Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/448/371
Timestamp: 2014-12-19 01:42:22
Document Index: 355883676

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2', '§ 20', '§ 8', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2']

UNITED STATES, Petitioner, v. SIOUX NATION OF INDIANS et al. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews UNITED STATES, Petitioner, v. SIOUX NATION OF INDIANS et al.
448 U.S. 371 (100 S.Ct. 2716, 65 L.Ed.2d 844)
Argued: March 24, 1980.
[HTML] Syllabus Under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the United States pledged that the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, would be "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation" of the Sioux Nation (Sioux), and that no treaty for the cession of any part of the reservation would be valid as against the Sioux unless executed and signed by at least three-fourths of the adult male Sioux population. The treaty also reserved the Sioux' right to hunt in certain unceded territories. Subsequently, in 1876, an "agreement" presented to the Sioux by a special Commission but signed by only 10% of the adult male Sioux population, provided that the Sioux would relinquish their rights to the Black Hills and to hunt in the unceded territories, in exchange for subsistence rations for as long as they would be needed. In 1877, Congress passed an Act (1877 Act) implementing this "agreement" and thus, in effect, abrogated the Fort Laramie Treaty. Throughout the ensuing years, the Sioux regarded the 1877 Act as a breach of that treaty, but Congress did not enact any mechanism by which they could litigate their claims against the United States until 1920, when a special jurisdictional Act was passed. Pursuant to this Act, the Sioux brought suit in the Court of Claims, alleging that the Government had taken the Black Hills without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. In 1942, this claim was dismissed by the Court of Claims, which held that it was not authorized by the 1920 Act to question whether the compensation afforded the Sioux in the 1877 Act was an adequate price for the Black Hills and that the Sioux' claim was a moral one not protected by the Just Compensation Clause. Thereafter, upon enactment of the Indian Claims Commission Act in 1946, the Sioux resubmitted their claim to the Indian Claims Commission, which held that the 1877 Act effected a taking for which the Sioux were entitled to just compensation and that the 1942 Court of Claims decision did not bar the taking claim under res judicata. On appeal, the Court of Claims, affirming the Commission's holding that a want of fair and honorable dealings on the Government's part was evidenced, ultimately held that the Sioux were entitled to an award of at least $17.5 million, without interest, as damages under the Indian Claims Commission Act, for the lands surrendered and for gold taken by trespassing prospectors prior to passage of the 1877 Act. But the court further held that the merits of the Sioux' taking claim had been reached in its 1942 decision and that therefore such claim was barred by res judicata. The court noted that only if the acquisition of the Black Hills amounted to an unconstitutional taking would the Sioux be entitled to interest. Thereafter, in 1978, Congress passed an Act (1978 Act) providing for de novo review by the Court of Claims of the merits of the Indian Claims Commission's holding that the 1877 Act effected a taking of the Black Hills, without regard to res judicata, and authorizing the Court of Claims to take new evidence in the case. Pursuant to this Act, the Court of Claims affirmed the Commission's holding. In so affirming, the court, in order to decide whether the 1877 Act had effected a taking or whether it had been a noncompensable act of congressional guardianship over tribal property, applied the test of whether Congress had made a good-faith effort to give the Sioux the full value of their land. Under this test, the court characterized the 1877 Act as a taking in exercise of Congress' power of eminent domain over Indian property. Accordingly, the court held that the Sioux were entitled to an award of interest on the principal sum of $17.1 million (the fair market value of the Black Hills as of 1877), dating from 1877.
2. The Court of Claims' legal analysis and factual findings fully support its conclusion that the 1877 Act did not effect a "mere change in the form of investment of Indian tribal property," but, rather, effected a taking of tribal property which had been set aside by the Fort Laramie Treaty for the Sioux' exclusive occupation, which taking implied an obligation on the Government's part to make just compensation to the Sioux. That obligation, including an award of interest, must now be paid. The principles that it "must be presumed that Congress acted in perfect good faith in the dealings with the Indians of which complaint is made, and that it exercised its best judgment in the premises," Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 568, 23 S.Ct. 216, 222, 47 L.Ed. 299, are inapplicable in this case. The question whether a particular congressional measure was appropriate for protecting and advancing a tribe's interests, and therefore not subject to the Just Compensation Clause, is factual in nature, and the answer must be based on a consideration of all the evidence presented. While a reviewing court is not to second-guess a legislative judgment that a particular measure would serve the tribe's best interests, the court is required, in considering whether the measure was taken in pursuance of Congress' power to manage and control tribal lands for the Indians' welfare, to engage in a thorough and impartial examination of the historical record. A presumption of congressional good faith cannot serve to advance such an inquiry. Pp. 407-423.
* For over a century now the Sioux Nation has claimed that the United States unlawfully abrogated the Fort Laramie Treaty of April 29, 1868, 15 Stat. 635, in Art. II of which the United States pledged that the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, would be "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named." Id., at 636. The Fort Laramie Treaty was concluded at the culmination of the Powder River War of 1866-1867, a series of military engagements in which the Sioux tribes, led by their great chief, Red Cloud, fought to protect the integrity of earlier-recognized treaty lands from the incursion of white settlers.
The Fort Laramie Treaty included several agreements central to the issues presented in this case. First, it established the Great Sioux Reservation, a tract of land bounded on the east by the Missouri River, on the south by the northern border of the State of Nebraska, on the north by the forty-sixth parallel of north latitude, and on the west by the one hundred and fourth meridian of west longitude,
in addition to certain reservations already existing east of the Missouri. The United States "solemnly agreed" that no unauthorized persons "shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in this territory." Ibid.
