after making the foregoing- statement, delivered the opinion of the court.
The contention of petitioner is that the act of January 30, 1897, is unconstitutional as applied to the sales of liquor to an Indian who has received an allotment and patent of land under the provisions of the act of February 8, 1887, because it is provided in said act that each and every Indian to whom allotments have been made sjhall be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the State in which they may reside, and further that John Butler, having, as is admitted, received an allotment of land in severalty and his patent therefor under the provisions of the act of Congress of February 8, 1887, is no longer a ward of the Government, but a citizen of the United States and of the State of Kansas, and subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of said State.
The relation between the Government and the Indians and the rights and obligations consequent thereon have been the subject of frequent consideration by this court. Among the recent cases, in which are found references to many prior adjudications, may be mentioned
Stephens
v.
Cherokee Nation,
While during these years the exercise of certain powers by the Indian tribes was. recognized, yet their subjection to the' full control of the United States was often affirmed. In
Lone Wolf
v.
Hitchcock,
Of late years a new policy has found expression in the legislation of Congress — a policy which looks to the breaking up of tribal relations, the establishing of the separate Indians in individual homes, free from national guardianship and charged with all the rights and obligations of citizens of the'Unitpd States. Of the power of the Government to carry out this policy there can be no doubt. It is under no constitutional obligation to perpetually continue the relationship of guardian and ward. It may at any time abandon its guardianship and leave the 'ward to assume and be subject to all the privileges and burdens of one sui juris. And it is for Congress to determine when and how that relationship of guardianship shall be abandoned. It i§ not within the power of the courts to overrule the judgment'of Congress. It is true there may be a presumption that no radical departure is intende'd, and courts may wisely insist that the purpose of Congress be made clear by its legislation, but when that purpose is made clear the question is at an end.
It may be well to notice some of tne'legislation of Congress having this end in view. Section 15 of the act of MarcN3, 1893, 27 Stat. G12, 645, reads:
“The consent of the United States is hereby given to the allotment of lands in severalty not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres to any one individual within the limits of the country occupied by the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminóles; and upon such allotments the individuals to whom the same may be allotted shall be deemed to be in-all respects citizens of the United States. And the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated to pay for the survey of any such'lands as may be allotted by any of said tribes of Indian’s to individual members of said tribes; and upon the allotment of the lands held by said tribes respectively, the reversionary interest of the United States therein shall be relinquished and shall cease.”
Section 16 created what is known as the Dawes Commission, for extinguishing the national or tribal title to lands within the Indian Territory. Pursuant to its authority an agreement was made with the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, for the allotment of their lands among the members, which agreement was ratified and approved by the act of Congress of June 28, 1898. 30 Stat. 495. In that agreement it was stipulated (p. 513): “It is further agreed that the Choctaws and Chickasaws, ’ when their tribal governments cease, shall become possessed of all the rights and privileges of citizens of the United States.” By the same act an agreement made with the Creek Indians, which contained a similar stipulation, was ratified and approved. In the last treaty with the Kickapoos, to which tribe John Butler, the person to whom the petitioner is charged to have sold the liquor, belonged, a treaty concluded June 28, 1862^ (Revision of Indian Treaties, Art. 8, p. 449), it was provided:
“Art. 3. At any time hereafter, when the President of the United States shall have become satisfied that any adults, being males and heads of families, who may be allottees under the provision of the foregoing article, are sufficiently intelligent and prudent to control their affairs and interests, he may, at
A similar clause is found in the treaty of April 19, 1862, between the United States .and the Pottawatomie Indians. (Revision of Indian Treaties, 683, 685.) It was not uncommon in the District Court of the United States for the District of Kansas, in the years following these treaties, to see Indians coming into the District Court and taking the oath of allegiance, as required by these provisions. We make these references to recent treaties, not. with a view of determining the rights created thereby, but simply as illustrative of the proposition that the policy of the Government has changed, and that an effort is being made to relieve some of the Indians from their tutelage and endow them with the full rights of citizenship, thus terminating between them and the Government the
Now the act' of 1887 was passed twenty-five years after the treaty of 1862 with tíhe Kickapoos, and must be construed in the light of that treaty. By the treaty it was declared that at' ■the instance of the President, and upon compliance with specified provisions, certain of the Indians should be considered as competent persons, should cease to be members of the tribe and becpme citizens of the United States. The act of 1887, in like manner, provides that at the instance of the President, a reservation may be surveyed and individual tracts allotted to the Indians, and that upon approval of the allotments by the Secretary of the Interior patents shall issue, subject' to a condition against alienation and incumbrances during a period of twenty-five years, or longer, if the President deems it wise. Section 6 then declares that the “Indians to whom allotments shall have been made shall have the benefit of and be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the State or Territory in which they may reside, and no Territory shall pass or'enforce any law denying any such Indian within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.”
