Opinion ID: 513936
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Claim Under the Articles of Confederation

Text: 10 Plaintiffs contend that under the Articles of Confederation the United States held the exclusive right of extinguishment of Indian title as to all Indian lands, both within and beyond the borders of the states. As a consequence, the argument continues, New York's acquisition of the disputed lands is invalid for lack of consent by the Confederal Congress. At a minimum, plaintiffs contend, Congress had the power to control the right of extinguishment in the exercise of its power to make peace treaties with the Indians and that, without consent of the Confederal Congress, no state could extinguish Indian title under circumstances that would interfere with congressional power to treat with the Indians on matters of war and peace. 11 Before examining these contentions, we pause to notice the jurisdictional conundrum posed for an Article III court by a claim alleging a violation of the Articles of Confederation. During the Confederation, there were no national courts authorized to adjudicate any issues arising generally under national law. 2 Though the Constitution established as the supreme law of the land all treaties previously made, U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2, it did not expressly incorporate, even for purposes of adjudicating antecedent disputes, the Articles of Confederation or statutes enacted by the Confederal Congress. With no national court available to adjudicate an Articles claim during the Confederation and no express incorporation of the preexisting Articles as binding law after the Confederation, how does an Article III court acquire jurisdiction over a claim arising under the Articles? The District Court, in its first decision in this litigation, had recognized the argument that federal jurisdiction was lacking for the claim under the Articles. 520 F.Supp. at 1291. The District Court ruled, however, that subject matter jurisdiction was plainly available for the claim arising under the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, incorporated as the supreme law of the land by the Constitution, id. n. 12, and concluded that the claim under the Articles was a pendent state law claim over which it elected to exercise jurisdiction under United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966). 520 F.Supp. at 1291. Judge McCurn noted that New York had incorported the Articles into its statutes in 1778. Id. at 1291 n. 13. 12 One may wonder whether New York's incorporation of the Articles was only an act of adherence to the Confederation or in addition was intended to render them part of the positive law of the State, enforceable in its courts. Even if New York courts viewed the Articles as enforceable state law, one may wonder whether they would have ever upheld a claim alleging that the State of New York had violated the Articles by acting in conflict with unexercised power of Congress. 3 One may even speculate that state judges in the confederal period might have left such power struggles between the states and Congress to adjustment through the non-judicial processes of government and through politics, perhaps inaugurating the political question doctrine. 4 13 However we might resolve these doubts, we believe that the opinion of the prior panel in Oneida I established as the law of the case that jurisdiction exists for the claim based on the Articles and that this claim is justiciable, notwithstanding the fact that the dispute concerns the relative powers of Congress and a state under a governmental system that lacked a national judicial branch. On the prior appeal, we noted that the District Court had upheld subject matter jurisdiction, Oneida I, 691 F.2d at 1074. Since a reviewing court always has an obligation to satisfy itself of the existence of such jurisdiction, this may be deemed implicit approval of the District Court's jurisdictional ruling. As to justiciability, though the panel discussed only the general question of whether Indian land claims were justiciable, without explicit consideration of the justiciability of a claim based on the Articles, id. at 1080-83, the entirety of the panel's discussion of the merits was premised on the appropriateness of adjudicating that claim in the District Court. That was a principal reason for the remand. We therefore accept as the law of the case both subject matter jurisdiction over the Articles claim and its general justiciability, though, as we discuss below, one issue pertinent to that claim is not justiciable. 14 Apart from law of the case, we note that the Supreme Court has adjudicated a claim concerning title to Indian land even though the challenged acquisitions occurred during the interval between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Johnson v. McIntosh, supra. The former Court of Claims also adjudicated an Indian claim arising from a land transaction occurring during the Confederation. Six Nations v. United States, 173 Ct.Cl. 899 (1965). Rejecting a claim under section 2(5) of the Indian Claims Commission Act, 25 U.S.C. Sec. 70a(5) (1964) (repealed), the Court ruled that the Articles of Confederation did not establish a fiduciary relationship between the United States and the Six Nations with respect to lands within state borders. In Penhallow v. Doane's Adm'rs, 3 Dall. (3 U.S.) 54, 1 L.Ed. 507 (1795), the Supreme Court, in upholding the validity of a judgment entered during the confederal period by the Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture, adjudicated the validity of congressional action taken under the Articles and even action taken prior to their ratification. 15
