Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-429_8o6a.pdf
Page Number: 47.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

19 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

quotation marks omitted).  And having just lost their tradi-
tional homelands to Georgia, who can doubt that the Cher-
okee  understood  this  promise  as  a  guarantee  that  they 
would  retain  their  sovereign  authority  over  crimes  by  or 
against  tribal  members  subject  only  to  federal,  not  state, 
law?  That was certainly the contemporaneous understand-
ing  of  the  House  Committee  on  Indian  Affairs,  which  ob-
served  that  “[t]he  United  States  and  the  Indian  tribes 
[would be] the sole parties” with power over new reserva-
tions in the West.  H. Rep. No. 474, at 18; see also Part I– 
B, supra.  This Court has long shared the same view.  “By
treaties and statutes,” the Court has said, “the right of the 
Cherokee [N]ation to exist as an autonomous body, subject 
always  to  the  paramount  authority  of  the  United  States,
has been recognized.”  Talton v. Mayes, 163 U. S. 376, 379– 
380 (1896).4 

—————— 

4 In  a  fleeting  aside,  the  Court  suggests  that  the  treaty  was  “sup-
planted”  by  the  Oklahoma  Enabling  Act  in  1906,  which  endowed  the 
State with “inherent” authority to try crimes by or against tribal mem-
bers on tribal lands.  Ante, at 22–23.  But the Court cites no proof for its 
ipse dixit, nor could it.  As we shall see, Congress took pains to abide its
treaty  promises  when  it  adopted  the  Oklahoma  Enabling  Act  and  has 
never revoked them.  Nor may this Court abrogate treaties or statutes 
by wishing them away in passing remarks.  In a Nation governed by the 
rule of law, not men (or willful judges), only Congress may withdraw this 
Nation’s treaty promises or revise its written laws.  See McGirt v. Okla-
homa, 591 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 7).  Even on its own terms, 
too, the Court’s discussion of the treaty turns out to be dicta.  In the end, 
the Court abandons any suggestion that, with its admission to the Union, 
the  Cherokee’s  treaties  somehow  evaporated  and  Oklahoma  gained  an 
“inherent”  right  to  prosecute  crimes  by  or  against  tribal  members  on 
tribal lands.  Instead, the Court resorts to a case-specific “balancing test” 
that acknowledges state law may not apply on tribal lands even in the 
absence of a preemptive statute.  See Part III–A, infra. 

In the course of its dicta on the treaty, the Court highlights still two
other irrelevant facts—that the Cherokee engaged in treaties with the 
Confederacy  during  the  Civil  War  and  that  “Congress  abolished  trea-
tymaking  with  the  Indian  nations  in  1871.”    Ante,  at  21,  n. 7,  22,  n. 8