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Page Number: 110

28 

HAALAND v. BRACKEEN 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

normal affairs.  But nothing the Court cited actually sup-
ported such a view.  For example, the fact that the Federal 
Government  could  regulate  Indians  on  federal  territories
does  not  justify  such  regulations  for  Indians  within  a 
State’s limits.  Nor does the fact that tribes were “external” 
at  the  Founding  mean  that  they  remained  “external”  in 
1886.13  Nor does the fact that Congress could regulate citi-
zens  who  went  onto  Indian  lands,  see  Rogers,  4  How.,  at 
572,  mean  that  Congress  automatically  has  the  power  to 
regulate Indians on those lands.

But the Court then subtly shifted its approach.  Drawing 
on Cherokee Nation, the Court next asserted that “Indian 
tribes are the wards of the nation.”  Kagama, 118 U. S., at 
383 (emphasis in original).  Because of “their very weakness
and helplessness,” it reasoned, “so largely due to the course
of  dealing  of  the  Federal  Government  with  them  and  the 
treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty 
of  protection,  and  with  it  the  power.”  Id.,  at  384.  This 
power “over th[e] remnants” of the Indian tribes, the Court 
stated, “must exist in [the federal] government, because it 
never  has  existed  anywhere  else,”  “because  it  has  never 
been denied, and because it alone can enforce its laws on all 
the tribes.”  Id., at 384–385. 

These  pronouncements,  however,  were  pure  ipse  dixit. 
The Court pointed to nothing in the text of the Constitution
or its original understanding to support them.  Nor did the 
Court give any other real support for those conclusions; in-
stead, it cited three cases, all of which held only that States
were restricted in certain ways from governing Indians on
Indian lands.  Id., at 384 (citing Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 
515 (1832); Fellows v. Blacksmith, 19 How. 366 (1856) (only 
the  Federal  Government,  not  private  parties,  can  enforce 
—————— 

13 As discussed more below, Congress declared in 1871 that “hereafter 
no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall
be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power
with whom the United States may contract by treaty.”  16 Stat. 566.