connection to state the constitutional relations of the
subject. The judicial decisions are somewhat confused, although, from
the date (1831) of the decision of Chief-Justice Marshall in the
Cherokee Nation vs. the State of Georgia (5 Peters, 1), to that (1870)
of the decision in the Cherokee Tobacco (11 Wallace, 616), there has
been a marked progress (note especially the decision of Chief-Justice
Taney in the United States vs. Rogers, 4 Howard, 567) towards the
stronger affirmation of the complete and sufficient sovereignty of the
United States. Yet in December, 1870, the Judiciary Committee of the
Senate, Carpenter presenting the Report, after an incomplete, and in
some respects an inaccurate and inconsequential[M] recital of judicial
opinions, made the following startling announcement:--

"Inasmuch as the Constitution treats Indian tribes as belonging to the
rank of nations capable of making treaties, it is evident that an act of
Congress which should assume to treat the members of a tribe as subject
to the municipal jurisdiction of the United States would be
unconstitutional and void."

That this is not good law need not be argued, inasmuch as the decisions
previously cited in the United States _vs._ Rogers and in the Cherokee
Tobacco, assert the complete sovereignty of the United States in strong
terms[N]; in the latter, the doctrine being explicitly affirmed, that
not only does the capability of making a treaty with the United States,
which has been held to reside in an Indian tribe, not exempt that tribe
from the legislative power of Congress, but that not even a treaty made
and ratified, among the stipulations of which is such an exemption, even
were that exemption the consideration for cessions the benefit of which
the United States has enjoyed and continues to enjoy, can hinder
Congress from at any time extending its complete legislative control
over the tribe. Considerations of good faith may influence individual
Congressmen in such a case; but the constitutional competence of
Congress in the premises is declared to be beyond question.

Nor is the extraordinary proposition of the Committee's report better in
reason than in law. The argument is in effect this: The United States
makes treaties with foreign nations; the United States cannot legislate
for foreign nations; the United States may make treaties with Indian
tribes: ergo, the United States cannot legislate for Indian tribes.
This course of reasoning