Congressional edition, Volume 2912 By United States. Congress

Congressional edition, Volume 2912 By United States. Congress

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February 25.1892.—Ordered to be printed.

Mr. Morgan, from the Committee on Indian Affairs, submitted the

following

The Committee on Indian Affairs, to whom was referred the hill (S. 1548) to extend the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States as defined in section 709 of the Revised Statutes, etc., submit the following- report and accompanying papers, and recommend the passage of the bill:

The effect that is to be given to the judgments of the tribal courts, based upon their written constitutions, and the laws enacted by the legislatures of five civilized tribes—especially with reference to the disposal of their lauds within the undisputed limits of their national boundaries to their own people—is a matter of the deepest concern to the tribes, the individual Indians, and to the Government of the United States. To postpone a satisfactory and final decision of this subject to a future i>eriod will invite confusion, distrust, and civil strife in that entire country.

The bill reported by the committee (S. 1.548) appears to be the best if not the only means of reaching a just, satisfactory, and indisputable decision and settlement of these questions.

As a matter of constitutional power, the enactment of laws by Congress to define and regulate the political status of these five tribes can not be disputed. Any declaration in our treaties, or in existing statutes, as to the mere political right of the Indians to have and conduct local self-government, must yield to the power of Congress to repeal the mere political features of such treaties and statutes whenever they are found to be inconsistent with and injurious to the general welfare of the people of the United.States.

This power has often been declared, both in acts of Congress and in the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. But when a proprietary right is vested in any grantee by a treaty, the repeal of the treaty does not affect the right. Especially is this true of grants of land by fixed boundaries, which have been demarked and ratified by authority of the legislature and recognized by the executive and judicial departments of the Government.

Neither can the power to dispose of lands so granted be afterward taken away when that power is one of the elements of the grant and is made necessary by the terms of the treaty or by the then existing conditions in order to the full execution of the purposes of the grant. The grant and the power to completely execute it are equally the right of