It is urged that this clause becomes operative only when the final patent provided for by section 5 is issued, but there are many reasons why such contention is unsound. In the first place, it is hardly to be supposed that Congress would legislate twenty-five years in advance in respect to the general status of these Indians. If they were to continue in the same relation to the Government that they hitherto occupied, it would seem as though Congress 'would have said nothing and waited until near the expiration ■ of twenty-five years before determining what should be such status. Second, the.language of the first sentence of section 6 forbids the construction contended for. It is “ that upon the completion of said allotments •and the patenting of the lands to said allottees.” Now the allotting and the patenting are joined together as though oc
This question has been presented to several state and some Federal courts, and the ruling universally has been to the same effect.
State ex rel.
v.
Denoyer,
6 N. Dak. 586;
State ex rel.
v.
Norris,
37 Nebraska, 299;
Wa-La-Note-Tke-Tynin
v.
Carter,
“The act of Congress approved February 8-, 1887, 24 Stat. 388, was much broader, and by its terms made every Indian situated as therein referred to, a citizen of the United States.”
In reference to this matter the learned Solicitor General makes these observations:
“Were it not for the .fact that every court that has considered this language at all has assumed it to mean that an Indian-becomes entitled ;to the benefit of and subject to the laws of the State in which he resides* upon the receipt of his first patent, the natural inference would be that Congress intended those consequences to attach only when the allotments-referred to had been fully completed and final patent issued. But in spite of the array of cases upon this subject, it will be found, upon-examination, that in none of-them was the provision referred to carefully analyzed and discussed, 'and that from first to last it has -been merely a matter of assumption.
- “Upon the subject of-citizenship, section 6 provides that ‘every Indian born within the territorial limits of the United States to whom allotments shall have' been, made under the provisions of this act or under any law or treaty, . . is hereby declared to be a citizen of the United States, and is entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of such citizens.’
“It would seem that Congress intended citizenship of the United States to attach at the same time that the Indian becomes subject to the laws of the State or Territory in- which he resides. As a matter of constitutional law, an Indian appears to be entitled to the benefit, of and to be subject to the laws of the State in which he resides the moment he becomes a citizen of the United States. By virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment a citizen of the United States becomes, by residence therein, a citizen of the State, and entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of other citizens of the State and to the equal protection of its laws.
The Slaughter House Cases,
In The Kansas Indians, 5 Wall. 737, the question was whether lands of Shawnee Indians held in severalty were subject to state taxation, and it was held that they were not, although in the last treaty with the Shawnees, the one authorizing the allotments, there was no express stipulation .for' exemption from taxation. The court said (p. 755):
“If the tribal organization of the Shawnees is preserved intact, and recognized by the political department of the Government as existing, then they are a ‘ people distinct from others/ capable of making treaties, separated from the jurisdiction of Kansas, and to be governed exclusively by the government of the Union. If únder the control of Congress, from necessity there can be no divided authority'. If they have outlived many things, they have not outlived the protection afforded by the Constitution, treaties, and laws of Congress. It may be that they cannot exist much longer as a distinct people in the /lesence of the civilization of Kansas, ‘but until they are clothed with the rights and bound to all the duties of citizens/ they enjoy the privilege of total immunity from state taxation.”