In 1874 the Army planned and undertook an exploratory expedition into the Hills, both for the purpose of establishing a military outpost from which to control those Sioux who had not accepted the terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty, and for the purpose of investigating "the country about which dreamy stories have been told." D. Jackson, Custer's Gold 14 (1966) (quoting the 1874 annual report of Lieutenant General Philip H. Sheridan, as Commander of the Military Division of the Missouri, to the Secretary of War). Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led the expedition of close to 1,000 soldiers and teamsters, and a substantial number of military and civilian aides. Custer's journey began at Fort Abraham Lincoln on the Missouri River on July 2, 1874. By the end of that month they had reached the Black Hills, and by mid-August had confirmed the presence of gold fields in that region. The discovery of gold was widely reported in newspapers across the country.
Having promised the Sioux that the Black Hills were reserved to them, the United States Army was placed in the position of having to threaten military force, and occasionally to use it, to prevent prospectors and settlers from trespassing on lands reserved to the Indians. For example, in September 1874, General Sheridan sent instructions to Brigadier General Alfred H. Terry, Commander of the Department of Dakota, at Saint Paul, directing him to use force to prevent companies of prospectors from trespassing on the Sioux Reservation. At the same time, Sheridan let it be known that he would "give a cordial support to the settlement of the Black Hills," should Congress decide to "open up the country for settlement, by extinguishing the treaty rights of the Indians." App. 62-63. Sheridan's instructions were published in local newspapers. See id., at 63.
With the Army's withdrawal from its role as enforcer of the Fort Laramie Treaty, the influx of settlers into the Black Hills increased. The Government concluded that the only practical course was to secure to the citizens of the United States the right to mine the Black Hills for gold. Toward that end, the Secretary of the Interior, in the spring of 1875, appointed a commission to negotiate with the Sioux. The commission was headed by William B. Allison. The tribal leaders of the Sioux were aware of the mineral value of the Black Hills and refused to sell the land for a price less than $70 million. The commission offered the Indians an annual rental of $400,000, or payment of $6 million for absolute relinquishment of the Black Hills. The negotiations broke down.
In the winter of 1875-1876, many of the Sioux were hunting in the unceded territory north of the North Platte River, reserved to them for that purpose in the Fort Laramie Teaty. On December 6, 1875, for reasons that are not entirely clear, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs sent instructions to the Indian agents on the reservation to notify those hunters that if they did not return to the reservation agencies by January 31, 1876, they would be treated as "hostiles." Given the severity of the winter, compliance with these instructions was impossible. On February 1, the Secretary of the Interior nonetheless relinquished jurisdiction over all hostile Sioux, including those Indians exercising their treaty-protected hunting rights, to the War Department. The Army's campaign against the "hostiles" led to Sitting Bull's notable victory over Custer's forces at the battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25. That victory, of course, was short-lived, and those Indians who surrendered to the Army were returned to the reservation, and deprived of their weapons and horses, leaving them completely dependent for survival on rations provided them by the Government.
The Sioux' entitlement to subsistence rations under the terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty had expired in 1872. Nonetheless, in each of the two following years, over $1 million was appropriated for feeding the Sioux. In August 1876, Congress enacted an appropriations bill providing that "hereafter there shall be no appropriation made for the subsistence" of the Sioux, unless they first relinquished their rights to the hunting grounds outside the reservation, ceded the Black Hills to the United States, and reached some accommodation with the Government that would be calculated to enable them to become self-supporting. Act of Aug. 15, 1876, 19 Stat. 176, 192.
This commission, headed by George Manypenny, arrived in the Sioux country in early September and commenced meetings with the head men of the various tribes. The members of the commission impressed upon the Indians that the United States no longer had any obligation to provide them with subsistence rations. The commissioners brought with them the text of a treaty that had been prepared in advance. The principal provisions of this treaty were that the Sioux would relinquish their rights to the Black Hills and other lands west of the one hundred and third meridian, and their rights to hunt in the unceded territories to the north, in exchange for subsistence rations for as long as they would be needed to ensure the Sioux' survival. In setting out to obtain the tribes' agreement to this treaty, the commission ignored the stipulation of the Fort Laramie Treaty that any cession of the lands contained within the Great Sioux Reservation would have to be joined in by three-fourths of the adult males. Instead, the treaty was presented just to Sioux chiefs and their leading men. It was signed by only 10% of the adult male Sioux population.
Congress resolved the impasse by enacting the 1876 "agreement" into law as the Act of Feb. 28, 1877 (1877 Act), 19 Stat. 254. The Act had the effect of abrogating the earlier Fort Laramie Treaty, and of implementing the terms of the Manypenny Commission's "agreement" with the Sioux leaders.
The Sioux, however, after years of lobbying, succeeded in obtaining from Congress the passage of a special jurisdictional Act which provided them a forum for adjudication of all claims against the United States "under any treaties, agreements, or laws of Congress, or for the misappropriation of any of the funds or lands of said tribe or band or bands thereof." Act of June 3, 1920, ch. 222, 41 Stat. 738. Pursuant to this statute, the Sioux, in 1923, filed a petition with the Court of Claims alleging that the Government had taken the Black Hills without just compensation, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. This claim was dismissed by that court in 1942. In a lengthy and unanimous opinion, the court concluded that it was not authorized by the Act of June 3, 1920, to question whether the compensation afforded the Sioux by Congress in 1877 was an adequate price for the Black Hills, and that the Sioux' claim in this regard was a moral claim not protected by the Just Compensation Clause. Sioux Tribe v. United States, 97 Ct.Cl. 613 (1942), cert. denied, 318 U.S. 789, 63 S.Ct. 992, 87 L.Ed. 1155 (1943).
