David Josiah Brewer

“ It is true the national government exacts licenses as a condition of the sale of intoxicating liquors, but that is solely for the purposes of revenue, and is no attempted exercise of the police power. A license from the United States does not give the licensee authority to sell liquor in a state whose laws forbid its sale, and neither does a license from a state to sell liquor enable the licensee to sell without paying the tax and obtaining the license required by the Federal statute. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It will not be doubted that an act of Congress attempting as a police regulation to punish the sale of liquor by one citizen of a state to another within the territorial limits of that state would be an invasion of the state's jurisdiction, and could not be sustained ”

“ 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 the requests of such persons, cause the land severally held by them to be conveyed to them by patent in fee simple, with power of alienation ”

“ So far as his political status is concerned, the allottee is declared to be a citizen,-not that he will be a citizen after twenty-five years have passed and a second patent shall have been issued. That citizenship is limited to the allottees born within the territorial limits of the United States was obviously intended to exclude from that privilege such allottees, if any there should be, who had recently come into this country from the Dominion of Canada or elsewhere. ”

“ In the early dealings of the government with the Indian tribes the latter were recognized as possession some of the attributes of nations, with which the former made treaties, and the policy of the government was, sometimes by treaties and sometimes by the use of force, to put a stop to the wanderings of these tribes and locate them on some definite territory or reservation, there establishing for them a communal or tribal life. ”

“ If under 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 presence of the civilization of Kansas ”

“ The court said (p. 755, L. ed. p. 672) :
'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. ”

“ In
[Argument of Counsel from pages 494-498 intentionally omitted] a general way it may be said that the recognized relation between the government and the Indians is that of a superior and an inferior, whereby the latter is placed under the care and control of the former. ”