16 We turn then to the merits of appellants' claim under the Articles, initially bearing in mind the relevant historical context. 17 The framing and ratification of the Articles of Confederation occurred against a background dominated by two overriding circumstances pertinent to the issues in this litigation. First, treaties of peace with both Great Britain and with the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy had not yet been concluded. The Articles were submitted to the states in 1777 and ratified by Maryland, the last state to do so, in 1781. The Treaty of Paris, formally ending hostilities with Great Britain, was not signed until September 3, 1783, 8 Stat. 80 (1848), and the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, ending hostilities with the four Iroquois nations that had sided with the British--the Senecas, Mohawks, Onondagas, and Cayugas--and assuring protection to the two Iroquois nations that had sided with the United States--the Oneidas and the Tuscaroras--was not signed until October 22, 1784. Second, there existed a major controversy between the so-called landed states--those claiming Western lands--and the so-called landless states--those without such claims. The landed states, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, asserted their claims primarily on the basis of their colonial charters, except for New York, which based its claim on its one hundred year history of special relationship with the Six Nations. The landless states were New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. A dominant concern of the new national government was to limit the territory of the landed states to their traditional borders near the East Coast and secure for the United States the vast domain of land these states claimed westward to the Mississippi River, or even to the South Sea, as stated in the colonial charters of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Ultimately the new government was successful, as the landed states ceded their Western lands to the United States, often in exchange for recognition of favorable boundaries for their traditional areas of state jurisdiction. 18 It is in the context of these great issues of war and land that the fledgling national government undertook to determine the allocation of authority between the nation and the states on diverse matters, of which none was more contentious than Indian affairs. The close relationship between the evolution of the Articles of Confederation and resolution of the Western lands issue is vividly illustrated by the instructions of Maryland to her delegates not to agree to the Articles until matters concerning the Western lands had been settled. See U.S.C.A. Art. of Confed., Historical Notes 15 (1987). 19 The fundamental structure of the Articles is one of limited delegation of powers to the national government with reservation to the states of all powers not delegated. Article II provides: 20 Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled. 21 The Necessary and Proper Clause, which played such a significant part in the shaping of federal powers under the Constitution, see McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. (17 U.S.) 316, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819), was absent from the Articles of Confederation. 22 Two clauses of Article IX set forth the delegated powers pertinent to the pending litigation. Article IX(1) provides: 23 The United States in Congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war, except in the cases mentioned in the sixth article.... Article IX(4) provides: 24 The United States in Congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of ... regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the States, provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated.... 25 The extent to which the authority of Congress was limited by the phrase not members of any of the States and by the Legislative Rights Proviso are major issues of dispute in this litigation. 26 Two clauses limiting the authority of the states are relevant to the pending issues. Article VI(1) provides: 27 No State without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, shall ... enter into any conference, agreement, alliance or treaty with any king, prince or foreign state.... Article VI(5) provides: 28 No State shall engage in any war without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, unless such State be actually invaded by enemies, or shall have received certain advice of a resolution being formed by some nation of Indians to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent as not to admit of a delay, till the United States Congress assembled can be consulted.... 29
30 A fundamental issue that divides the parties is whether federal power to make peace treaties with the Indians derives from Article IX(1) or Article IX(4). The dispute is important because the plaintiffs, relying on clause 1, contend that the national power to make peace treaties with the Indians included the power to extinguish Indian title, whereas the defendants, relying on clause 4, contend that the national power to make treaties with the Indians in the course of managing all affairs with them was subject to the Legislative Rights Proviso in that clause, a proviso the defendants contend confirmed state authority to extinguish Indian title to lands within state borders. As a fallback position, the defendants also contend that, even if Indian peace treaty power derives from clause 1, that power is nonetheless modified by the Legislative Rights Proviso of clause 4. 