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Page Number: 102

20 

HAALAND v. BRACKEEN 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

a single object—“Commerce”—that is then cabined by three 
prepositional  phrases:  “with  foreign  Nations,  and  among 
the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”  Art. I, §8,
cl. 3.  Accordingly, one would naturally read the term “Com-
merce”  as  having  the  same  meaning  with  respect  to  each 
type  of  “Commerce”  the  Clause  proceeds  to  identify.    See 
Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 74 (1824).  I would think that 
is  how  we  would  read,  for  example,  the  President’s  “ap-
point[ment]”  power  with  respect  to  “Ambassadors,  . . . 
Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the
United States.”  Art. II, §2, cl. 2.  There is no textual reason 
why the Commerce Clause would be different.  Nor have the 
parties or the numerous amici presented any evidence that 
the  Founders  thought  that  the  term  “Commerce”  in  the
Commerce Clause meant different things for Indian tribes 
than it did for commerce between States.  See S. Prakash, 
Our Three Commerce Clauses and the Presumption of In-
trasentence  Uniformity,  55  Ark.  L. Rev.  1149,  1161–1162 
(2003).

Rather, the evidence points in the opposite direction.  See 
Adoptive Couple, 570 U. S., at 659–660 (THOMAS, J., concur-
ring).  When discussing “commerce” with Indian tribes, the 
Founders  plainly  meant  buying  and  selling  goods  and
transportation  for  that  purpose.  For  example,  President
Washington  once  informed  Congress  of  the  need  for  “new
channels  for  the  commerce  of  the  Creeks,”  because  “their 
trade is liable to be interrupted” by conflicts with England.
Statement  to  the  Senate  (Aug.  4,  1790),  reprinted  in  4 
American State Papers 80.  Henry Knox similarly referred 
to the “profits of this commerce” with the Creeks in the con-
text of a “trading house which has the monopoly of the trade 
of the Creeks.”  Report (July 6, 1789), reprinted in  id., at 
15.  And President Jefferson likewise discussed the “com-
merce  [that]  shall  be  carried  on  liberally”  at  “trading
houses”  with  Indians.  Statement  to  Congress  (Jan.  18,