Court Opinion

ID: 9425998
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:25.836439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.499058
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
concurring.
I agree with the opinion of the Court that Congress ratified the cession Agreement together with all the rights secured by the Indians, thus putting the Agreement under the umbrella of the Supremacy Clause.
In 1872 President Grant, by Executive Order,1 established a reservation for Indian tribes which came to be known as the Colville Confederated Tribes. By the Act of Aug. 19, 1890,2 a Commission was appointed by the President to negotiate with the Tribes for “the cession of such portion of said reservation as said Indians may be willing to dispose of . . . .” On May 9, 1891, the Commission entered into an Agreement with the Tribes by which the latter ceded to the United States “all their right, title, claim and interest in” a tract of land constituting approximately the northern half of the reservation. Article 6 of the Agreement, however, provided that “the right to hunt and fish in common with all other persons on lands not allotted to said Indians shall not be taken away or in anywise abridged(Italics added.)
In 1892 the Congress passed an Act restoring the northern tract to the public domain and opening it to settlement.3 The Agreement had promised the Indians *209payment of $1,500,000 in cash by installments. The 1892 Act made no reference to this promise or to the rights to fish and hunt. Therefore there was agitation for further action by Congress. In 1906 and succeeding years, Congress eventually acted, authorizing and appropriating the money in five installments.4 Each Act is essentially the same, appropriating the sum of $300,000:
“In part payment to the Indians residing on the Colville Reservation for the cession by said Indians to the United States of one million five hundred thousand acres of land opened to settlement by [the 1892 Act],... being a part of the full sum set aside ... in payment for said land under the terms of the Act approved June twenty-first, nineteen hundred and six, ratifying the agreement ceding said land to the United States under date of May ninth, eighteen hundred and ninety-one . ...”5 (Italics added.)
The Agreement and its ratification were made after the practice of making treaties with Indian tribes ended.6 Yet “the Laws of the United States” as well as “all Treaties” are covered by the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, Art. VI, cl. 2. We so held recently in *210Morton v. Mancari, 417 U. S. 535 (1974); Morton v. Ruiz, 415 U. S. 199 (1974). And see Choate v. Trapp, 224 U. S. 665 (1912); Perrin v. United States, 232 U. S. 478 (1914).
The pressures on Congress to live up to its Agreement were great and are discussed in S. Rep. No. 2561, 59th Cong., 1st Sess., 134r-140 (1906). Would Congress stand by the “Agreement” of 1891? The head of the Commission that negotiated the Agreement with the Indians was Mark A. Fullerton, who in 1904 was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Washington. He stated his views:
“I can not understand why the right of the Indians to this land is not just as sacred as it would have been had it been awarded to them under the most solemn treaty. When they entered upon the reservation they gave up forever land to which they had title as absolute as any band of Indians ever had to any land; and even though the exchange was a forced one, yet exchange it was, and the Government was, under its promise, as I believe, in all honor and right bound to respect it as an exchange and protect the Indians in their title accordingly. Legally, therefore, I can see no difference between the rights of these Indians to compensation for the land taken and the rights of the Puyallup, the Wyakimas, and the Nez Perces to the lands on their reservations which the Government has taken, and which the right to compensation was not even questioned; and, morally, certainly it would be hard to make a distinction.
“It may be that my relations to this transaction have somewhat warped my judgment, but when I recall the impassioned appeals made by some of the aged members of these remnant bands, calling upon their people and upon the heads of the tribes not *211to sign away their lands, even though the compensation offered was ample, on the ground that it was their last heritage and their last tie to earth, I can not help a feeling of bitterness when I remember that the Government, whom we represented to them as being just and honorable, took away their land without even the solace of compensation.” 7
The "right to hunt and fish in common with all other persons on lands not allotted to said Indians” plainly covers land ceded and held as public lands and also land ceded and taken up by homesteaders, for the reservation of the "right” contains no exception. As to all such lands the 1891 Agreement seems clear — the hunting and fishing right “shall not be taken away or in anywise abridged.” As the Solicitor General says, that is “strong language.” It has long been settled that a grant of rights — in the first case, fishing rights — on an equal footing with citizens of the United States would not be construed as a grant only of such rights as other inhabitants had. As stated in United States v. Winans, 198 U. S. 371, 380 (1905): “This is certainly an impotent outcome to negotiations and a convention, which seemed to promise more and give the word of the Nation for more.” That was our view in Puyallup Tribe v. Department of Game, 391 U. S. 392 (1968). A “right” which the Federal Government grants an Indian may “not be qualified or conditioned by the State,” id., at 399.
I agree with the Court that conservation measures, applicable to all, are available to the State, id., at 398-403; but discrimination against the Indians by conservation measures is not permissible, Washington Game Dept. v. Puyallup Tribe, 414 U. S. 44, 48 (1973). In any event no conservation interest has been tendered here. *212The record in this case is devoid of any findings as to conservation ne'eds or conservation methods. The State boldly claims that its power to exact a hunting license from all hunters qualifies even the Indians' right to hunt granted by Congress, irrespective of any conservation need. A State may do that when it comes to non-Indians or to Indians with no federal hunting rights, Lacoste v. Department of Conservation, 263 U. S. 545, 549 (1924). But Indians with federal hunting “rights" are quite different.
An effort is made to restrict these hunting rights to public lands, not to tracts ceded by this Agreement and taken up by private parties. The Agreement, however, speaks only of the ceded tract, not the ultimate disposition of the several j>arts of it. We would strain hard to find an implied exception for parcels in the ceded tract that ended in private ownership. The general rule of construction governing contracts or agreements with Indians is apt here:
“The construction, instead of being strict, is liberal; doubtful expressions, instead of being resolved in favor of the United States, are to be resolved in favor of a weak and defenseless people, who are wards of the nation, and dependent wholly upon its protection and good faith. This rule of construction has been recognized, without exception, for more than a hundred years . . . .” Choate v. Trapp, 224 U. S., at 675.
Whether the result would be different if the contest were between the owner of the private tract and the Indian is a question that need not be reached. We have here only an issue involving the power of a State to impose a regulatory restraint upon a right which Con- . gress bestowed on these Indians. Such an assertion of state power must fall by reason of the Supremacy Clause.

 Exec. Order of July 2, 1872; 1 C. Kappler, Indian Affairs, Laws and Treaties 916 (2d ed. 1904).

 26 Stat. 355.

 27 Stat. 62.

 The authorization appears at 34 Stat. 325, 377-378. The appropriations appear at 34 Stat. 1015, 1050-1051; 35 Stat. 70, 96, 781, 813; 36 Stat. 269, 286, 1058, 1075.

 The quoted language is from the 1907 Appropriations Act, 34 Stat. 1050-1051.

 See Act of Mar. 3, 1871, 16 Stat. 544, 566, now codified as 25 U. S. C. §71:
“No Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty; but no obligation of any treaty lawfully made and ratified with any such Indian nation or tribe prior to March 3, 1871, shall be invalidated or impaired.”

 S. Rep. No. 2561, 59th Cong., 1st Sess., 140 (1906).