Court Opinion

ID: 9419377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:49:10.401985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:24.196226
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murphy,
dissenting in part:
I dissent because the opinion of the Court rejects a century and a half of history. We are not here dealing with mere property or income that is tax-exempt. This is not the ordinary case of government and its citizens, or a group of citizens who seek to avoid their obligations. Our concern here is entirely different. It is with a people who are our wards and towards whom Congress has fashioned a policy of protection due to obligations well known to all of us. It rests with Congress to choose when we are done with that trusteeship. Meanwhile it is our obligation to interpret in the light of the history of that relationship all legislation which Congress has enacted to carry out its Indian policy.
Normally it is true that strong considerations of fiscal and social policy view tax exemptions with a hostile eye. Such exemptions are not to be lightly implied, and every reasonable implication in construing legislation is to be *613made against their grant. But this general doctrine against tax exemption is irrelevant in considering the taxing power of a state in relation to Indians. For as to them a totally different principle comes into operation, namely, the special status of Indians during the whole course of our constitutional and legal history. There can be no doubt of Congress’ plenary power to exempt Indians and their property from all forms of state taxation. Such power exists to prevent impairment of the manner in, or means by which Congress effectuates its Indian policy, at least so long as Congress has not determined that the interests of the Indians require their complete release from tutelage or the final termination of the United States’ guardianship over them. Board of Commissioners v. Seber, 318 U. S. 705; cf. Tiger v. Western Investment Co., 221 U. S. 286, 315-16; Brader v. James, 246 U. S. 88, 96; United States v. McGowan, 302 U. S. 535, 538. See United States v. Sandoval, 231 U. S. 28, 45-47. To deny such constitutional power is to deny the presupposition of all legislation relating to Indians as well as an unbroken line of decisions on Indian law in this Court and all that underlies them. This course of legislation and adjudication may be fairly summarized as recognizing the special relation of Indians toward the United States and the exclusion of state power with relation to them, except in so far as the federal government has actually released to the state governments its constitutional supremacy over this special field. Therefore, so far as the power of a state to tax Indian property is concerned, the ordinary rule of tax exemption is reversed; a state must make an affirmative showing of a grant by Congress of the withdrawal of the immunity of Indian property from state taxation. This is so because it is Indian property and because Indians stand in a special relation to the federal government from which the states are excluded unless the Congress has manifested *614a clear purpose to terminate such an immunity and allow states to treat Indians as part of the general community.
Congress has manifested no such purpose with regard to the estates of the deceased Indians before us. On the contrary, those Indians were subject to federal control.1 Most of their allotted lands were expressly exempt from taxation, and, as the opinion of the Court recognizes, this removed them from the operation of Oklahoma’s estate tax.2 But apart from these express exemptions, the bulk of the properties in the three estates were restricted against alienation and encumbrance by various acts of Congress.3 History, as well as statements of Congress itself,4 leave no doubt that property so restricted is beyond the taxing power of the states, unless and until Congress gives its consent. In other words restriction is tantamount to im*615munity from state taxation. That was the basis of decision in Choctaw, O. & G. R. Co. v. Harrison, 235 U. S. 292; Indian Territory Oil Co. v. Oklahoma, 240 U. S. 522; Jaybird Mining Co. v. Weir, 271 U. S. 609; Howard v. Gipsy Oil Co., 247 U. S. 503; Large Oil Co. v. Howard, 248 U. S. 549; Gillespie v. Oklahoma, 257 U. S. 501. In all those cases a non-Indian lessee of restricted Indian lands was held immune from state taxation of various kinds because, and only because, the lands themselves and the leasing of them were held to be immune from taxation, and this in turn because they were the lands of Indians held in Government tutelage, who were permitted to lease the lands only with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. This immunity for lessees was withdrawn by Helvering v. Mountain Producers Corp., 303 U. S. 376, which overruled Gillespie v. Oklahoma, supra. Cf. the dissenting opinions in Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393. In neither the Coronado case nor in the Mountain Producers case was there any contention that the land in the hands of the lessors was subject to taxation. That was recognized and accepted as correct. The point was that even though the land was tax immune in the hands of the lessor, the lessor’s immunity did not extend to the lessee who had no personal immunity and who acquired the land for his own purposes and made a profit from it. In other words, the withdrawal of immunity from a non-Indian lessee of restricted Indian land rests upon the remoteness of the effect of that taxation upon such Indian property, cf. Graves v. New York ex rel. O’Keefe, 306 U. S. 466, not upon a notion that Congress did not intend by imposing restrictions to prohibit state taxation of the interest of Indians in their restricted property, nor upon the supposition that Congress lacks power to do so. Congress plainly has power to implement its Indian policy by forbidding state taxation to burden the interest of an Indian in his property. Cf. Shaw v. Gibson-Zahniser Oil Corp., 276 *616U. S. 575; Board of Commissioners v. Seber, 318 U. S. 705. It exercises that power simply by imposing the restrictions.
