United States v. Haul

171 F. 214
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedJuly 1, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 171 F. 214 (United States v. Haul) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Haul, 171 F. 214 (E.D. Wis. 1909).

Opinion

QUARLES, District Judge

(after stating the facts as above). The demurrer questions the jurisdiction of the government in the premises to enforce Act Jan. 30, 1897, c. 109, 29 Stat. 506. This is a serious and important question, which, for many reasons, ought to be speedily and finally settled.

The relation between the United States government and-the Indians was settled by a learned and elaborate opinion by Mr. Justice Marshall in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. 1, 8 L. Ed. 25, which opinion has been followed in many later cases. The United States, as in duty bound, assumed guardianship over the Indians as a dependent and inferior race, and as such has exercised all the functions of guardianship over them. It assumed personal control, and directed tribes to move west of the Mississippi river when their hunting grounds were obstacles in the way of advancing civilization. It corralled them upon reservations. Congress legislated to protect the Indian against the wiles of the white man as well as against his own appetite. Stringent laws were passed prohibiting the introduction of ardent spirits into the Indian country. Eor many years the tribes were recognized as possessing certain qualified sovereignty and capable of making treaties. But as time progressed experience demonstrated that the tribal relation was an insuperable obstacle to civilization. In 1871 Congress passed an act, now found in the Revised Statutes as section 2079, whereby no Indian nation or tribe as such should thereafter be recognized by treaty or otherwise. But finally the great truth was made manifest to the Indian Bureau that in civilization, as in education or religion, the individual is the unit, and that it is hopeless to undertake to civilize a tribe as such; that public sentiment is as strong a factor among a band of Indians isolated on a reservation as in a white community; that the influence of the tepee was neutralizing the training of the school. Experience showed that a graduate of Carlyle or Hampton who returned to his tribe was compelled to go back to the blanket with all that this implies. Education and culture were not popular, and were treated with ridicule and contempt. The reservation impaired the strength and vigor of the race, but did not weaken its instincts and prejudices. Finally Congress came to the wise conclusion that, if the red men were to be civilized, they must be dealt with like other foreign elements, and assume the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. Whereupon it was provided that any Indian who adopts the habits of civilized life may become a full citizen. Act Feb. 8, 1887, c. 119, § 6, 24 Stat. 390. Thereupon Congress adopted the policy of breaking up reservations and allotting the territory to the individual members of the respective bands or tribes. In the enforcement of this policy Congress declared (24 Stat. 388) that each and every member of the respective bands or tribes to whom allotments have been made [216]*216shall have the benefit of and be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the state or territory in which they may reside. This statute was construed by the Supreme Court in Re Heff, 197 U. S. 488, 499, 25 Sup. Ct. 506, 508, 49 L. Ed. 848. This case involved the supposed crime of selling liquor to an allottee outside the reservation. The Solicitor General argued that:

“The continuance of the relation as wards relates both to property and personal protection. The personal protection is at least as important, and the time of all others when Indians need this protection is when they are taking their first tentative steps as citizens.”

The court held that the government was under no constitutional obligation to perpetually continue the relationship of guardian and ward; that it might at any time abandon its guardianship, and leave the ward to assume and be .subject to all the privileges and burdens of one sui juris. At page 505 of 197 U. S., at page 510 of 25 Sup. Ct. (49 L. Ed. 848), the court say:

“The general police power is reserved to the states, subject, however, to the limitation that in its exercise the state may not trespass upon the rights and powers vested in the general government. The regulation of the sale of intoxicating liquors is one of the most common and significant exercises of the police power. And so far as it is an exercise of the police power it is within the domain of state jurisdiction.”

At page 508 of 197 U. S., at page 512 of 25 Sup. Ct. (49 L. Ed. 848), the act of 1897 is designated as a mere statute of police regulation. At page 509 of 197 U. S., at page 512 of 25 Sup. Ct. (49 L. Ed. 848), the court further say:

“When the United States grants the. privileges of citizenship to an Indian, it gives him the benefit of and requires him to be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the state. It places him outside the reach of police regulations. oh the part of Congress. That the emancipation from federal control thus created cannot be set aside at the instance of the government without the consent of the individual Indian and the state,” etc.

It is further held that two sovereignties cannot at the same time exercise the police power over a given territory.

The attention of the court was again called to the same subject in Dick v. United States, 208 U. S. 352, 28 Sup. Ct. 402, 52 L. Ed. 520, where the indictment was for introducing liquor into the Indian country. The court say:

“If this case depended alone upon the federal liquor statute forbidding the introduction of intoxicating drinks into the Indian country, we should feel obliged to adjudge that the trial court erred in not directing a verdict for the defendant; for that statute, when enacted, did not intend by the words ‘Indian country’ to embrace any body of territory in which at the time the Indian title had been extinguished, and over which, and over the inhabitants of which, the jurisdiction of the state for all purposes of government was full and complete.”

The Dick Case was differentiated by the provision in a treaty whicstipulated for the continuance of the jurisdiction and laws of the United States over the allotted territory. It would seem, therefore, that both features of the liquor law of 1897 have been considered as inapplicable to Indians who are allottees under the act of 1887. These cases would seem to rule the instant case.

[217]*217To get a comprehensive view of the legal situation we must read United States v. McBratney, 104 U. S. 621, 26 L. Ed. 869, and Draper v. United States, 164 U. S. 240, 17 Sup. Ct. 107, 41 L. Ed. 419. These cases dearly recognize the exclusive jurisdiction of any state that is admitted upon an equal footing with other states to try and punish its own citizens for offenses committed upon a reservation, in the absence of any modifying clause in statute or treaty. This doctrine as to white citizens was clearly asserted by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in State v. Doxtater, 47 Wis. 278, 2 N. W. 439, holding that, as there was no reservation of jurisdiction in the Wisconsin enabling act (Act Aug. 6, 1846, c. 89, 9 Stat. 56), the state jurisdiction over all its citizens wliereever found is complete. In United States v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 381, 6 Sup. Ct. 1109, 30 L. Ed.

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Bluebook (online)
171 F. 214, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-haul-wied-1909.