31 The District Court resolved this dispute in favor of the plaintiffs but with a qualification that results, in effect, in a victory for the defendants. Judge McCurn first concluded that the plain language of clause 1 indicates that congress had clause 1 authority over Indians. 649 F.Supp. at 434. He then stated that Congress' power to make treaties with the Indians was exclusive only with respect to treaties of war and peace, id. at 435; with respect to treaties to purchase land, he concluded that the states had such power under clause 4 by virtue of the Legislative Rights Proviso and that this Proviso included the right to purchase Indian land and extinguish Indian title without consent of the Confederal Congress, id. at 434. 32 Though we reach the same ultimate conclusion, we travel a different analytical route. We do not agree with Judge McCurn that clause 1 conveyed to the Confederal Congress exclusive power to make only certain kinds of treaties with the Indians. The plain language of clause 1 indicates to us that whatever power was there contained was indivisible. We see no basis for reading clause 1 to give Congress exclusive power to make some treaties with the Indians, leaving the states with power to make other treaties with them. As we read clause 1, it has no application to Indians. Instead, we read clause 4, with its grant of national power to manage all affairs with the Indians, to grant the Confederal Congress the power to make any treaties with the Indians--on war and peace and on other subjects such as land acquisitions. The clause 4 power, however, was subject to the Legislative Rights Proviso, and we read this Proviso to reflect the same distinction Judge McCurn read into clause 1. The Proviso was not a grant to the states of an indivisible array of powers. We conclude that it did not give the states any power to make treaties of war and peace with the Indians (such power belonging exclusively to Congress under clause 4), but that it did give the states the power to purchase Indian land within their borders and extinguish Indian title to such land so long as such activity did not interfere with Congress's paramount powers over war and peace with the Indians. 33 Our reasons for reaching these conclusions start with the text of the pertinent provisions. Clause 1 grouped Congress's exclusive power to make treaties with its exclusive power to send and receive ambassadors. The grant of such exclusive powers was complemented by the denial to the states in Article VI(1) of the power, without consent of Congress, to make any treaty or to exchange embassies with any king, prince or state. In none of the contemporaneous materials were the Indian nations or their leaders referred to as a king, prince or state. This phrase plainly applied to foreign nations. It was to these nations, not Indian nations, that the United States sent ambassadors, and it was with these nations that the United States could make treaties under clause 1. The Supreme Court has referred to the Indian tribes as domestic dependent nations in concluding that they are not foreign states within the meaning of section 2 of Article II of the Constitution. See Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. (30 U.S.) 1, 17, 8 L.Ed. 25 (1831). 34 A further consideration, based on both the text of the Articles and contemporanous practice, concerns ratification. Article IX(6) prohibited the United States from entering into any treaties or alliances ... unless nine States assent to the same. During the confederal period, treaties between the United States and Indian nations were not submitted to the states for ratification. In particular, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, which plaintiffs rely on in this litigation as an exercise of Congress' authority under Article IX(1), became effective when it was signed. Congress did not submit it for ratification but merely directed that the Treaty be published and transmitted to the states. 28 Journals of the Continental Congress 423-26, 430 (June 6, 1785) [hereinafter cited as JCC]. Treaties authorized by clause 1 of Article IX were those that required ratification as provided in clause 6. By not submitting Indian treaties for ratification, the negotiators and the Confederal Congress to which they reported indicated their contemporaneous understanding that such treaties were authorized by clause 4 as part of managing all affairs with the Indians, rather than by clause 1. 5 35 A further textual consideration arises from the fact that although Article IX(1) included treaties of commerce, Article IX(4) expressly covered trade with the Indians, further indicating that the powers of Article IX(1) were those relating to foreign countries, not domestic Indian nations. 36 Plaintiffs contend that in one respect the text of the Articles supports their reading of Article IX(1). They rely on the provision of Article VI(5), which exempted the states from the prohibition against engaging in war without the consent of Congress when there is imminent danger of invasion by some nation of Indians. Since an exception for threat of invasion by Indians was contained in the article generally restricting the states' powers concerning war and peace and since this exception was expressly referred to in Article IX(1), plaintiffs argue that matters concerning war and peace with the Indians must have fallen within Article IX(1)'s grant of exclusive authority to Congress over war and peace. Though the argument found favor with the District Court, 649 F.Supp. at 434-35, we are not persuaded. Article VI(5) simply recognized that threat of invasion by Indians justified an exception to what would otherwise have been exclusive power in Congress over matters of war and peace, but it sheds no light on whether such power, with respect to Indians, was conferred by clause 1 or clause 4 of Article IX. The reference to the exception in Article IX(1) lends some support to an inference that clause 1 was the source of authority for Indian treaties, but this arguable inference is insufficient to overcome the contrary textual considerations. 