If it be true that there can be no divided authority over the property of the Indian, a fortiori must it be true as to his political status and rights.
Subjection to both state and National law in the same matter might often be impossible. The power to punish a sale to an Indian implies an equal power to punish a sale by an Indian. If by National law a sale to or by an Indian was punished solely by imprisonment and by state law solely by fine, how could both laws be enforced in respect to the same sale? The question is not whether a particular right may be enforced in either a court of the State or one of the Nation, but whether two sovereignties can create independent duties and compel obedience. In
United States
v.
Dewitt,
“As a police regulation, relating exclusively .to the internal trade of the States, it can only have effect where the legislative authority of Congress excludes, territorially, all state legislation, as for example, in the District of Columbia. .Within state limits, it can have no constitutional operation.”
In re Now-Ge-Zhuck,
“An Indian upon whom has been conferred citizenship, and vwho enjoys the protection of the laws of the State, should be punished for a transgression of them. This we are to presume Congress contemplated. It "being shown by the agreed facts that the petitioner was an allottee to whom a patent had been issued, and further shown that the allotments had been made and completed as provided by the act of February 8, 1887, the laws of the State were operative, and the State had jurisdiction to arrest and punish pétitioner for the offense by him committed.”
It is true the same act may often be a violation of both the state and Federal law,- but it is only when those laws occupy different planes. Thus, a sale of liquor may be a violation of both the state and Federal law, in that it was' made by one who had not" paid the revenue tax. and received from the United States a license to sell, and also had not complied with the state- law in reference to the matter of state license. But in that case the two laws occupy different planes — one that of revenue and the other that of police regulation. There is no suggestion in the present case of a violation of the internal revenue law of the Nation, but the conviction is sought to be
But it is contended that although the United States may not punish under the police power the sale of liquor within a State by one citizen to another it has power to punish such sale if the purchaser is an Indian. And the power to do this is traced to that clause of section 8, Art. I, of the Constitution, which empowers Congress “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” It is said that commerce with the Indian tribes includes commerce with the members thereof, and Congress having power to regulate commerce between the white men and the Indians continues to retain that power, although it has provided that the Indian shall have the benefit of and be subject to the civil and criminal laws of the State and shall be a citizen of the United States, and therefore a citizen of the State. But the logic of this argument implies that the United States can never release itself from the obligation of guardianship; that so long as an individual is an Indian by descent, Congress, although it may have granted all the rights and privileges of National and therefore state citizenship, the benefits and burdens of the laws of the State, may at any time repudiate this action and reassume its guardianship, and prevent the Indian from enjoying the benefit of the laws of the State, and release him from obligations of obedience thereto. Can it be that because one has Indian, and only Indian blood in his veins, he is to be forever one of a special class over whom the General Government may in its discretion assume the rights of guardianship which it has once abandoned, and this whether the State or the individual himself consents? We think the reach to which this argument goes demonstrates that it is unsound.
But it is sa'id that the Government has provided that the Indians’ title shall not be alienated or encumber d for tweutyfive years, and has also stipulated that the grant of citizenship shall not deprive the Indian of his interest in tribal or other
' But it is. unnecessary to pursue this discussion further. We are of the opinion that when,, the United States grants the privileges of citizenship to an Indian, gives to him the benefit pf and requires him to be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the State, it places him outside the reach of police regulations on the part of Congress; that the emancipation from Federal control thus created cannot be set aside at the instance of the Government without the consent of the individual Indian and the State, and that this emancipation from Federal control is not affected by the fact that the lands it has granted to the Indian are granted subject to a condition against alienation and encumbrance, or the further fact that it guarantees to him an interest in tribal or other property.'
The District Court of Kansas did not have jurisdiction of the offense charged, and therefore the petitioner is entitled to his discharge from imprisonment.