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36 that they dealt not with “Indians who have left or never inhabited reservations set aside for their exclusive use or who do not possess the usual accoutrements of tribal self-government,” but only with Indians residing on Indian lands. McClanahan v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S. 164, 167–168 (1973); accord, Fisher v. District Court of Sixteenth Judicial Dist. of Mont., 424 U. S. 382, 383 (1976) (per curiam) (dealing with “an adoption proceeding in which all parties are members of the Tribe and residents of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation”); United States v. Algoma Lumber Co., 305 U. S. 415, 417 (1939) (regulations of “contracts for the sale of timber on land of the Klamath Indian Reservation”). In case after case, the law at issue purported to reach only tribal governments or tribal lands, no more.

To be sure, applying Kagama’s conceptual framework ultimately reveals a catch-22 of sorts: If Congress regulates tribal governments as a matter of external affairs, then such regulation seems to undercut the very tribal sovereignty that serves as the basis for that congressional power. See Lara, 541 U. S., at 214–215 (, concurring in judgment). But that appears to be a hallmark of Kagama and its progeny, not a peculiarity. As Chief Justice Marshall once stated, Indians are neither wholly foreign nor wholly domestic, but are instead “domestic dependent nations,” akin to “ ‘[t]ributary’ ” states. Worcester, 6 Pet., at 561; Cherokee Nation, 5 Pet., at 16–17. It may be that this contradiction is simply baked into our Indian jurisprudence. And, in any event, recognizing the proper conceptual root for these precedents makes the most sense of them as a textual and original matter—and it is surely preferable to continuing along this meandering and ill-defined path.

Yet, even confining Kagama’s conceptual error to its roots, the majority seems concerned that other precedents suggest that the Commerce Clause has broader application with respect to Indian affairs. But many of this Court’s precedents, even when referring to some broader power,