37 Contemporaneous understanding of the legislators who had framed the Articles of Confederation further supports our conclusion. On several occasions, committees of the Confederal Congress filing reports concerning their investigations of Indian affairs on matters of war and peace explicitly referred to Article IX(4) as the source of their authority and made no mention of Article IX(1). See, e.g., 33 JCC 454, 458 (Aug. 3, 1787); 25 JCC 680-93 (Oct. 15, 1783). The report filed on October 15, 1783, by the committee investigating Indian affairs in the Southern Department explicitly referred to the authority of Congress to make peace treaties with the Indians and relied upon Article IX(4). Especially pertinent is the April 21, 1783, resolution of a committee of Congress reporting on steps to end hostilities with the Indians and to prepare for peace treaties. Reciting the source of congressional authority, the resolution relied on the Article IX(4) power of managing all affairs with the Indians and made no mention of Article IX(1). 24 JCC 264 (Apr. 21, 1783). In this regard it is also notable that the Proclamation of 1783, a broad exercise of national authority over Indian affairs, which we consider below, expressly referred to the language of Article IX(4) as the source of authority for the Proclamation, and made no mention of Article IX(1). Proclamation of 1783, reprinted in 25 JCC 602 (Sept. 22, 1783). 38 We do not doubt that treaties made during the confederal period between the United States and Indian nations are entitled to the same respect as treaties made with foreign nations and that both equally became the supreme Law of the Land by virtue of Article VI of the Constitution. See Worcester v. Georgia, supra, 6 Pet. at 559. We conclude only that Congress's power to make Indian treaties derived from Article IX(4). 39
40 1. Evolution of Article IX(4). Examination of the evolution and contemporaneous understanding of clause 4 of Article IX confirms our conclusion that national authority to make treaties with the Indians derived from this clause and also sheds significant light on the respective powers of the national government and the states in Indian matters, particularly in regard to the purchase of Indian lands. The first draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by Benjamin Franklin in 1775, would have given Congress complete and exclusive authority over Indian affairs. Only Congress could purchase Indian land. 2 JCC 195-99 (July 21, 1775). Franklin's draft was not submitted to Congress. 41 The draft that served as the basis for amendment and ultimate adoption was prepared by John Dickinson. See 5 JCC 546-54 (July 12, 1776). The Dickinson draft submitted to Congress on July 12, 1776, gave Congress the sole and exclusive Right and Power of ... Regulating the Trade, and managing all Affairs with the Indians. Dickinson Draft of Articles of Confederation art. XVIII, 5 JCC 550 (July 12, 1776). This draft also dealt specifically with state authority to purchase Indian lands. In a provision more narrow than Franklin's draft, Dickinson's draft provided that no person or colony could purchase Indian land until state boundaries were determined, and Congress was given power to set such boundaries. Once the boundaries were determined, only Congress could purchase Indian land outside such boundaries. The plain implication was that after the boundaries were fixed, states could purchase Indian lands inside their boundaries. Id. art. XIV. 42 During the summer of 1776, a Committee of the Whole modified the Dickinson draft. The Committee's version, reported to Congress on August 20, 1776, deleted Article XIV from Dickinson's draft, eliminating even the prohibition on the authority of colonies to purchase Indian lands prior to ascertainment of state boundaries. The grant of exclusive power to Congress of regulating the trade, and managing all affairs with the Indians, contained in renumbered Article XIV, was now modified to apply only to Indians not members of any of the States. Committee Draft of Articles of Confederation art. XIV, 5 JCC 682 (Aug. 20, 1776). 43 Debate on the Articles languished until 1777 and did not resume on the clauses concerning Indian lands until October 1777. On October 27, two amendments were offered to the draft article granting Congress power over Indian affairs. The first, evidently offered by those interested in limiting national power, would have deleted the phrase not members of any of the states and substituted not residing within the limits of any of the United States. 