In 1946, Congress passed the Indian Claims Commission Act, 60 Stat. 1049, 25 U.S.C. 70 et seq., creating a new forum to hear and determine all tribal grievances that had arisen previously. In 1950, counsel for the Sioux resubmitted the Black Hills claim to the Indian Claims Commission. The Commission initially ruled that the Sioux had failed to prove their case. Sioux Tribe v. United States, 2 Ind.Cl.Comm'n 646 (1954), aff'd, 146 F.Supp. 229 (Ct.Cl.1956). The Sioux filed a motion with the Court of Claims to vacate its judgment of affirmance alleging that the Commission's decision had been based on a record that was inadequate, due to the failings of the Sioux' former counsel. This motion was granted and the Court of Claims directed the Commission to consider whether the case should be reopened for the presentation of additional evidence. On November 19, 1958, the Commission entered an order reopening the case and announcing that it would reconsider its prior judgment on the merits of the Sioux claim. App. 265-266; see Sioux Tribe v. United States, 182 Ct.Cl. 912 (1968) (summary of proceedings).
Six years later, by a 4-to-1 vote, the Commission reached a preliminary decision on these questions. Sioux Nation v. United States, 33 Ind.Cl.Comm'n 151 (1974). The Commission first held that the 1942 Court of Claims decision did not bar the Sioux' Fifth Amendment taking claim through application of the doctrine of res judicata. The Commission concluded that the Court of Claims had dismissed the earlier suit for lack of jurisdiction, and that it had not determined the merits of the Black Hills claim. The Commission then went on to find that Congress, in 1877, had made no effort to give the Sioux full value for the ceded reservation lands. The only new obligation assumed by the Government in exchange for the Black Hills was its promise to provide the Sioux with subsistence rations, an obligation that was subject to several limiting conditions. See n. 14, supra. Under these circumstances, the Commission concluded that the consideration given the Indians in the 1877 Act had no relationship to the value of the property acquired. Moreover, there was no indication in the record that Congress ever attempted to relate the value of the rations to the value of the Black Hills. Applying the principles announced by the Court of Claims in Three Tribes of Fort Berthold Reservation v. United States, 182 Ct.Cl. 543, 390 F.2d 686 (1968), the Commission concluded that Congress had acted pursuant to its power of eminent domain when it passed the 1877 Act, rather than as a trustee for the Sioux, and that the Government must pay the Indians just compensation for the taking of the Black Hills.
The Government filed an appeal with the Court of Claims from the Commission's interlocutory order, arguing alternatively that the Sioux' Fifth Amendment claim should have been barred by principles of res judicata and collateral estoppel, or that the 1877 Act did not effect a taking of the Black Hills for which just compensation was due. Without reaching the merits, the Court of Claims held that the Black Hills claim was barred by the res judicata effect of its 1942 decision. United States v. Sioux Nation, 207 Ct.Cl. 234, 518 F.2d 1298 (1975). The court's majority recognized that the practical impact of the question presented was limited to a determination of whether or not an award of interest would be available to the Indians. This followed from the Government's failure to appeal the Commission's holding that it had acquired the Black Hills through a course of unfair and dishonorable dealing for which the Sioux were entitled to damages, without interest, under § 2 of the Indian Claims Commission Act, 60 Stat. 1050, 25 U.S.C. 70a(5). Only if the acquisition of the Black Hills amounted to an unconstitutional taking would the Sioux be entitled to interest. 207 Ct.Cl., at 237, 518 F.2d, at 1299.
Nonetheless, the court held that the merits of the Sioux' taking claim had been reached in 1942, and whether resolved "rightly or wrongly", id., at 249, 518 F.2d, at 1306, the claim was now barred by res judicata. The court observed that interest could not be awarded the Sioux on judgments obtained pursuant to the Indian Claims Commission Act, and that while Congress could correct this situation, the court could not. Ibid.
The Sioux petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari, but that petition was denied. 423 U.S. 1016, 96 S.Ct. 449, 46 L.Ed.2d 387 (1975).
On March 13, 1978, Congress passed a statute providing for Court of Claims review of the merits of the Indian Claims Commission's judgment that the 1877 Act effected a taking of the Black Hills, without regard to the defenses of res judicata and collateral estoppel. The statute authorized the Court of Claims to take new evidence in the case and to conduct its review of the merits de novo. Pub.L. 95-243, 92 Stat. 153, amending § 20(b) of the Indian Claims Commission Act. See 25 U.S.C. 70s(b) (1976 ed., Supp. II).
Acting pursuant to that statute, a majority of the Court of Claims, sitting en banc, in an opinion by Chief Judge Friedman, affirmed the Commission's holding that the 1877 Act effected a taking of the Black Hills and of rights-of-way across the reservation. 220 Ct.Cl. 442, 601 F.2d 1157 (1979).
In doing so, the court applied the test it had earlier articulated in Fort Berthold, 182 Ct.Cl., at 553, 390 F.2d, at 691, asking whether Congress had made "a good faith effort to give the Indians the full value of the land," 220 Ct.Cl., at 452, 601 F.2d, at 1162, in order to decide whether the 1877 Act had effected a taking or whether it had been a noncompensable act of congressional guardianship over tribal property. The court characterized the Act as a taking, an exercise of Congress' power of eminent domain over Indian property. It distinguished broad statements seemingly leading to a contrary result in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 23 S.Ct. 216, 47 L.Ed. 299 (1903), as inapplicable to a case involving a claim for just compensation. 220 Ct.Cl., at 465, 601 F.2d, at 1170.