That Congress has considered the restriction of Indian property against alienation and encumbrance as carrying with it immunity from state taxation for the period of the restriction is clear not only from statements of Congress itself to that effect,5 but also from the long history of such restrictions and the purpose sought to be achieved, the protection of a dependent people from their own improvidence and the exploitation of others.
Congress early established the complete and exclusive control of the federal government over the purchase and disposition of Indian lands, both tribal and individual.6 The protection afforded by those and subsequent restrictive acts and treaties extended to trespasses, transfers, tax sales, tax liens, and other attempted interferences by the state governments with federal control over Indian lands. See Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515; The Kansas Indians, 5 Wall. 737; The New York Indians, 5 Wall. 761.
The United States was unable, however, to prevent state interference with the Creeks and the Seminóles in their domains east of the Mississippi, and accordingly proposed removal west of the Mississippi, guaranteeing that there no State or Territory should “ever have a right to pass laws for the government of such Indians, but they shall be allowed to govern themselves, so far as may be compatible with the general jurisdiction which Congress may think proper to exercise over them.” Article XIV, Treaty of March 24, 1832 (7 Stat. 366). Long after the removal this guarantee was reaffirmed. Article IV, Treaty of August 7, 1856 (11 Stat. 699). Nothing in the subsequent *617treaties and allotment acts relating specifically to the Creeks and the Seminóles was inconsistent with this guarantee of freedom from state control.7 And Congress was careful to provide that nothing in the creation of the State of Oklahoma should qualify this promise. Thus the Oklahoma Enabling Act (34 Stat. 267) provided that the Oklahoma Constitution should not “limit or affect the authority of the Government of the United States to make any law or regulation respecting such Indians, their lands, property, or other rights by treaties, agreement, law, or otherwise, which it would have been competent to make if this Act had never been passed.” The constitution adopted by the people of Oklahoma renounced any claims to Indian lands (Art. 1, § 3), and exempted from taxation “such property as may be exempt by reason of treaty stipulations, existing between the Indians and the United States Government, or by Federal laws, during the force and effect of such treaties or Federal laws” (Art. X, § 6). See Tiger v. Western Investment Co., 221 U. S. 286, 309; Ex parte Webb, 226 U. S. 663, 682-83; Ward v. Love County, 253 U. S. 17; Carpenter v. Shaw, 280 U. S. 363, 366.
As we recently said in Board of Commissioners v. Seber, supra, Congress in 1887 turned from a policy of protecting Indian tribes in the possession of their domains to a program, now discontinued, of assimilating the Indians through dissolution of their tribal governments and the compulsory individualization of their lands. This allotment program evolved out of the historical background sketched above, and took its cue from the previous protection and freedom from state control accorded Indians and their lands. The Indian surrendered tribal land, pro*618tected against state taxation as well as against all other forms of voluntary and involuntary encumbrance and alienation. Cf. The Kansas Indians, supra; The New York Indians, supra. Under the various allotment acts he received in return land which was intended to have the same measure of protection for a temporary period, generally subject to extension. Thus the General Allotment Act of 1887 (24 Stat. 388) provided for the issuance to allottees of trust patents which were to declare: “the United States does . . . hold the land thus allotted, for the period of twenty-five years, in trust.. . and that at the expiration of said period the United States will convey the same by patent to said Indian ... in fee, discharged of said trust and free of all charge or incumbrance whatsoever.” 8 Lands so held in trust are immune from state taxation. United States v. Rickert, 188 U. S. 432.
The lands here involved were not allotted under “trust patents”; they were grants in fee subject to restrictions against alienation and encumbrance.9 But there are no differences of substance between the two forms of tenure which suggest that while the one is exempt from state taxation, the other is not, or that Congress intended to favor Indians holding under “trust patents” over those holding restricted fees. ‘ Cf. The Kansas Indians, supra, at p. 755. The power of Congress over “trust” and “restricted” lands is the same, Board of Commissioners v. Seber, supra, and in practice the terms have been used interchangeably. See United States v. Bowling, 256 U. S. 484; cf. Minnesota v. United States, 305 U. S. 382. Both devices had a common purpose, to protect a dependent *619people against loss of their property through their own improvidence or the greed of others during the period of transition in which they began to assume the responsibilities of citizenship. To achieve this purpose the protection afforded by Congress was not niggardly. See Tiger v. Western Investment Co., 221 U. S. 286; Heckman v. United States, 224 U. S. 413; Brader v. James, 246 U. S. 88.
State taxation of “restricted” lands as well as taxation of “trust” lands, in the absence of Congressional authorization, is a possible cause of the loss which Congress has said shall not occur. The restrictions are not limited to voluntary sale — consistently with their purpose they extend to all forms of transfer or encumbrance, involuntary as well as voluntary. Cf. Goudy v. Meath, 203 U. S. 146. The interference of state taxation with Congress’ program of protection is made clear by the fact that the instant Oklahoma inheritance tax acts impose liens upon the property until the taxes are paid.10 The possible consequences of a tax lien upon Indian property are pointed out in The New York Indians, supra, where it was held that the mere existence of a lien in a state taxing act invalidates it, despite a provision to the effect that no foreclosure of a lien should affect the Indian’s right of occupancy. And, even when permitting specified forms of state taxation of restricted Indian property, Congress has significantly provided in numerous statutes