9 JCC 844 (Oct. 27, 1777). This amendment would have narrowed national power to Indians living outside the territorial limits of the states. The second amendment, evidently offered by those interested in broadening national power, would have rewritten the entire grant of power to Congress to read: managing all affairs relative to war and peace with all Indians not members of any particular State, and regulating the trade with such nations and tribes as are not resident within such limits wherein a particular State claims, and actually exercises jurisdiction. Id. 44 Two aspects of this second amendment are significant. First, it showed that those endeavoring to broaden national power, the landless states, wanted national authority over trade with the Indians to apply even to Indians within a state's limits under circumstances where a state was not actually exercis[ing] jurisdiction. Second, it showed that even those seeking to broaden national power assumed that the phrase managing all affairs with the Indians included the power to deal with matters of war and peace with the Indians. The proponents of this amendment, in seeking broader national authority over Indian trade than over Indian war and peace matters, left the latter topic in what became Article IX(4); they did not bother to suggest any modification of the provisions that became Article IX(1) because they understood that the issues of war, peace, and treaties that were dealt with in those provisions concerned only relations with foreign countries. 45 The following day, October 28, the Congress, without explanation but evidently in a spirit of compromise, rejected both of the pending amendments and decided instead to leave the wording of the grant of national power respecting Indian affairs unchanged but to add the words of the Legislative Rights Proviso: provided, that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated. Id. at 845. 6 Thus, the somewhat ambiguous not members phrase was retained without either expansion or contraction, but a broad protection of state authority was expressly inserted, a protection of authority within a state's limits, not merely within areas over which it was actually exercis[ing] jurisdiction. 46 In two respects the evolution of Article IX(4) is especially pertinent to the pending controversy. First, the process that began with Franklin's draft and ended with the Articles as adopted represents a gradual victory for the landed states, which were seeking to curtail national power over Indian affairs. It would be inconsistent with this pattern of diminishing national power to find in the Articles an implicit prohibition barring the states from purchasing Indian land within their borders without the approval of Congress. Second, the contention that the exclusive Article IX(1) power of Congress to make treaties comprehends Indian treaties and thereby precludes state treaties to purchase Indian lands is refuted by the meticulous attention the Congress gave to Article IX(4). In the struggle between the states seeking to expand national power over Indian affairs and those seeking to narrow such power, all the attention was focused on the provisions that became Article IX(4). There was no controversy about the meaning of the national treaty power in Article IX(1). The entire debate over Article IX(4) would have to be ignored to conclude that while the landed states were winning their fight to refine Article IX(4) to their liking, there was always implicit in Article IX(1) a broad grant of exclusive national power that precluded by negative implication state purchases of Indian land within state borders. 47 Once it is understood that the allocation of power respecting all Indian affairs is governed solely by Article IX(4), there can be little doubt, as the preceding discussion has foreshadowed, that clause 4 confirmed the right of the states to purchase Indian lands within their borders without the consent of Congress, at least under circumstances that did not interfere with the war and peace powers of the Congress. Though the terms of clause 4 have properly been characterized as ambiguous, Worcester v. Georgia, supra, 6 Pet. at 559 (1832), and even obscure and contradictory, The Federalist No. 42, at 334 (J. Madison) (J. Cooke ed. 1961), the fundamental purpose and meaning of the Legislative Rights Proviso is clear in this respect. 48 In construing Article IX(4), we will assume without deciding that the District Court was correct in accepting appellants' contention that the not members phrase applied to Indians, such as those of the Six Nations, who were not assimilated into the body politic of any state, though located within its territorial limits. 649 F.Supp. at 431-32. Even if that is so, we agree with the District Court that the Legislative Rights Proviso confirmed the authority of the states to purchase Indian land within its borders without securing congressional consent. Id. at 433-35. Though the text of Article IX(4) does not settle the matter one way or the other, the contemporaneous materials examined by the District Court provide a firm basis for the Court's conclusion. 49 2. Contemporaneous Understanding of Article IX(4). Prominent among the contemporaneous materials surveyed by Judge McCurn is the correspondence between James Monroe and James Madison specifically discussing whether New York's claimed right to purchase Indian lands conflicted with the Articles of Confederation. In response to Monroe's query, Madison candidly recognized that Article IX(4) was ambiguous since the Legislative Rights Proviso, if taken in its full latitude, would destroy the authority of Congress. Letter from James Madison to James Monroe (Nov. 27, 1784), reprinted in II The Writings of James Madison 91 (Hunt ed. 1901). Endorsing an interpretation that endeavored to harmonize the Proviso with the grant of national regulatory power, Madison concluded that the Proviso guaranteed the states the right to purchase Indian land. 7 Specifically referring to the relationship between New York's proposed purchase and the national government's Treaty of Fort Stanwix, he said that as far as N.Y. may claim a right of treating with the Indians for the purchase of lands within her limits, she has the confederation on her side. 8 Id. 50 One somewhat equivocal indication of contemporaneous understanding is the resolution adopted by the Confederal Congress in 1783 in