Having twice denied petitions for certiorari in this litigation, see 318 U.S. 789, 63 S.Ct. 992, 87 L.Ed. 1155 (1943); 423 U.S. 1016, 96 S.Ct. 449, 46 L.Ed.2d 387 (1975), we are confronted with it for a third time as a result of the amendment, above noted, to the Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946, 25 U.S.C. 70s(b)(1976 ed., Supp. II), which directed the Court of Claims to review the merits of the Black Hills takings claim without regard to the defense of res judicata. The amendment, approved March 13, 1978, provides:
"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon application by the claimants within thirty days from the date of the enactment of this sentence, the Court of Claims shall review on the merits, without regard to the defense of res judicata or collateral estoppel, that portion of the determination of the Indian Claims Commission entered February 15, 1974, adjudging that the Act of February 28, 1877 (
19 Stat. 254), effected a taking of the Black Hills portion of the Great Sioux Reservation in violation of the fifth amendment, and shall enter judgment accordingly. In conducting such review, the Court shall receive and consider any additional evidence, including oral testimony, that either party may wish to provide on the issue of a fifth amendment taking and shall determine that issue de novo." 92 Stat. 153.
The question whether the amendment impermissibly interfered with judicial power was debated, however, in the House of Representatives, and that body concluded that the Government's waiver of a "technical legal defense" in order to permit the Court of Claims to reconsider the merits of the Black Hills claim was within Congress' power to enact.
"The judgment of this court in the suit by the Cherokee Nation against the United States, in April, 1906 (202 U.S. 101 , 26 S.Ct. 588, 50 L.Ed. 949), already referred to, awarded a large amount of interest. The question of interest was considered and decided, and it is quite clear that but for the special act of 1919, above quoted, the question here mooted would have been foreclosed as res judicata. In passing the act, Congress must have been well advised of this, and the only possible construction therefore to be put upon it is that Congress has therein expressed its desire, so far as the question of interest is concerned, to waive the effect of the judgment as res judicata, and to direct the Court of Claims to re-examine it and determine whether the interest therein allowed was all that should have been allowed, or whether it should be found to be as now claimed by the Cherokee Nation. The Solicitor General, representing the government, properly concedes this to be the correct view. The power of Congress to waive such an adjudication of course is clear." Id., at 486, 46 S.Ct., at 432 (last emphasis supplied).
"We perceive no constitutional obstacle to Congress's imposing on the Government a new obligation where there had been none before, for work performed by petitioner which was beneficial to the Government and for which Congress thought he had not been adequately compensated. The power of Congress to provide for the payment of debts, conferred by § 8 of Article I of the Constitution, is not restricted to payment of those obligations which are legally binding on the Government. It extends to the creation of such obligations in recognition of claims which are merely moral or honorary. . . . United States v. Realty Co., 163 U.S. 427, , 16 S.Ct. 1120, 41 L.Ed. 215. . . . Congress, by the creation of a legal, in recognition of a moral, obligation to pay petitioner's claims plainly did not encroach upon the judicial function which the Court of Claims had previously exercised in adjudicating that the obligation was not legal. Footnote citing Nock and other cases omitted. Nor do we think it did so by directing that court to pass upon petitioner's claims in conformity to the particular rule of liability prescribed by the Special Act and to give judgment accordingly. . . . See Cherokee Nation v. United States, 270 U.S. 476, 486 , 46 S.Ct. 428, 432, 70 L.Ed. 694." Id., at 9-10, 65 S.Ct., at 21.
The Court of Claims' decision in Klein's case was consistent with this Court's later decision in a similar case, United States v. Padelford, 9 Wall. 531, 19 L.Ed. 788 (1870), holding that the Presidential pardon purged a participant "of whatever offence against the laws of the United States he had committed . . . and relieved him from any penalty which he might have incurred." Id., at 543. Following the Court's announcement of the judgment in Padelford, however, Congress enacted a proviso to the appropriations bill for the Court of Claims. The proviso had three effects: First, no Presidential pardon or amnesty was to be admissible in evidence on behalf of a claimant in the Court of Claims as the proof of loyalty required by the Abandoned and Captured Property Act. Second, the Supreme Court was to dismiss, for want of jurisdiction, any appeal from a judgment of the Court of Claims in favor of a claimant who had established his loyalty through a pardon. Third, the Court of Claims henceforth was to treat a claimant's receipt of a Presidential pardon, without protest, as conclusive evidence that he had given aid and comfort to the rebellion, and to dismiss any lawsuit on his behalf for want of jurisdiction. Act of July 12, 1870, ch. 251, 16 Stat. 230, 235.
The Government's appeal from the judgment in Klein's case was decided by this Court following the enactment of the appropriations proviso. This Court held the proviso unconstitutional notwithstanding Congress' recognized power "to make 'such exceptions from the appellate jurisdiction' of the Supreme Court as should seem to it expedient." 13 Wall., at 145. See U.S.Const., Art. III, § 2, cl. 2. This holding followed from the Court's interpretation of the proviso's effect:
"The language of the proviso shows plainly that it does not intend to withhold appellate jurisdiction except as a means to an end. Its great and controlling purpose is to deny to pardons granted by the President the effect which this court had adjudged them to have." 13 Wall., at 145.
". . . Can Congress prescribe a rule in conformity with which the court must deny to itself the jurisdiction thus conferred, because and only because its decision, in accordance with settled law, must be adverse to the government and favorable to the suitor? This question seems to us to answer itself." Id., at 146-147.
