Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-376_7l48.pdf
Page Number: 69

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

27 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

tribal  and  foreign  sovereigns.  Art.  I,  §8,  cl. 3  (emphases 
added).  This  language  suggests  a  shared  framework  for
Congress’s Indian and foreign commerce powers and a dif-
ferent  one  for  its  interstate  commerce  authority.    See  R. 
Monette, A New Federalism for Indian Tribes:  The Rela-
tionship Between the United States and Tribes in Light of 
Our Federalism and Republican Democracy, 25 U. Toledo 
L. Rev.  617,  629,  n. 82  (1994).    More  than  that,  the  term 
“with” suggests that Congress has the authority to manage
“all interactions or affairs . . . with the Indian [T]ribes” and 
foreign sovereigns—wherever those interactions or affairs 
may occur.  Balkin 23.  By contrast, the term “among” found
in the Interstate Commerce Clause most naturally suggests
that Congress may regulate only activities that “extend in
their operation beyond the bounds of a particular [S]tate” 
and into another.  Id., at 30.  All this goes a long way toward
explaining  why  “Congress’s  powers  to  regulate  domestic
commerce  are  more  constrained”  than  its  powers  to  regu-
late Indian and foreign commerce.  Id., at 29. 

For another thing, as nouns, “States” and “Indian Tribes” 
are  not  alike—and  they  were  not  alike  at  the  founding.
“States” generally referred then, as it does today, to a col-
lection  of  territorial  entities.    Not  so  “Tribes.”    That  term 
necessarily  referred  to  collections  of  individuals.  See  C. 
Green, Tribes, Nations, States:  Our Three Commerce Pow-
ers, 127 Pa. St. L. Rev. 643, 649, 654–669 (2023) (Green);
see also 1 W. Crosskey, Politics and the Constitution in the
History of the United States 77 (1953).  Want proof?  Dust 
off most any founding-era dictionary and look up the defi-
nition of “Tribe.”  See, e.g., 2 J. Ash, The New and Complete 
Dictionary  of  the  English  Language  (1775)  (“[a]  family,  a 
body of the people distinguished by family or fortune”); 2 S. 
Johnson,  A  Dictionary  of  the  English  Language  (4th  ed. 
1773) (“[a] di[s]tinct body of the people as divided by family
or fortune, or any other characteri[s]tick”); T. Dyche, A New 
General English Dictionary (14th ed. 1771) (“the particular