response to Pennsylvania's notification of its intention to make a treaty with the Indians for the purchase of land within the state's acknowledged borders. The Pennsylvania General Assembly had broached to Congress the topic of a land purchase in a carefully worded resolution that invited Congress to express its views but did not acknowledge the power of Congress to withhold consent. The resolution made clear Pennsylvania's view that the Articles of Confederation do not by any means explicitly restrict [the Pennsylvania General Assembly] from entering on this business [of a purchase of Indian land] independent of Congress, yet sought the sense of the Congress concerning the purchase being deeply impressed with the delicacy of touching any subject of federal relation, but with the most deliberate caution; and as the letter of a clause in the ninth section [Article IX(4) ] appears to involve a doubt.... 25 JCC 594 (Sept. 20, 1783). 51 The committee of Congress considering the matter recommended advising Pennsylvania that Congress had no objection provided no engagements relative to peace or war with the said Indians, be entered into by the said State, the power of holding treaties on this subject being vested by the Confederation solely in the United States in Congress assembled. Id. at 591. Though that view of national and state authority is consistent with our conclusions, the emphasis on national authority was evidently worded too strongly for the landed states, most of which joined together in defeating this version of the committee's resolution. After considerable attempts to find acceptable language, Congress ultimately adopted a far more innocuous resolution, stating only that the federal commissioners who were about to meet with the Indians to conclude a peace treaty should give notice to Pennsylvania of the time and place of holding the treaty to the end, that the persons to be appointed by [Pennsylvania], for purchasing lands within the limits thereof, at the expence of the said State, may attend for the sole purpose of making such purchase, at the time and place appointed for holding the said treaty. 25 JCC 767 (Oct. 30, 1783). Then, in lieu of the original language that had endeavored to describe the exclusive area of national authority, the resolution added that the United States commissioners are instructed to give every assistance in their power to the Pennsylvania negotiators towards promoting the interest of that State, as far as the same may consist with the general interest of the Union. Id. 52 Appellants draw from this episode the conclusion that Pennsylvania acknowledged the need to secure the approval of Congress for the land purchase. We think the episode lends greater support to the position of the appellees. Pennsylvania was careful to maintain its position that the Articles did not authorize Congress to bar the State's purchase. Significantly, Congress expressed no contrary view. Even the draft resolution emphasizing exclusive national power only over matters of war and peace was thought too strong and was rejected in favor of a more generally worded version that referred vaguely to the general interest of the Union. 53 More probative and strongly supportive of the appellees' position are the circumstances of Congress's reaction to New York's plans to undertake what ultimately became the first of the two purchases challenged in this litigation. During the course of congressional debate on resolutions of instruction to the federal commissioners who would negotiate the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, a resolution was offered concerning a then pending New York plan to distribute to its soldiers some of the land New York was endeavoring to appropriate from the Onondagas and the Cayugas, tribes that had sided with the British during the Revolution. The resolution would have instructed that if the planned distribution may so far irritate the Indians, as to expose these United States to the dangers and calamities of an Indian War, the federal commissioners were to report the difficulties to the New York legislature and in such case, it is earnestly recommended to the legislature of New York, to revise the laws by which such appropriations have been made.... 25 JCC 642 (Oct. 3, 1783). Even this mild proposal was too strongly worded for New York and other landed states, and it was defeated. But it is powerful evidence that even as to a land acquisition that might lead to war with the Indians, Congress believed it had only the power to recommend that a state desist, not the power to withhold a consent necessary for such acquisition. 54 Further indication of the absence of national power to disapprove state Indian land purchases under the Confederation are the pertinent views expressed concerning the changed circumstances under the Constitution. Among the most well-known statements is the December 29, 1790, reply of President Washington to Corn Planter, Chief of the Senecas, who had complained about state purchases of Indian lands. Washington pointed out that these purchases had occurred before the adoption of the Constitution and added, But the Case is now entirely altered. The General Government only has the Power to treat with the Indian Nations, ... No State, nor Person, can purchase your Lands, unless at a general Treaty, held under the Authority of the United States. Proceedings of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs 166 n. 1 (Hough ed. 1861). 55 Thomas Jefferson, writing an official opinion as Secretary of State, expressed a similar view on May 3, 1790: 56 There are but two means of acquiring the native title. First, war; for even war may, sometimes, give a just title. Second, contracts or treaty. 