It was, of course, the former constitutional objection held applicable to the legislative proviso in Klein that the Court was concerned about in Pope. But that objection is not applicable to the case before us for two reasons. First, of obvious importance to the Klein holding was the fact that Congress was attempting to decide the controversy at issue in the Government's own favor. Thus, Congress' action could not be grounded upon its broad power to recognize and pay the Nation's debts. Second, and even more important, the proviso at issue in Klein had attempted "to prescribe a rule for the decision of a cause in a particular way." 13 Wall., at 146. The amendment at issue in the present case, however, like the Special Act at issue in Cherokee Nation, waived the defense of res judicata so that a legal claim could be resolved on the merits. Congress made no effort in either instance to control the Court of Claims' ultimate decision of that claim. See n. 23, supra.
In reaching its conclusion that the 1877 Act effected a taking of the Black Hills for which just compensation was due the Sioux under the Fifth Amendment, the Court of Claims relied upon the "good faith effort" test developed in its earlier decision in Three Tribes of Fort Berthold Reservation v. United States, 182 Ct.Cl. 543, 390 F.2d 686 (1968). The Fort Berthold test had been designed to reconcile two lines of cases decided by this Court that seemingly were in conflict. The first line, exemplified by Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 553, 23 S.Ct. 216, 47 L.Ed. 299 (1903), recognizes "that Congress possesses a paramount power over the property of the Indians, by reason of its exercise of guardianship over their interests, and that such authority might be implied, even though opposed to the strict letter of a treaty with the Indians." Id., at 565, 23 S.Ct., at 221. The second line, exemplified by the more recent decision in Shoshone Tribe v. United States, 299 U.S. 476, 57 S.Ct. 244, 81 L.Ed. 360 (1937), concedes Congress' paramount power over Indian property, but holds, nonetheless, that "the power does not extend so far as to enable the Government 'to give the tribal lands to others, or to appropriate them to its own purposes, without rendering, or assuming an obligation to render, just compensation.' " Id., at 497, 57 S.Ct., at 252 (quoting United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U.S. 103, 110, 55 S.Ct. 681, 684, 79 L.Ed. 1331 (1935)). In Shoshone Tribe, Mr. Justice Cardozo, in speaking for the Court, expressed the distinction between the conflicting principles in a characteristically pithy phrase: "Spoliation is not management." 299 U.S., at 498, 57 S.Ct., at 253.
Applying the Fort Berthold test to the facts of this case, the Court of Claims concluded that, in passing the 1877 Act, Congress had not made a good-faith effort to give the Sioux the full value of the Black Hills. The principal issue presented by this case is whether the legal standard applied by the Court of Claims was erroneous.
"The power exists to abrogate the provisions of an Indian treaty, though presumably such power will be exercised only when circumstances arise which will not only justify the government in disregarding the stipulations of the treaty, but may demand, in the interest of the country and the Indians themselves, that it should do so. When, therefore, treaties were entered into between the United States and a tribe of Indians it was never doubted that the power to abrogate existed in Congress, and that in a contingency such power might be availed of from considerations of governmental policy, particularly if consistent with perfect good faith towards the Indians." Ibid. (Emphasis in original.)
The Court, therefore, was not required to consider the contentions of the Indians that the agreement ceding their lands had been obtained by fraud, and had not been signed by the requisite number of adult males. "All these matters, in any event, were solely within the domain of the legislative authority, and its action is conclusive upon the courts." Id., at 568, 23 S.Ct., at 222.
bill, was enacted at a time when the tribal relations between the confederated tribes of Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches still existed, and that statute and the statutes supplementary thereto dealt with the disposition of tribal property and purported to give an adequate consideration for the surplus lands not allotted among the Indians or reserved for their benefit. Indeed, the controversy which this case presents is concluded by the decision in Cherokee Nation v. Hitchcock, 187 U.S. 294, 23 S.Ct. 115, 47 L.Ed. 183, decided at this term, where it was held that full administrative power was possessed by Congress over Indian tribal property. In effect, the action of Congress now complained of was but an exercise of such power, a mere change in the form of investment of Indian tribal property, the property of those who, as we have held, were in substantial effect the wards of the government. We must presume that Congress acted in perfect good faith in the dealings with the Indians of which complaint is made, and that the legislative branch of the government exercised its best judgment in the premises. In any event, as Congress possessed full power in the matter, the judiciary cannot question or inquire into the motives which prompted the enactment of this legislation. If injury was occasioned, which we do not wish to be understood as implying, by the use made by Congress of its power, relief must be sought by an appeal to that body for redress and not to the courts. The legislation in question was constitutional." Ibid. (Emphasis supplied.)
Third, it seems significant that the views of the Court in Lone Wolf were based, in part, on a holding that "Congress possessed full power in the matter." Earlier in the opinion the Court stated: "Plenary authority over the tribal relations of the Indians has been exercised by Congress from the beginning, and the power has always been deemed a political one, not subject to be controlled by the judicial department of the government." 187 U.S., at 565, 23 S.Ct., at 221. Thus, it seems that the Court's conclusive presumption of congressional good faith was based in large measure on the idea that relations between this Nation and the Indian tribes are a political matter, not amenable to judicial review. That view, of course, has long since been discredited in taking cases, and was expressly laid to rest in Delaware Tribal Business Comm. v. Weeks, 430 U.S. 73, 84, 97 S.Ct. 911, 918, 51 L.Ed.2d 173 (1977).
