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Rh Even as the Constitutional Convention assembled, a committee of the Continental Congress noted that it “had been long understood and pretty well ascertained” that the Crown’s absolute powers to “manag[e] Affairs with the Indians” passed in its “entire[ty] to the Union” following Independence, meaning that “[t]he laws of the State can have no effect upon a [T]ribe of Indians or their lands within the limits of the [S]tate so long as that [T]ribe is independent.” 33 Journals of the Continental Congress 1774–1789, p. 458 (R. Hill ed. 1936). That had to be so, the committee observed, for the same reason that individual States could not enter treaties with foreign powers: “[T]he Indian [T]ribes are justly considered the common friends or enemies of the United States, and no particular [S]tate can have an exclusive interest in the management of Affairs with any of the [T]ribes.” Id., at 459.

This understanding found its way directly into the text of the Constitution. The final version assigned the newly formed federal government a bundle of powers that encompassed “all that is required for the regulation of [the Nation’s] intercourse with the Indians.” Worcester, 6 Pet., at 559. By contrast, the Constitution came with no indication that States had any similar sort of power. Indeed, it omitted the nettlesome language in the Articles about the “legislative right” of States. Not only that. The Constitution’s express exclusion of “Indians not taxed” from the apportionment formula, Art. I, §2, cl. 3, threw cold water on some States’ attempts to claim that Tribes fell within their territory—and therefore their control. And, lest any doubt remain, the Constitution divested States of any power to “enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation.” §10, cl. 1. By removing that diplomatic power, the Constitution’s design also divested them of the leading tool for managing tribal relations at that time.

The Constitution’s departure from the Articles’