Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-376_7l48.pdf
Page Number: 63

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

21 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

Even as the Constitutional Convention assembled, a com-
mittee of the Continental Congress noted that it “had been
long  understood  and  pretty  well  ascertained”  that  the 
Crown’s absolute powers to “manag[e] Affairs with the In-
dians” passed in its “entire[ty] to the Union” following In-
dependence, meaning that “[t]he laws of the State can have 
no effect upon a [T]ribe of Indians or their lands within the
limits of the [S]tate so long as that [T]ribe is independent.” 
33 Journals of the Continental Congress 1774–1789, p. 458
(R.  Hill  ed.  1936).    That  had  to  be  so,  the  committee  ob-
served, for the same reason that individual States could not 
enter treaties with foreign powers:  “[T]he Indian [T]ribes 
are justly considered the common friends or enemies of the
United States, and no particular [S]tate can have an exclu-
sive interest in the management of Affairs with any of the
[T]ribes.”  Id., at 459. 

This understanding found its way directly into the text of
the  Constitution.  The  final  version  assigned  the  newly 
formed federal government a bundle of powers that encom-
passed  “all  that  is  required  for  the  regulation  of  [the  Na-
tion’s] intercourse with the Indians.”  Worcester, 6 Pet., at 
559.  By contrast, the Constitution came with no indication 
that States had any similar sort of power.  Indeed, it omit-
ted the nettlesome language in the Articles about the “leg-
islative right” of States.  Not only that.  The Constitution’s 
express exclusion of “Indians not taxed” from the apportion-
ment  formula,  Art.  I,  §2,  cl. 3,  threw  cold  water  on  some 
States’ attempts to claim that Tribes fell within their terri-
tory—and therefore their control.  And, lest any doubt re-
main, the Constitution divested States of any power to “en-
ter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation.”  §10, cl. 1.
By removing that diplomatic power, the Constitution’s de-
sign  also  divested  them  of  the  leading  tool  for  managing
tribal relations at that time. 

The Constitution’s departure from the Articles’ articula-