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Page Number: 70.0

28 

HAALAND v. BRACKEEN 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

descendants or people [s]prung from [s]ome noted head, or 
a  collective  number  of  people  in  a  colony”);  N.  Bailey,  An 
Universal Etymological English Dictionary  (22d ed. 1770) 
(“a  [c]ompany  of  [p]eople  dwelling  together  in  the  [s]ame
[w]ard or [l]iberty”).

This  observation  sheds  light  on  why  ordinary  speakers 
use the two terms differently.  It explains, for instance, why 
it is grammatical to say you are vacationing “in Colorado,” 
but not to say you are vacationing “in Navajo.”  It explains 
why it is sensible to say you are meeting “with some Cher-
okee,” but not to say you are meeting “with some New Jer-
sey.”  But this point also helps us make sense of why the
Legislative  Branch  may  regulate  commerce  with  Indian 
Tribes  differently  than  it  may  regulate  commerce  among
the States.  Because Tribes are collections of people, the In-
dian Commerce Clause endows Congress with the “author-
ity to regulate commerce with Native Americans” as indi-
viduals.  McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip 
op., at 7).  By contrast, Congress’s power under the Inter-
state Commerce Clause operates only on commerce that in-
volves “more States than one.”  Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 
1, 194 (1824).  In other words, commerce that takes place 
“among” (or between) two or more territorial units, and not 
just  any  commerce  that  involves  some  member  of  some 
State.  See Green 649–654. 

This Court has long appreciated these points of distinc-
tion.  For example, in United States v. Holliday, 3 Wall. 407 
(1866), the Court upheld a federal statute that prohibited 
the  sale  of  alcohol  by  non-Indians  to  Indians—on  or  off 
tribal land.  Id., at 416–417.  Giving the Indian Commerce 
Clause its most natural reading, the Court concluded that 
the  power  to  regulate  commerce  with  Indian  Tribes  must
mean the power to regulate “commerce with the individuals 
composing  those  [T]ribes.”  Id.,  at  417  (emphasis  added).
For that reason, too, “[t]he locality of the [commerce could] 
have nothing to do with the [scope of the] power.”  Id., at