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4 

HERRERA v. WYOMING 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

right  to  hunt  at  the  spot  of  his  alleged  offense,  as  the
nearest  settlement  lay  more  than  60-miles  distant,  mak-
ing  the  land  where  he  was  hunting  “unoccupied  lands  of 
the United States.”  In re Race Horse, 70 F. 598, 599–600 
(Wyo. 1895).

This Court rejected Race Horse’s argument, holding that 
the  admission  of  Wyoming  to  the  Union  terminated  the 
hunting right.  163 U. S., at 514.  Although the opinion of 
the Court is not a model of clarity, this conclusion appears
to rest on two grounds.

First,  the  Court  held  that  Wyoming’s  admission  neces-
sarily  ended  the  Tribe’s  hunting  right  because  otherwise
the  State  would  lack  the  power,  possessed  by  every  other 
State, “to regulate the killing of game within [its] borders.” 
Ibid.  Limiting  Wyoming’s  power  in  this  way,  the  Court
reasoned,  would  contravene  the  equal-footing  doctrine, 
which dictates that all States enter the Union with the full 
panoply of powers enjoyed by the original 13 States at the
adoption of the Constitution.  Ibid.  Under this rationale, 
the  Act  of  Congress  admitting  Wyoming  could  not  have 
preserved  the  hunting  right  even  if  that  had  been  Con-
gress’s wish.

After  providing  this  basis  for  its  holding,  however,  the
Court  quickly  turned  to  a  second  ground,  namely,  that 
even  if  Congress  could  have  limited  Wyoming’s  authority
in this way, it had not attempted to do so.  Id., at 515.  The 
Court  thought  that  Congress’s  intention  not  to  impose
such  a  restriction  on  the  State  was  “conveyed  by  the  ex-
press terms of the act of admission,” but the Court did not
identify the terms to which it was referring.  Ibid.  It did, 
however,  see  support  for  its  decision  in  the  nature  of  the 

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unoccupied  lands  of  the  United  States,  so  long  as  game  may  be  found 
thereon, and so long as peace subsists among the whites and Indians on 
the  borders  of  the  hunting  districts.’ ”  Race  Horse,  163  U. S.,  at  507; 
Kappler 1020, 1021.