57 The States of America before their present union possessed completely, each within its own limits, the exclusive right to use these two means of acquiring the native title, and by their act of union, they have as completely ceded both to the general government. 58 3 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson 19 (Lipscomb et al. eds. 1904). 9 59 In 1832, Chief Justice Marshall also recognized the significant change. In reviewing the evolution of national power over over Indian affairs, he noted the uncertainties created by the Legislative Rights Proviso in Article IX(4) and then observed that the correct exposition of this article is rendered unnecessary by the adoption of our existing constitution.... [The new government's powers over Indian affairs] are not limited by any restrictions on their free actions; the shackles imposed on this power, in the confederation, are discarded. Worcester v. Georgia, supra, 6 Pet. at 559. 60 In concluding as we do that during the confederal period the states had authority to purchase Indian land within their borders without the need of congressional consent, we accept an important proposition advanced by the appellees concerning the meaning of preemption during this period--namely, that this right of the states included the right to extinguish Indian title. After the Constitution, when the United States acquired plenary power over Indian affairs without the shackles of the Legislative Rights Proviso of Article IX(4), it is clear that the national government held the right of extinguishment of Indian title to all lands then owned by the Indians. But during the confederation, we are satisfied, after examination of the extensive materials presented to the trial court, that the historians who testified that the right of preemption enjoyed by the states then included the right of extinguishment have the better of the argument. 61 When Madison wrote his significant letter to Monroe on November 27, 1784, and set forth his reasons for construing the Legislative Rights Proviso to accord New York the right to purchase Indian land, he summarized the purport of the Proviso by saying that it was to save to the States their right of preemption of lands from the Indians. II The Writings of James Madison, supra, at 91. It would have made no sense to argue so carefully the case in support of New York's right to make the purchase if Madison had meant that New York could acquire only fee title, leaving the Indians with Indian title that only the United States could extinguish. Significantly, one of the reasons Madison advanced for his interpretation favoring New York was that the right of preemption had previously been asserted by New York and many other states. Clearly, these states had been asserting a right to obtain complete title to Indian lands within their borders, not a partial right that left them subject to the assent of the national government. 62 Jefferson's opinion of May 3, 1790, written when he was Secretary of State, also recognized that the rights of a state were broader before the Constitution. Advising with respect to Georgia's attempt to convey land obtained from Indians, he said: 63 Georgia, possessing the exclusive right to acquire the native title, but having relinquished the means of doing it to the national government, can only have put her grantee into her own condition. She could convey to them the exclusive right to acquire; but she could not convey what she had not herself, that is, the means of acquiring. 64 3 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, supra, at 20 (emphasis in original). 65 Marshall recognized the same point in Johnson v. McIntosh, supra. In recounting the development of the rights of discovering nations with respect to Indian lands, he observed: 66 It has never been doubted, that either the United States, or the several states, had a clear title to all the lands within the boundary lines described in the treaty [ending the war with Great Britain], subject only to the Indian right of occupancy, and that the exclusive power to extinguish that right was vested in that government which might constitutionally exercise it. 67 8 Wheat. at 584-85 (emphasis added). It should be noted that Marshall was careful not to claim for the United States alone a right to extinguish Indian title, no doubt recognizing that the United States held such right as to Western lands but that the states held such right as to lands within their acknowledged borders. Marshall then considered the nature of Virginia's rights with respect to the particular parcels at issue in Johnson, land within the borders of Virginia that had been purchased by a private citizen from Indians in 1773 and 1775. After quoting Virginia's assertion in legislation passed in 1779 of the State's  'exclusive right of preemption from the Indians, of all the lands within the limits of her own chartered territory,'  the Chief Justice concluded, [I]t may safely be considered as an unequivocal affirmance, on the part of Virginia, of the broad principle which had always been maintained, that the exclusive right to purchase from the Indians resided in the government. Id. Having previously recognized that the right to extinguish Indian title was in that government which might constitutionally exercise it, Marshall (and Virginia) were necessarily using preemption to include the right of extinguishment. 68 We conclude that the Article IX(4) power of Congress to manage Indian Affairs, as limited by the Legislative Rights Proviso, did not preclude New York from making the 1785 and 1788 purchases of Oneida land within its borders.