that no tax lien should attach.11 I conclude that when Congress imposed restrictions upon Indian property, it meant, and was saying in effect, that the property was exempt from state taxation while the restrictions continue or until *620Congress waives the immunity. Indeed, Congress has clearly stated that this was its intention by declaring in the Act of April 17, 1937, 50 Stat. 68, which permitted a gross production tax to be imposed by Oklahoma on lead and zinc produced from restricted Quapaw lands: “In accordance with the uniform policy of the United States Government to hold the lands of the Quapaw Indians while restricted and the income therefrom free from State taxation of whatsoever nature, except as said immunity is expressly waived, and, in pursuance of said fixed policy, it is herein expressly provided that the waiver of tax immunity herein provided shall be in lieu of all other State taxes of whatsoever nature on said restricted lands or the income therefrom, . . .”12
When Congress has intended that restricted property should be taxed, it has explicitly said so.13 In the absence of such assent restricted property remains beyond the reach of a state’s taxing power. Non-alienability and tax exemption have been said to be distinct things so far as vested rights are concerned, see Choate v. Trapp, 224 U. S. 665, 673, but this of course does not mean that the concepts of restriction and immunity from state taxation are unrelated. Nor does the circumstance that some of the ap*621plicable statutes expressly provide specific tax exemptions for restricted lands indicate that restriction is not tantamount to immunity from state taxation.14 At the time the allotments to the members of the Five Civilized Tribes were made there was no State of Oklahoma. It had been held that Congress had power to lay taxes upon Indian property within Indian Territory, Cherokee Tobacco, 11 Wall. 616, and its creature, the Territorial government, was agitating for the taxation of Indian property.15 Restrictions, designed to protect the Indians from themselves and the actions of third parties, including state governments, did not bar taxation by the federal government which was the guardian of their interests.16 Accordingly, specific tax exemptions were written into the allotment acts.17 Express provisions as to the taxable status of restricted property in the later legislation appear only where the immunity is being limited and expressly waived in part or the restrictions are being changed.18
All of the lands which the opinion of the Court holds immune from Oklahoma’s estate tax because of express exemptions were therefore also exempt at the moment of death on the additional ground that they were then subject to restrictions imposed by Congress and the concomitant tax immunity had not been waived. The other restricted lands in the estates are lands to whose taxation Congress has specifically consented, or else were of the type *622to be taxable at the time of death under the decision in Shaw v. Gibson-Zahniser Oil Corp., 276 U. S. 575.
The origin of restrictions upon the fund of members of the Five Civilized Tribes is somewhat different from that upon the lands, but the effect of the restrictions upon the taxability of the cash and securities in the three estates with which we are dealing is the same. Proceeds from sales or leases of restricted lands have always been regarded as “trust” or “restricted” funds by the Secretary of the Interior, who by regulations has required them to be paid to him or his representatives and held for the benefit of the Indian owner.19 The validity of those administrative restrictions and the power of the United States to enforce them have been recognized. Parker v. Richard, 250 U. S. 235; Mott v. United States, 283 U. S. 747. And it has been held that funds so restricted by departmental regulation are exempt from state and local taxation. See United States v. Thurston County, 143 F. 287; United States v. Hughes, 6 F. Supp. 972. But we do not have to consider whether this administrative restriction alone is sufficient to confer tax exemption upon the cash and securities in the three estates.20
*623The Act of January 27, 1933 (47 Stat. 777), imposes Congressional restrictions by providing:
“That all funds . . . now held by or which may hereafter come under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, belonging to and only so long as belonging to Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma of one-half or more Indian blood, enrolled or unenrolled, are hereby . . . restricted and shall remain subject to the jurisdiction of said Secretary until April 26, 1956, ...”
This Act does not stand alone. It is part of Congress’ long continued program of protection and it carries with it the gloss of the history of the restrictions outlined above. Congress was not imposing restrictions for the first time, and there is nothing to suggest that Congress intended them to have less than their traditional historical meaning of tax exemption in this Act. It is immaterial that the legislative history of the Act is silent with regard to the tax status of Indian funds. We are dealing not with a word, nor with an act, but with a course of history. That course makes it clear that the restricted funds in these estates were beyond the taxing power of Oklahoma.21
It is not our function to speculate whether it is wise at this late day to relieve from the ordinary burden of taxation Indians who enjoy the privileges of citizenship and who in some instances are persons of substantial means. Nor is it our legitimate concern that grants of tax exemption to Indian inhabitants may create serious fiscal problems in some states or in their local govern*624mental subdivisions. Those matters, as well as the character, extent and duration of tax exemptions for the Indians, are questions of policy for the consideration of Congress, not the courts. Board of Commissioners v. Beber, supra. Our inquiry is not with what Congress might or should have done, but with what it has done. That inquiry can be answered here only by holding that the restricted funds in these estates, as well as the lands which the Court holds immune, were not subject to Oklahoma’s estate tax.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Frankfurter join in this dissent.

