834 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



exercising some of the functions of nationality ; but by act of Congress 

 of March 3, 1871, it was provided that hereafter no recognition by 

 treaty or otherwise should be made by the United States of the claim 

 of any Indian tribe as being an independent nation, tribe, or power. 

 They hold a relation of wardship to the General Government and are 

 subject to its control. A State legislature has no jurisdiction over the 

 Indian territory contained within the territorial limits of the State ; but 

 in the case of New York v. Dibble (21 Howard, 3G6) it was decided 

 that the State holds the sovereign police authority over the persons and 

 property of the Indians, so far as necessary to preserve the peace and 

 protect them from imposition and intrusion. 



In regard to right of soil, it was settled in the case of The United 

 States v. Eogers (4 Howard, 5G7) that the Indian tribes are not the 

 owners of the territories occupied by them. These are vacant or un- 

 occupied public lands, belonging to the United States. 



In the case of Johnson v. Mcintosh (8 Wheaton, 543) it was held 

 that the Indian tribes were incompetent to transfer any rights to the 

 soil, and that any such conveyances were void ab initio, the right of 

 property not subsisting in the grantors. The right of making such 

 grants was originally in the Crown, but by the treaty of 1783 it was 

 surrendered to the United States. In previous pages has been shown 

 the process by which several of the States originally composing the 

 American Union divested themselves of this right by transferring both 

 territorial jurisdiction and title to the soil by cession to- the General 

 Government. In the case last mentioned Chief Justice Marshall, in 

 delivering the opinion of the court, thus grounded the right of the 

 Government upon prior discovery: 



The United States, then, have unequivocally acceded to that great and broad rule 

 by which its civilized inhabitants now hold this country. They hold and assert in 

 themselves the title by which it was acquired. They maintain, as all others have 

 maintained, that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of 

 occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest, and gave also a right to such a degree 

 of sovereignty as the circumstances of the people would allow them to exercise. 



The power now possessed by the Government of the United States to grant lands 

 resided, while we were colonies, in the Crown or its grantees. The validity of the titles 

 given by either has never been questioned in our courts. It has been exercised uni- 

 formly over territory in possession of the Indians. The existence of this power must 

 negative the existence of any right which may conflict with or control it. An absolute 

 title to lands cannot exist at the same time in different persons or in different govern- 

 ments. An absolute must be an exclusive title, or at least a title which excludes all 

 others not compatible with it. All our institutions recognize the absolute title of the 

 Crown, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy, and recognize the absolute title 

 of the Crown to extinguish that right. This is incompatible with an absolute and 

 conrplete title in the Indians. 



We will not enter into the controversy whether agriculturists, merchants, and man- 

 ufacturers have a right, on abstract principles, to expel hunters from the territory they 

 possess, or to contract their limits. Conquest gives a title which the courts of the 

 conqueror cannot deny, whatever the private and speculative opinions of individuals 

 may be respecting the original justice of the claim which has been successfully as- 



