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28 normal affairs. But nothing the Court cited actually supported such a view. For example, the fact that the Federal Government could regulate Indians on federal territories does not justify such regulations for Indians within a State’s limits. Nor does the fact that tribes were “external” at the Founding mean that they remained “external” in 1886. Nor does the fact that Congress could regulate citizens who went onto Indian lands, see Rogers, 4 How., at 572, mean that Congress automatically has the power to regulate Indians on those lands.

But the Court then subtly shifted its approach. Drawing on Cherokee Nation, the Court next asserted that “Indian tribes are the wards of the nation.” Kagama, 118 U. S., at 383 (emphasis in original). Because of “their very weakness and helplessness,” it reasoned, “so largely due to the course of dealing of the Federal Government with them and the treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty of protection, and with it the power.” Id., at 384. This power “over th[e] remnants” of the Indian tribes, the Court stated, “must exist in [the federal] government, because it never has existed anywhere else,” “because it has never been denied, and because it alone can enforce its laws on all the tribes.” Id., at 384–385.

These pronouncements, however, were pure ipse dixit. The Court pointed to nothing in the text of the Constitution or its original understanding to support them. Nor did the Court give any other real support for those conclusions; instead, it cited three cases, all of which held only that States were restricted in certain ways from governing Indians on Indian lands. Id., at 384 (citing Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515 (1832); Fellows v. Blacksmith, 19 How. 366 (1856) (only the Federal Government, not private parties, can enforce