The foregoing considerations support our conclusion that the passage from Lone Wolf here relied upon by the Government has limited relevance to this case. More significantly, Lone Wolf 's presumption of congressional good faith has little to commend it as an enduring principle for deciding questions of the kind presented here. In every case where a taking of treaty-protected property is alleged,
a reviewing court must recognize that tribal lands are subject to Congress' power to control and manage the tribe's affairs. But the court must also be cognizant that "this power to control and manage is not absolute. While extending to all appropriate measures for protecting and advancing the tribe, it is subject to limitations inhering in . . . a guardianship and to pertinent constitutional restrictions." United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U.S., at 109-110, 55 S.Ct., at 684. Accord: Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U.S. 404, 413, 88 S.Ct. 1705, 1711, 20 L.Ed.2d 697 (1968); FPC v. Tuscarora Indian Nation, 362 U.S. 99, 122, 80 S.Ct. 543, 557, 4 L.Ed.2d 584 (1960); United States v. Klamath Indians, 304 U.S. 119, 123, 58 S.Ct. 799, 801, 82 L.Ed. 1219 (1938); United States v. Shoshone Tribe, 304 U.S. 111, 115-116, 58 S.Ct. 794, 797, 82 L.Ed. 1213 (1938); Shoshone Tribe v. United States, 299 U.S. 476, 497-498, 57 S.Ct. 244, 251-252, 81 L.Ed. 360 (1937).
"In determining whether Congress has made a good faith effort to give the Indians the full value of their lands when the government acquired them, we therefore look to the objective facts as revealed by Acts of Congress, congressional committee reports, statements submitted to Congress by government officials, reports of special commissions appointed by Congress to treat with the Indians, and similar evidence relating to the acquisition. . . .
"The 'good faith effort' and 'transmutation of property' concepts referred to in Fort Berthold are opposite sides of the same coin. They reflect the traditional rule that a trustee may change the form of trust assets as long as he fairly (or in good faith) attempts to provide his ward with property of equivalent value. If he does that, he cannot be faulted if hindsight should demonstrate a lack of precise equivalence. On the other hand, if a trustee (or the government in its dealings with the Indians) does not attempt to give the ward the fair equivalent of what he acquires from him, the trustee to that extent has taken rather than transmuted the property of the ward. In other words, an essential element of the inquiry under the Fort Berthold guideline is determining the adequacy of the consideration the government gave for the Indian lands it acquired. That inquiry cannot be avoided by the government's simple assertion that it acted in good faith in its dealings with the Indians." 220 Ct.Cl., at 451, 601 F.2d, at 1162.
We next examine the factual findings made by the Court of Claims, which led it to the conclusion that the 1877 Act effected a taking. First, the Court found that "the only item of 'consideration' that possibly could be viewed as showing an attempt by Congress to give the Sioux the 'full value' of the land the government took from them was the requirement to furnish them with rations until they became self-sufficient." 220 Ct.Cl., at 458, 601 F.2d, at 1166. This finding is fully supported by the record, and the Government does not seriously contend otherwise.
In Choctaw Nation v. United States, 119 U.S. 1, 35, 7 S.Ct. 75, 94, 30 L.Ed. 306 (1886), the Court held, over objections by the Government, that an earlier award made by the Senate on an Indian tribe's treaty claim "was fair, just, and equitable." The treaty at issue had called for the removal of the Choctaw Nation from treaty-protected lands in exchange for payments for the tribe's subsistence for one year, payments for cattle and improvements on the new reservation, an annuity of $20,000 for 20 years commencing upon removal, and the provision of educational and agricultural services. Id., at 38, 7 S.Ct., at 96. Some years thereafter the Senate had awarded the Indians a substantial recovery based on the latter treaty's failure to compensate the Choctaw for the lands they had ceded. Congress later enacted a jurisdictional statute which permitted the United States to contest the fairness of the Senate's award as a settlement of the Indian's treaty claim. In rejecting the Government's arguments, and accepting the Senate's award as "furnishing the nearest approximation to the justice and right of the case," id., at 35, 7 S.Ct., at 95, this Court observed:
Finally, the Court of Claims rejected the Government's contention that the fact that it subsequently had spent at least $43 million on rations for the Sioux (over the course of three-quarters of a century) established that the 1877 Act was an act of guardianship taken in the Sioux' best interest. The court concluded: "The critical inquiry is what Congress didand how it viewed the obligation it was assumingat the time it acquired the land, and not how much it ultimately cost the United States to fulfill the obligation." 220 Ct.Cl., at 462, 601 F.2d, at 1168. It found no basis for believing that Congress, in 1877, anticipated that it would take the Sioux such a lengthy period of time to become self-sufficient, or that the fulfillment of the Government's obligation to feed the Sioux would entail the large expenditures ultimately made on their behalf. Ibid. We find no basis on which to question the legal standard applied by the Court of Claims, or the findings it reached, concerning Congress' decision to provide the Sioux with rations.
The aforementioned findings fully support the Court of Claims' conclusion that the 1877 Act appropriated the Black Hills "in circumstances which involved an implied undertaking by the United States to make just compensation to the tribe."
United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U.S., at 111, 55 S.Ct., at 684. We make only two additional observations about this case. First, dating at least from the decision in Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas R. Co., 135 U.S. 641, 657, 10 S.Ct. 965, 971, 34 L.Ed. 295 (1890), this Court has recognized that Indian lands, to which a tribe holds recognized title, "are held subject to the authority of the general government to take them for such objects as are germane to the execution of the powers granted to it; provided only, that they are not taken without just compensation being made to the owner." In the same decision the Court emphasized that the owner of such lands "is entitled to reasonable, certain and adequate provision for obtaining compensation before his occupancy is disturbed." Id., at 659, 10 S.Ct., at 971. The Court of Claims gave effect to this principle when it held that the Government's uncertain and indefinite obligation to provide the Sioux with rations until they became self-sufficient did not constitute adequate consideration for the Black Hills.
