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Rh dealt with laws that governed trade with Indians, no more. See, e.g., United States v. Holliday, 3 Wall. 407 (1866) (selling liquor to Indians); Perrin v. United States, 232 U. S. 478 (1914) (same); United States v. Sandoval, 231 U. S. 28 (1913) (same); Dick v. United States, 208 U. S. 340 (1908) (selling liquor on Indian lands). Thus, even if those cases suggest a broader power, they must be taken in context. And the cases that the majority cites for its proposition turn out to be the ones that do so in the most obvious dicta. For example, Cotton Petroleum considered state taxes on Indian lands; it had no need to opine on the Commerce Clause beyond explaining that Indian tribes are not States. See 490 U. S., at 192. In a similar vein, Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44 (1996), held only that the Commerce Clause does not confer any authority to abrogate state sovereign immunity; any language about the breadth of the “Indian Commerce Clause” was wholly unnecessary to that result. Id., at 62. Shorn of their dicta, all of these precedents reflect only the longstanding—and enumerated—authority to regulate commerce with Indian tribes.

Other precedents cited by the majority that do not fit into Kagama’s conceptual framework are easily explicable as supported by other, specific powers of Congress. For example, Lone Wolf held that Congress can enact laws that violate treaties with Indians; that holding was justified by Congress’ general power to abrogate an existing law or treaty. 187 U. S., at 565–566; accord, La Abra Silver Mining Co., 175 U. S., at 460; Blackstone 90. Another treaty-based case, Delaware Tribal Business Comm. v. Weeks, 430 U. S. 73 (1977), involved the disposition of funds paid pursuant to a treaty. It therefore makes sense as a matter of both the Property and Treaty Clauses. And yet another treaty-based case involved a promise by the United States to establish a discrete trust fund with $500,000 for a Tribe, with annual interest to be paid to the Tribe. See Seminole Nation v. United States, 316 U. S. 286, 293–294 (1942).