Joseph McKenna

“ To say there was no value in that power is to contradict the examples and estimations of the world. It may be that if exemption from taxation went with the land it might become an element in the price (worth in money) which the Indian might ask and receive, but that was not of concern to the purpose of the law, which was to give to the Indian all of the attributes of ownership, to give him a mastery of his property equal to that of other owners of property, and nothing more, and this consummated the new policy of Congress. ”

“ It is an error to suppose that this takes anything of value from the Indian. We may here invoke the commonplace, for it is commonplace to say that we only know the value of a thing by that which makes its worth. Under the restriction against the alienation the land had no worth but in its uses; the restriction removed, it had the added worth of exchangeability for other things-a power of sale was conferred. ”

“ We are not dealing with rights in the abstract; we are dealing with rights under special conditions and as determined by acts of the parties under a law of Congress which was availed of by the Indian and a grantee of the Indian, and which, therefore, bound them by its conditions and subjected the land in the hands of the grantee to the usual burdens of government. ”