact and submitted its terms to a referendum on the island. The eventual constitution had to provide a republican form of government and a bill of rights. Congress would still have to approve the draft.

In the nature of a compact, en calidad de convenio, is the phrase everyone quotes and no one should treat as magic. A compact sounds like a deal Congress cannot touch. Sanchez Valle, in 2016, held that Puerto Rico is not a separate sovereign for double-jeopardy purposes because the source of its prosecutorial power remains Congress. Public Law 600 is the statute the Court read to get there. This lesson is the 1950 authorization, not the 2016 opinion; they are a pair.

The island's voters approved the process. A convention wrote a constitution. Congress approved it with conditions in 1952. The Estado Libre Asociado was proclaimed on July 25, 1952, lesson 17. Between this statute and that proclamation sat an uprising and an attack on Blair House. Sequence again. The compact language and the nationalist crisis are the same years.

En calidad de convenio is one way of rendering in the nature of a compact. The statute's official English is the phrase later litigation uses. This journal keeps the English and then glosses. Compact here does not mean the island became a state, a co-equal, or a United Nations member. It means Congress offered a constitution-writing process in federal terms.

The honesty line is the citation. Public Law 600, July 3, 1950, 64 Stat. 319. Authorization, referendum, Congress's approval still required. Not independence. Not statehood. No promise that dual sovereignty would follow. When a speaker says 1952 ended the territorial status, open this statute and then open Sanchez Valle. The constitution is real. The source of power remains the question.

The numbered finding stays with the public law, the rubric, or the tally. This lesson invents no percentage, no count of people, and no date that the sources of this page do not support. English terms are glossed in the text so that the statute can be read without a manifesto.

Sources: Public Law 600, 64 Stat. 319; Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, 579 U.S. 59 (2016). Freeze 2026-08-22.