Page:Haaland v. Brackeen.pdf/65

Rh of Thomas Jefferson 27 (C. Cullen ed. 1986).

For its part, this Court understood the absence of state authority over tribal matters as a natural corollary of Tribes’ inherent sovereignty. Precisely because Tribes exist as a “distinct community,” this Court concluded in Worcester, the “laws of [States] can have no force” as to them. 6 Pet., at 561. States could no more prescribe rules for Tribes than they could legislate for one another or a foreign sovereign. More than that, this Court recognized that “[t]he whole intercourse between the United States and [each Tribe], is by our [C]onstitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States.” Ibid. (emphasis added). State laws cannot “interfere forcibly with the relations established between the United States and [an Indian Tribe], the regulation of which, according to the settled principles of our [C]onstitution, are committed exclusively to the government of the [U]nion.” Ibid. (emphasis added). That principle, too, has endured. No one can contest the “ ‘historic immunity from state and local control’ ” that the Tribes enjoy, nor the permissibility of constitutional provisions enacted to protect the Tribes’ “sovereign status.” New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, 462 U. S. 324, 332 (1983). Tuck that point away too.

We now know that, at the founding, the Tribes retained their sovereignty. We know also that States have virtually no role to play in managing interactions with Tribes. From this, it follows that “[t]he only restriction on the power” of Tribes “in respect to [their] internal affairs” arises when their actions “conflict with the Constitution or laws of the United States.” Roff v. Burney, 168 U. S. 218, 222 (1897). In cases like that, the Constitution provides, federal law must prevail. See Art. VI. This creates a hydraulic relationship between federal and tribal authority. The more the former expands, the more the latter shrinks. All of