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28 descendants or people [s]prung from [s]ome noted head, or a collective number of people in a colony”); N. Bailey, An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (22d ed. 1770) (“a [c]ompany of [p]eople dwelling together in the [s]ame [w]ard or [l]iberty”).

This observation sheds light on why ordinary speakers use the two terms differently. It explains, for instance, why it is grammatical to say you are vacationing “in Colorado,” but not to say you are vacationing “in Navajo.” It explains why it is sensible to say you are meeting “with some Cherokee,” but not to say you are meeting “with some New Jersey.” But this point also helps us make sense of why the Legislative Branch may regulate commerce with Indian Tribes differently than it may regulate commerce among the States. Because Tribes are collections of people, the Indian Commerce Clause endows Congress with the “authority to regulate commerce with Native Americans” as individuals. McGirt v. Oklahoma, 591 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 7). By contrast, Congress’s power under the Interstate Commerce Clause operates only on commerce that involves “more States than one.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 194 (1824). In other words, commerce that takes place “among” (or between) two or more territorial units, and not just any commerce that involves some member of some State. See Green 649–654.

This Court has long appreciated these points of distinction. For example, in United States v. Holliday, 3 Wall. 407 (1866), the Court upheld a federal statute that prohibited the sale of alcohol by non-Indians to Indians—on or off tribal land. Id., at 416–417. Giving the Indian Commerce Clause its most natural reading, the Court concluded that the power to regulate commerce with Indian Tribes must mean the power to regulate “commerce with the individuals composing those [T]ribes.” Id., at 417 (emphasis added). For that reason, too, “[t]he locality of the [commerce could] have nothing to do with the [scope of the] power.” Id., at