 The deceased Indians in these three cases were enrolled full-blood Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes. Two were Seminóles and one was a Creek. Congress has not terminated the guardianship relation with respect to these tribes. They still exist (§ 28 of Act of April 26,1906, 34 Stat. 137), and have recently been authorized to resume some of their former powers (Act of June 26, 1936, 49 Stat. 1967). Congress has regarded their members of the half Indian blood or more, whether enrolled or not, as restricted tribal Indians subject to federal control. The fact that these Indians are citizens is not inconsistent with their restricted status or the exercise of federal supervision over them. See Board of Commissioners v. deber, supra; Glenn v. Lewis, 105 F. 2d 398.

 See Act of July 1, 1898, 30 Stat. 567; Act of March 1, 1901, 31 Stat. 861; Act of June 30, 1902, 32 Stat. 500; § 19 of Act of April 26, 1906, 34 Stat. 137; § 4 of Act of May 10,1928, 45 Stat. 495 and 733.
The fact that the exemptions do not mention inheritance or estate taxes is unimportant. As pointed out before, contrary to the general rule Indian tax exemptions are to be liberally construed. See Carpenter v. Shaw, 280 U. S. 363, 366-67. For that reason decisions, such as U. S. Trust Co. v. Helvering, 307 U. S. 57, that statutory exemptions from taxation do not include an exemption from estate taxes, have no application here.

 In addition to the statutes cited in Note 2, supra, see also Act of May 27,1908, 35 Stat. 312; and Act of January 27, 1933,47 Stat. 777.

 See Note 12, infra.

 See Note 12, infra.

 Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts of July 22, 1790, 1 Stat. 137; March 1,1793,1 Stat. 329; March 3,1799, § 12,1 Stat. 743,25 U. S. C. §177.

 See Treaty of March 21,1866,14 Stat. 755; Treaty of June 14,1866, 14 Stat. 785; Curtis Act of 1898, 30 Stat. 495; Act of July 1,1898, 30 Stat. 567; Act of March 1, 1901, 31 Stat. 861; Act of June 30, 1902, 32 Stat. 500.

 The President was authorized to extend the trust period in his discretion.

 See Act of July 1, 1898, 30 Stat. 567; Act of June 2, 1900, 31 Stat. 250; Act of March 1, 1901, 31 Stat. 861; Act of June 30,1902, 32 Stat. 500; § 19 of Act of April 26,1906, 34 Stat. 137; § 1 of Act of May 27, 1908,35 Stat. 312; Act of May 10, 1928,45 Stat. 495.

 Okla. S. L. 1915, c. 162, § 8, as amended by e. 296, § 5, Okla. S. L. 1919; Okla. S. L. 1935, c. 66, art. 5, § 9.

 See Act of May 6, 1910, 36 Stat. 348; Act of March 3, 1921, 41 Stat. 1225, 1249; Act of May 27, 1924, 43 Stat. 176; Act of May 29, 1924,43 Stat. 244; Act of April 17, 1937, 50 Stat. 68.

 There are various other expressions of Congressional understanding on this point. For example, H. Rep. No. 2415, 71st Cong., 3d Sess., p. 1, advocating passage of what is now the Act of February 14, 1931, 46 Stat. 1108, declares: “Under existing law the restricted allotted lands of Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes are tax exempt while restricted.” See also S. Rep. No. 982, 70th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 3, 4, 5; S. Rep. No. 330, 65th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 4.
The Act of May 27, 1908, 35 Stat. 312, by specifically providing in § 4 that lands from which “restrictions have been or shall be removed shall be subject to taxation,” strongly indicates a Congressional understanding that restriction amounted to tax exemption.

 For example, among the statutes applicable to the Creeks and Seminóles, see §§ 3 and 4 of the Act of May 10, 1928, 45 Stat. 495 and 733. See generally the statutes collected in Note 11, supra.

 Act of July 1, 1898, 30 Stat. 567; Act of March 1, 1901, 31 Stat. 861; Act of June 30,1902, 32 Stat. 500; § 19 of Act of April 26, 1906, 34 Stat. 137; § 4 of the Act of May 10,1928,45 Stat. 495 and 733.

 See Sen. Doc. 169, 58th Cong., 2d Sess.

 It is for this historical reason that cases such as Superintendent v. Commissioner, 295 U. S. 418, and Landman v. Commissioner, 123 F. 2d 787, have no bearing upon a consideration of the effect of restrictions upon the power of a state to tax.

 See Act of July 1,1898, 30 Stat. 567; Act of March 1,1901,31 Stat. 861; Act of June 30,1902, 32 Stat. 500.

 Act of April 26,1906,34 Stat. 137; Act of May 10,1928,45 Stat. 495.

 Since 1908 the regulations prescribed by the Secretary under § 2 of the Act of 1908, 35 Stat. 312 and related statutes governing oil, gas and other mining leases of restricted lands, have recognized that proceeds from such leases are restricted and have required that all such money be paid to a representative of the Secretary. See 25 C. F. R. §§ 183.18, 183.20; see also § 20 of the regulations approved April 20, 1908.

 In Shaw v. Gibson-Zahniser Oil Corp., 276 U. S. 575, the interest of an oil lessee in land purchased for an Indian by the Secretary of the Interior with the Indian’s restricted funds and conveyed to the Indian by a restricted form of deed pursuant to conditions imposed by the Secretary, was held subject to an Oklahoma oil production tax. The opinion emphasized the difference between “a mere conveyancer’s restriction” and action by Congress.

 Two of the decedents died before the Act was passed. The House Committee report, however, makes it clear that the restriction on funds was intended to be declaratory and retroactive. H. Rep. No. 1015, 72d Cong., 1st Sess. In view of this there is no reason why the restricted funds in the estates of those decedents, held by the Secretary, should not be deemed covered by that Act, and hence tax exempt by virtue of the restrictions.