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ARIZONA v. NAVAJO NATION 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

invocation of the Indian “trust relationship.” 

At  the  outset,  it  should  be  noted  that  our  precedents’
“trust” language can be understood in two different ways. 
In one sense, the term “trust” could refer merely to the trust
that  Indians  have  placed  in  the  Federal  Government.    If 
that  is  all  this  language  means,  then  I  have  no  objection.
Many citizens (and foreign nations) trust the Federal Gov-
ernment to do the right thing.  Determining how to do right
by the competing interests of the country’s millions of citi-
zens, however, is generally a job for the political branches, 
not courts. 

By contrast, the term “trust” also has a well-understood
meaning  at  law:  a  relationship  in  which  a  trustee  has  le-
gally enforceable duties to manage a discrete trust corpus
for certain beneficiaries.  See Restatement (Third) of Trusts 
§2 (2001).  At times, the Federal Government has expressly 
created such discrete legal trusts for Indians—by, for exam-
ple, placing parcels of land or specified sums of money into 
trust.  See, e.g., Cass County v. Leech Lake Band of Chip-
pewa Indians, 524 U. S. 103, 106–107, 114 (1998) (describ-
ing statutory grants of authority to place lands in trust for
Indians); Seminole Nation, 316 U. S., at 293–294 (describ-
ing  “the  Government’s  promise”  in  a  particular  treaty  “to
establish a $500,000 trust fund” for the Seminole Nation).
But, when resolving disputes about those trusts, the Court’s 
“trust”  language  has  gone  beyond  the  discrete  terms  of 
those trusts; for example, the Court has alluded generally
to  “the  distinctive  obligation  of  trust  incumbent  upon  the 
Government in its dealings” with Indians and the Govern-
ment’s “moral obligations of the highest responsibility and 
trust.”  Id., at 296–297.  In those and other cases, the Court 
has  accordingly  blurred  the  lines  between  the  political 
branches’ general moral obligations to Indians, on the one 
hand, and specific fiduciary obligations of the Federal Gov-
ernment that might be enforceable in court, on the other.
See, e.g., Mitchell, 463 U. S., at 225; Seminole Nation, 316