The United States in 1898 found itself in the position in which the British had been in 1774: as a growing empire that had acquired territories foreign in custom, creed, and law. Pragmatic considerations let military administrators to put aside historical antipathy to the Quebec Act of 1774, which had been one of the causes of American independence, and adapt the British precedent to the island possessions. Both the civil and religious integration followed a pattern of pluralistic governance that marked the American transition from republic to empire. This trajectory offers lessons for understanding the relationship between legal pluralism and republicanism, and the complex consequences of imperial domination.