69 If exclusive national power to extinguish Indian title during the Confederation with respect to lands within state borders was not supportable by Article IX(1) or Article IX(4), appellants contend that such power arose from the United States' inherent right of external sovereignty. This argument relies on the analysis of external sovereignty set forth by the Supreme Court in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 57 S.Ct. 216, 81 L.Ed. 255 (1936). 70 Curtiss-Wright involved a challenge to the validity of a presidential proclamation barring the sale of arms to Bolivia, a nation then engaged in war in the Chaco. The proclamation was challenged on the ground that the joint resolution of Congress under which it issued was an unconstitutionally broad delegation of power. The Court rejected the challenge, concluding that the delegation objection was not valid with respect to the President's conduct of the foreign relations of the United States. In reaching this conclusion, the Court articulated the principle of external sovereignty. The Court reasoned that international powers, id. at 316, 57 S.Ct. at 219, were never possessed by the colonies and therefore could not have been transferred by the newly established states to the national government when the nation was created. Such powers, being an attribute of sovereignty under the law of nations, were deemed to pass directly to the United States at the instant of independence from Great Britain. Id. Though the Court's opinion is concerned with national and especially presidential power under the Constitution, it is clear that Justice Sutherland believed that the scope of international powers was equally extensive during the period between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution: 71 As a result of the separation from Great Britain by the colonies acting as a unit, the powers of external sovereignty passed from the Crown not to the colonies severally, but to the colonies in their collective and corporate capacity as the United States of America. 72 Id. Some of the historians who testified in the trial court in this litigation advanced strong arguments for doubting the correctness of this proposition, but we are obliged to take our instruction as the Supreme Court gives it. 10 73 Accepting the principle that the national government possessed inherent powers of external sovereignty during the confederal period, we nevertheless reject appellants' claim that the existence of such powers precluded the states from acquiring Indian title to land within their borders without the consent of Congress. First, we do not agree with the premise of appellants' argument that the powers of external sovereignty included authority over all purchases of Indian land. Indeed, we have considerable doubt whether the international powers discussed in Curtiss-Wright included any authority with respect to Indians. The whole tenor of the Court's discussion concerns international relations, the very matters that during the Confederation were the subject of the powers enumerated in Article IX(1), which did not include Indian affairs. We recognize, however, that Indian affairs do not fall neatly into the category of either international or domestic matters, and it is surely arguable that on matters concerning war and peace with the Indians, the national government did possess the inherent powers that Curtiss-Wright ascribed to the national government in the realm of traditionally international matters. But even if this is so, it is far too extravagant an extension of the concept of external sovereignty to maintain that it includes authority over all purchases of Indian land. To whatever extent external sovereignty entitled the Confederal Congress to treat with the Indians on matters of war and peace, it did not vest the United States with a right of extinguishment with respect to land acquisitions by the states that did not implicate those matters. 74 Appellants appear to suggest, however, that New York's 1785 and 1788 purchases of Oneida lands did implicate issues of war and peace by posing a threat to the peace with the Six Nations that resulted from the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. This suggestion raises a question of justiciability that was not considered in Oneida I--whether a federal court may invalidate a state purchase of Indian land on the ground that the purchase posed a threat to peace with the Indians. This issue arises with respect to both appellants' claim based on external sovereignty and their claim, considered below, based on the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. 75 Even under the Constitution, with federal courts authorized by statute to decide questions arising under federal law, including treaties, it is clear that many questions concerning peace and war are not appropriate for determination by the Judicial Branch. The Supreme Court declared more than a century ago, for example, that the determination of the end of hostilities requires reference to some public act of the political departments of the government to fix the dates. The Protector, 12 Wall. (79 U.S.) 700, 702, 20 L.Ed. 463 (1871). Previously the Court disclaimed authority to adjudicate the correctness of a decision of the President determining the existence of sufficiently imminent danger of invasion to warrant calling forth state militias. Martin v. Mott, 12 Wheat. (25 U.S.) 19, 6 L.Ed. 537 (1827). It may well be, as the Court has also indicated, that some issues concerning the existence of hostilities may not require deference to the decisions of the political branches, see Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 211-12, 82 S.Ct. 691, 706-07, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962); Woods v. Miller Co., 333 U.S. 138, 144, 68 S.Ct. 421, 424, 92 L.Ed. 596 (1948). But it would be an extraordinary assertion of judicial authority under the Constitution for a federal court to determine whether action of a state posed a sufficient threat to peace to warrant invalidation because of conflict with inherent national power arising from external sovereignty. We think it likely that a federal court would disclaim such authority unless acting at the request of the United States in a lawsuit authorized by statute. Cf. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S.Ct. 863, 96 L.Ed 1153 (1952). If under the Constitution an Article III court could probably not, in the absence of a statute, deem justiciable the issue of whether a state land purchase imperiled the peace, it surely cannot do so when the challenge to the purchase arises under the Articles of Confederation. Thus, to the extent that the appellants' external sovereignty argument would require us to determine whether New York's land purchases in 1785 and 1788 posed a threat to peace with the Indians, we conclude that this issue is not justiciable. 76 Our second reason for rejecting the external sovereignty argument proceeds from the explicit recognition in Curtiss-Wright that the inherent power there recognized like every other governmental power, must be exercised in subordination to the applicable provisions of the Constitution. 299 U.S. at 320, 57 S.Ct. at 221. That limiting principle must have been equally applicable to whatever inherent powers the national government possessed under the Confederation. If anything, it had more force prior to the establishment of the more perfect Union. As we have earlier concluded, the organic law of the Confederation included in Article IX(4) a reservation of right to the States that enabled them to purchase Indian land within their borders and thereby to extinguish Indian title. Even an expansive reading of Curtiss-Wright does not support inherent national authority that may override this limitation. 77