Second, it seems readily apparent to us that the obligation to provide rations to the Sioux was undertaken in order to ensure them a means of surviving their transition from the nomadic life of the hunt to the agrarian lifestyle Congress had chosen for them. Those who have studied the Government's reservation policy during this period of our Nation's history agree. See n. 11, supra. It is important to recognize that the 1877 Act, in addition to removing the Black Hills from the Great Sioux Reservation, also ceded the Sioux' hunting rights in a vast tract of land extending beyond the boundaries of that reservation. See n. 14, supra. Under such circumstances, it is reasonable to conclude that Congress' undertaking of an obligation to provide rations for the Sioux was a quid pro quo for depriving them of their chosen way of life, and was not intended to compensate them for the taking of the Black Hills.
In 1942, the Sioux Tribe filed a petition for certiorari requesting this Court to review the Court of Claims' ruling that Congress had not unconstitutionally taken the Black Hills in 1877, but had merely exchanged the Black Hills for rations and grazing landsan exchange Congress believed to be in the best interests of the Sioux and the Nation. This Court declined to review that judgment. Sioux Tribe v. United States, 97 Ct.Cl. 613 (1942), cert. denied, 318 U.S. 789, 63 S.Ct. 992, 87 L.Ed. 1155 (1943). Yet today the Court permits Congress to reopen that judgment which this Court rendered final upon denying certiorari in 1943, and proceeds to reject the 1942 Court of Claims' factual interpretation of the events in 1877. I am convinced that Congress may not constitutionally require the Court of Claims to reopen this proceeding, that there is no judicial principle justifying the decision to afford the respondents an additional opportunity to litigate the same claim, and that the Court of Claims' first interpretation of the events in 1877 was by all accounts the more realistic one. I therefore dissent.
"The Congress, in an act enacted because of the situation encountered and pursuant to a policy which in its wisdom it deemed to be in the interest and for the benefit and welfare of the . . . Sioux Tribe, as well as for the necessities of the Government, required the Indians to sell or surrender to the Government a portion of their land and hunting rights on other land in return for that which the Congress, in its judgment, deemed to be adequate consideration for what the Indians were required to give up, which consideration the Government was not otherwise under any legal obligation to pay." Id., at 667.
Article III vests "the judicial Power . . . of the United States" in federal courts. Congress is vested by Art. I with legislative powers, and may not itself exercise an appellate-type review of judicial judgments in order to alter their terms, or to order new trials of cases already decided. The judges in Hayburn's Case, 2 Dall. 408, 409, 413, n. 4, 1 L.Ed. 436 (1792), stated that, "no decision of any court of the United States can, under any circumstances, in our opinion, agreeable to the Constitution, be liable to a reversion, or even suspension, by the Legislature itself, in whom no judicial power of any kind appears to be vested." We have interpreted the decision in United States v. Klein, 13 Wall. 128, 20 L.Ed. 519 (1872), as having "rested upon the ground that . . . Congress was without constitutional authority to CONTROL THE EXERCISE OF . . . JUDICIAL POWER . . . By requiring this court to set aside the judgment of the Court of Claims" and as holding that Congress may not "require a new trial of the issues . . . which the Court had resolved against a party." Pope v. United States, 323 U.S. 1, 8, 9, 65 S.Ct. 16, 20, 21, 89 L.Ed. 3 (1944).
This principle was again applied in United States v. O'Grady, 22 Wall. 641, 647, 22 L.Ed. 772 (1875), where the Court refused to legitimize a congressional attempt to revise a final judgment rendered by the Court of Claims finding that such judgments "are beyond all doubt the final determination of the matter in controversy; and it is equally certain that the judgments of the Court of Claims, where no appeal is taken to this court, are, under existing laws, absolutely conclusive of the rights of the parties, unless a new trial is granted by that court. . . . " (Emphasis added.) The Court further found that there is only one Supreme Court and "it is quite clear that Congress cannot subject the judgments of the Supreme Court to the re-examination and revision of any other tribunal or any other department of the government." Id., at 648. See also Chicago & Southern Air Lines, Inc. v. Waterman S.S. Corp., 333 U.S. 103, 68 S.Ct. 431, 92 L.Ed. 568 (1948). Congress has exceeded the legislative boundaries drawn by these cases and the Constitution and exercised judicial power in a case already decided by effectively ordering a new trial.
The Court first attempts to categorize this action as a permissible regulation of jurisdiction stating that all Congress has done is to "provide a forum so that a new judicial review of the Black Hills claim could take place." But that is the essence of an appellate or trial court decision ordering a new trial. While Congress may regulate judicial functions it may not itself exercise them. Admittedly, it is not always readily apparent whether a particular action constitutes the assignment or the exercise of a judicial function since the assignment of some functions is inherently judicialsuch as assigning the trial court the task of rehearing a case because of error. The guidelines identified in our opinions, however, indicate that while Congress enjoys broad authority to regulate judicial proceedings in the context of a class of cases, Johannessen v. United States, 225 U.S. 227, 32 S.Ct. 613, 56 L.Ed. 1066 (1912), when Congress regulates functions of the judiciary in a pending case it walks the line between judicial and legislative authority, and exceeds that line if it sets aside a judgment or orders retrial of a previously adjudicated issue. United States v. Klein, supra, at 145; Pope v. United States, supra.
