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26 that Article III both allowed the suit and gave this Court original jurisdiction because the suit was one by a “foreign Stat[e]” against the State of Georgia. §2, cls. 1–2. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Marshall admitted that the Tribe’s argument was “imposing”: The Tribe was “a state, as a distinct political society,” but it was “not a state of the union.” 5 Pet., at 16. Nonetheless, the Court refused to hear the case. As Marshall reasoned, Indian tribes were not “foreign state[s] in the sense of the constitution,” as shown in part by the Commerce Clause’s delineation of States, foreign nations, and Indian tribes. Ibid. Rather, Marshall reasoned that the Indian tribes occupied a unique status, which he characterized as that of “domestic dependent nations” whose “relation to the United States resembles that of a ward to his guardian.” Id., at 17.

Other than this opinion, I have been unable to locate any evidence that the Founders thought of the Federal Government as having a generalized guardianship-type relationship with the Indian tribes—much less one conferring any congressional power over Indian affairs. To the contrary, such a status seems difficult to square with the relationship between the Federal Government and tribes, which at times involved warfare, not trust. See, e.g., Fletcher & Singel 904–907; F. Hutchins, Tribes and the American Constitution 104 (2000). And, if such a general relationship existed, there would seem to be little need for the Federal Government to have ratified specific treaties with tribes calling for federal protection. E.g., Treaty with the Kaskaskia (1803), 7 Stat. 78; Treaty with the Creeks (1790), id., at 35. At bottom, Cherokee Nation’s loose dicta cannot support a broader power over Indian affairs.