It is also apparent that Congress must have "reviewed" the merits of the litigation and concluded that for some reason, the Sioux should have a second opportunity to air their claims. The order of a new trial inevitably reflects some measure of dissatisfaction with at least the manner in which the original claim was heard. It certainly seems doubtful that Congress would grant a litigant a new trial if convinced that the litigant had been fairly heard in the first instance. Unless Congress is assuming that there were deficiencies in the prior judicial proceeding, why would it see fit to appropriate public money to have the claim heard once again? It would seem that Congress did not find the opinions of the Court of Claims fully persuasive. But it is not the province of Congress to judge the persuasiveness of the opinions of federal courtsthat is the judiciary's province alone. It is equally apparent that Congress has set aside the judgments of the Court of Claims. Previously those judgments were dispositive of the issues litigated in them; Congress now says that they are not. The action of Congress cannot be justified as the regulation of the jurisdiction of the federal courts because it seeks to provide a forum for the purposes of reviewing a previously final judgment in a pending case.
"The Plains Indians seldom practiced agriculture or other primitive arts, but they were fine physical specimens; and in warfare, once they had learned the use of the rifle, were much more formidable than the Eastern tribes who had slowly yielded to the white man. Tribe warred with tribe, and a highly developed sign language was the only means of inter-tribal communication. The effective unit was the band or village of a few hundred souls, which might be seen in the course of its wanderings encamped by a water-course with tipis erected; or pouring over the plain, women and children leading dogs and packhorses with their trailing travois, while gaily dressed braves loped ahead on horseback. They lived only for the day, recognized no rights of property, robbed or killed anyone if they thought they could get away with it, inflicted cruelty without a qualm, and endured torture without flinching." S. Morison, The Oxford History of the American People 539-540 (1965).
The Court of Claims also noted that subsequent to the Indian Claims Commission's judgment, Congress had enacted an amendment to 25 U.S.C. 70a, providing generally that expenditures made by the Government "for food, rations, or provisions shall not be deemed payments on the claim." Act of Oct. 27, 1974, § 2, 88 Stat. 1499. Thus, the Government would no longer be entitled to an offset from any judgment eventually awarded the Sioux based on its appropriations for subsistence rations in the years following the passage of the 1877 Act. 207 Ct.Cl., at 240, 518 F.2d, at 1301. See n. 16, supra.
Two similar decisions by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit are of interest. Both involved the constitutionality of a joint resolution that set aside dismissals of actions brought under the World War Veterans' Act, 1924, 38 U.S.C. 445 (1952 ed.), and authorized the reinstatement of those war-risk insurance disability claims. The Court of Appeals found no constitutional prohibition against a congressional waiver of an adjudication in the Government's favor, or against conferring upon claimants against the United States the right to have their cases heard again on the merits. See James v. United States, 8th Cir., 87 F.2d 897, 898 (1937); United States v. Hossmann, 8th Cir., 84 F.2d 808, 810 (1936). The court relied, in part, on the holding in Cherokee Nation, and the sovereign immunity rationale applied in Nock.
"The issue was settled beyond peradventure in Pope v. United States, 323 U.S. 1 [65 S.Ct. 16, 89 L.Ed. 3]. There the Court held that for Congress to direct the Court of Claims to entertain a claim theretofore barred for any legal reason from recoveryas, for instance, by the statute of limitations, or because the contract had been drafted to exclude such claimswas to invoke the use of judicial power, notwithstanding that the task might involve no more than computation of the sum due. . . . After this decision it cannot be doubted that when Congress transmutes a moral obligation into a legal one by specially consenting to suit, it authorizes the tribunal that hears the case to perform a judicial function." Id., at 566-567, 82 S.Ct., at 1481.
For this reason, the Government does not here press Lone Wolf to its logical limits, arguing instead that its "strict rule" that the management and disposal of tribal lands is a political question, "has been relaxed in recent years to allow review under the Fifth Amendment rational-basis test." Brief for United States 55, n. 46. The Government relies on Delaware Tribal Business Comm. v. Weeks, 430 U.S., at 84-85, 97 S.Ct., at 918-919, (1977), and Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 555, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 2485, 41 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974), as establishing a rational-basis test for determining whether Congress, in a given instance, confiscated Indian property or engaged merely in its power to manage and dispose of tribal lands in the Indians' best interests. But those cases, which establish a standard of review for judging the constitutionality of Indian legislation under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, do not provide an apt analogy for resolution of the issue presented herewhether Congress' disposition of tribal property was an exercise of its power of eminent domain or its power of guardianship. As noted earlier, n. 27, supra, the Sioux concede the constitutionality of Congress' unilateral abrogation of the Fort Laramie Treaty. They seek only a holding that the Black Hills "were appropriated by the United States in
We find further support for this conclusion in Congress' 1974 amendment to § 2 of the Indian Claims Commission Act, 25 U.S.C. 70a. See n. 17, supra. That amendment provided that in determining offsets, "expenditures for food, rations, or provisions shall not be deemed payments on the claim." The Report of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, which accompanied this amendment, made two points that are pertinent here. First, it noted that "[a]lthough couched in general terms, this amendment is directed to one basic objectiveexpediting the Indian Claims Commission's disposition of the famous Black Hills case." S.Rep.No.93-863, p. 2 (1974) U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1974, pp. 6111, 6112 (incorporating memorandum prepared by the Sioux Tribes). Second, the Committee observed: