Justice O'Connor, delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1837, the United States entered into a Treaty with several Bands of Chippewa Indians. Under the terms of this Treaty, the Indians ceded land in present-day Wisconsin and Minnesota to the United States, and the United States guaranteed
I
A
In 1837, several Chippewa Bands, including the respondent Bands here, were summoned to Fort Snelling (near present-day St. Paul, Minnesota) for the negotiation of a treaty with the United States. The United States representative at the negotiations, Wisconsin Territorial Governor Henry Dodge, told the assembled Indians that the United States wanted to purchase certain Chippewa lands east of the Mississippi River, lands located in present-day Wisconsin and Minnesota. App. 46 (1837 Journal of Treaty Negotiations). The Chippewa agreed to sell the land to the United States, but they insisted on preserving their right to hunt, fish, and gather in the ceded territory. See, e. g., id., at 70, 75-76. In response to this request, Governor Dodge stated that he would "make known to your Great Father, your request to be permitted to make sugar, on the lands; and you will be allowed, during his pleasure, to hunt and fish on them." Id., at 78. To these ends, the parties signed a treaty on July 29, 1837. In the first two articles of the 1837 Treaty, the Chippewa ceded land to the United States in return for 20 annual payments of money and goods. The United States also, in the fifth article of the Treaty, guaranteed to the Chippewa the right to hunt, fish, and gather on the ceded lands:
In 1842, many of the same Chippewa Bands entered into another Treaty with the United States, again ceding additional lands to the Federal Government in return for annuity payments of goods and money, while reserving usufructuary rights on the ceded lands. 1842 Treaty with the Chippewa, 7 Stat. 591. This Treaty, however, also contained a provision providing that the Indians would be "subject to removal therefrom at the pleasure of the President of the United States." Art. 6, id., at 592.
In the late 1840's, pressure mounted to remove the Chippewa to their unceded lands in the Minnesota Territory. On September 4, 1849, Minnesota Territorial Governor Alexander Ramsey urged the Territorial Legislature to ask the President to remove the Chippewa from the ceded land. App. 878 (Report and Direct Testimony of Dr. Bruce M. White) (hereinafter White Report). The Territorial Legislature complied by passing, in October 1849, "Joint Resolutions relative to the removal of the Chippewa Indians from the ceded lands within the Territory of Minnesota." App. to Pet. for Cert. 567 (hereinafter Joint Resolution). The Joint Resolution urged:
The historical record provides some clues into the impetus behind this push to remove the Chippewa. In his statement to the Territorial Legislature, Governor Ramsey asserted that the Chippewa needed to be removed because the white settlers in the Sauk Rapids and Swan River area were complaining about the privileges given to the Chippewa Indians. Id., at 878 (White Report). Similarly, the Territorial Legislature urged removal of the Chippewa "to ensure the security and tranquility of the white settlements" in the area. App. to Pet. for Cert. 567 (Joint Resolution). The historical evidence suggests, however, that the white settlers were complaining about the Winnebago Indians, not the Chippewa, in the Sauk Rapids area. See App. 671-672 (Cleland Report). There is also evidence that Minnesotans wanted Indians moved from Wisconsin and Michigan to Minnesota because a large Indian presence brought economic benefits with it. Specifically, an Indian presence provided opportunities to trade with Indians in exchange for their annuity payments, and to build and operate Indian agencies, schools, and farms in exchange for money. The presence of these facilities in an area also opened opportunities for patronage jobs to staff these facilities. See id., at 668-671; id., at 1095 (White Report). See also id., at 149-150 (letter from Rice
Whatever the impetus behind the removal effort, President Taylor responded to this pressure by issuing an Executive Order on February 6, 1850. The order provided:
The officials charged with implementing this order understood it primarily as a removal order, and they proceeded to implement it accordingly. See Record, Doc. No. 311, Plaintiffs' Exh. 88 (letter from Brown to Ramsey, Feb. 6, 1850); App. 161 (letter from Ramsey to Livermore, Mar. 4, 1850). See also 861 F. Supp., at 805 (citing Plaintiffs' Exh. 201 (letter from Livermore to Ramsey, Apr. 2, 1850)) (describing circular prepared to notify Indians of Executive Order); App.
The Government hoped to entice the Chippewa to remove to Minnesota by changing the location where the annuity payments—the payments for the land cessions—would be made. The Chippewa were to be told that their annuity payments would no longer be made at La Pointe, Wisconsin (within the Chippewa's ceded lands), but, rather, would be made at Sandy Lake, on unceded lands, in the Minnesota Territory. The Government's first annuity payment under this plan, however, ended in disaster. The Chippewa were told they had to be at Sandy Lake by October 25 to receive their 1850 annuity payment. See B. White, The Regional Context of the Removal Order of 1850, § 6, pp. 6-9 to 6-10 (Mar. 1994). By November 10, almost 4,000 Chippewa had assembled at Sandy Lake to receive the payment, but the annuity goods were not completely distributed until December 2. Id., at 6-10. In the meantime, around 150 Chippewa died in an outbreak of measles and dysentery; another 230 Chippewas died on the winter trip home to Wisconsin. App. 228-229 (letter from Buffalo to Lea, Nov. 6, 1851).
The Sandy Lake annuity experience intensified opposition to the removal order among the Chippewa as well as among non-Indian residents of the area. See id., at 206-207 (letter from Warren to Ramsey, Jan. 21, 1851); id., at 214 (letter from Lea to Stuart, June 3, 1851) (describing opposition to the order). See also Record, Doc. No. 311, Plaintiffs' Exh. 93 (Michigan and Wisconsin citizens voice their objections to the order to the President). In the face of this opposition, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea wrote to the Secretary of the Interior recommending that the President's 1850 order be modified to allow the Chippewa "to remain for the present in the country they now occupy." App. 215 (letter from Lea to Stuart, June 3, 1851). According to Commissioner Lea, removal of the Wisconsin Bands "is not required
Although Governor Ramsey still hoped to entice the Chippewa to remove by limiting annuity payments to only those Indians who removed to unceded lands, see id., at 235-236 (letter from Ramsey to Lea, Dec. 26, 1851), this plan, too, was quickly abandoned. In 1853, Franklin Pierce became President, and he appointed George Manypenny as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The new administration reversed Governor Ramsey's policy, and in 1853, annuity payments were once again made within the ceded territory. See, e. g., Record, Doc. No. 311, Plaintiffs' Exh. 119, p. 2 (letter from Gorman to Manypenny, Oct. 8, 1853); Plaintiffs' Exh. 122 (letter from Herriman to Gorman, Nov. 10, 1853); see also Plaintiffs'
In 1849, white lumbermen built a dam on the Rum River (within the Minnesota portion of the 1837 ceded Territory), and the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa protested that the dam interfered with its wild rice harvest. This dispute erupted in 1855 when violence broke out between the Chippewa and the lumbermen, necessitating a call for federal troops. In February 1855, the Governor of the Minnesota Territory, Willis Gorman, who also served as the ex officio superintendent of Indian affairs for the Territory, wrote to Commissioner Manypenny about this dispute. In his letter, he noted that "[t]he lands occupied by the timbermen have been surveyed and sold by the United States and the Indians have no other treaty interests except hunting and fishing. " Id., at 295— 296 (letter of Feb. 16, 1855) (emphasis added). There isno indication that Commissioner Manypenny disagreed with Governor Gorman's characterization of Chippewa treaty rights. In June of the same year, Governor Gorman wrote to Mille Lacs Chief Little Hill that even ifthe dam was located within the Mille Lacs Reservation under the 1855 Treaty, the dam "was put there long before you had any rights there except to hunt and fish." Record, Doc. No. 163, Plaintiffs' Exh. 19 (letter of June 4, 1855). Thus, as of 1855, the federal official responsible for Indian affairs in the Minnesota Territory acknowledged and recognized Chippewa rights to hunt and fish in the 1837 ceded Territory.
On the other hand, there are statements by federal officials in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century that suggest that the Federal Government no longer recognized Chippewa usufructuary rights under the 1837 Treaty.
Although the United States abandoned its removal policy, it did not abandon its attempts to acquire more Chippewa land. To this end, in the spring of 1854, Congress began considering legislation to authorize additional treaties for the purchase of Chippewa lands. The House of Representatives debated a bill "to provide for the extinguishment of the title of the Chippewa Indians to the lands owned and claimed by them in the Territory of Minnesota and State of Wisconsin." Cong. Globe, 33d Cong., 1st Sess., 1032 (1854). This bill did not require the removal of the Indians, but instead provided for the establishment of reservations within the ceded territories on which the Indians could remain.
The treaty authorization bill stalled in the Senate during 1854, but Commissioner of Indian Affairs George Manypenny began to implement it nonetheless. On August 11, he instructed Indian Agent Henry Gilbert to begin treaty negotiations to acquire more land from the Chippewa. Specifically, he instructed Gilbert to acquire "all the country" the Chippewa own or claim in the Minnesota Territory and the State of Wisconsin, except for some land that would be set aside for reservations. App. 264. Gilbert negotiated such a Treaty with several Chippewa Bands, 1854 Treaty with the Chippewa, 10 Stat. 1109, although for reasons now lost to
When the Senate finally passed the authorizing legislation in December 1854, Minnesota's territorial delegate to Congress recommended to Commissioner Manypenny that he negotiate a treaty with the Mississippi, Pillager, and Lake Winnibigoshish Bands of Chippewa Indians. App. 286-287 (letter from Rice to Manypenny, Dec. 17, 1854). Commissioner Manypenny summoned representatives of those Bands to Washington, D. C., for the treaty negotiations, which were held in February 1855. See id., at 288 (letter from Manypenny to Gorman, Jan. 4, 1855). The purpose and result of these negotiations was the sale of Chippewa lands to the United States. To this end, the first article of the 1855 Treaty contains two sentences:
Article 2 set aside lands in the area as reservations for the signatory tribes. Id., at 1166-1167. The Treaty, however, makes no mention of hunting and fishing rights, whether to reserve new usufructuary rights or to abolish rights guaranteed
A little over three years after the 1855 Treaty was signed, Minnesota was admitted to the Union. See Act of May 11, 1858, 11 Stat. 285. The admission Act is silent with respect to Indian treaty rights.
B
In 1990, the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians and several of its members filed suit in the Federal District Court for the District of Minnesota against the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and various state officers (collectively State), seeking, among other things, a declaratory judgment that they retained their usufructuary rights under the 1837 Treaty and an injunction to prevent the State's interference with those rights. The United States intervened as a plaintiff in the suit; nine counties and six private landowners intervened as defendants.
In the first decision on the Phase I issues, the District Court rejected numerous defenses posed by the defendants and set the matter for trial. 853 F.Supp. 1118 (Minn. 1994) (Murphy, C. J.). After a bench trial on the Phase I issues, the District Court concluded that the Mille Lacs Band retained its usufructuary rights as guaranteed by the 1837 Treaty. 861 F.Supp. 784 (1994). Specifically, as relevant
At this point in the case, the District Court permitted several Wisconsin Bands of Chippewa to intervene as plaintiffs
Simultaneously with this litigation, the Fond du Lac Band of Chippewa Indians and several of its members filed a separate suit against Minnesota state officials, seeking a declaration that they retained their rights to hunt, fish, and gather pursuant to the 1837 and 1854 Treaties. Two Minnesota landowners intervened as defendants,
In June 1996, the District Court consolidated that part of the Fond du Lac litigation concerning the 1837 Treaty rights with the Mille Lacs litigation for Phase II. In Phase II, the State and the Bands agreed to a Conservation Code and Management Plan to regulate hunting, fishing, and gathering in the Minnesota portion of the territory ceded in the 1837 Treaty. Even after this agreement, however, several resource allocation and regulation issues remained unresolved; the District Court resolved these issues in a final order issued in 1997. See 952 F.Supp. 1362 (Minn.) (Davis, J.).
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 124 F.3d 904 (1997). Three parts of the Eighth Circuit's decision are relevant here. First, the Eighth Circuit rejected the State's argument that President Taylor's 1850 Executive Order abrogated the Indians' hunting, fishing, and gathering rights as guaranteed by the 1837 Treaty. The Court of Appeals concluded that President Taylor did not have the authority to issue the removal order and that the invalid removal order was inseverable from the portion of the order purporting to abrogate Chippewa usufructuary rights. Id., at 914-918.
Second, the Court of Appeals concluded that the 1855 Treaty did not extinguish the Mille Lacs Band's usufructuary privileges. Id., at 919-921. The court noted that the revocation of hunting and fishing rights was neither discussed during the Treaty negotiations nor mentioned in the Treaty itself. Id., at 920. The court also rejected the State's argument that this Court's decision in Oregon Dept. of Fish and
In sum, the Court of Appeals held that the Chippewa retained their usufructuary rights under the 1837 Treaty with respect to land located in the State of Minnesota. This conclusion is consistent with the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's earlier decision holding that the Chippewa retained those same rights with respect to the ceded land located in Wisconsin. Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Voigt, 700 F.2d 341, appeal dism'd and cert. denied sub nom. Besadny v. Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, 464 U.S. 805 (1983) (Brennan, Marshall, and Stevens, JJ., would affirm). The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit denied a petition for rehearing and a suggestion for rehearing en banc. The State of Minnesota, the landowners, and the counties all filed petitions for writs of certiorari, and we granted the State's petition. 524 U.S. 915 (1998).
II
We are first asked to decide whether President Taylor's Executive Order of February 6, 1850, terminated Chippewa hunting, fishing, and gathering rights under the 1837 Treaty. The Court of Appeals began its analysis of this question with a statement of black letter law: "`The President's power, if any, to issue the order must stem either from an act of Congress
In this Court, no party challenges the Court of Appeals' conclusion that the Removal Act did not authorize the President's removal order. The landowners argue that the Removal Act was irrelevant because it applied only to land exchanges, and that even if it required consent for such land exchanges, it did not prohibit other means of removing Indians. See Brief for Respondent Thompson et al. 22-23. We agree that the Removal Act did not forbid the President's removal order, but as noted by the Court of Appeals, it also did not authorize that order.
Because the Removal Act did not authorize the 1850 removal order, we must look elsewhere for a constitutional or statutory authorization for the order. In this Court, only the landowners argue for an alternative source of authority; they argue that the President's removal order was authorized by the 1837 Treaty itself. See ibid. There is no support for this proposition, however. The Treaty makes no mention of removal, and there was no discussion of removal during the Treaty negotiations. Although the United States could have negotiated a treaty in 1837 providing for removal of the Chippewa—and it negotiated several such removal
The State argues that even if the removal portion of the order was invalid, the 1837 Treaty privileges were nevertheless revoked because the invalid removal order was severable from the portion of the order revoking Chippewa
The inquiry into whether a statute is severable is essentially an inquiry into legislative intent. Regan v. Time, Inc., 468 U.S. 641, 653 (1984) (plurality opinion). We stated the traditional test for severability over 65 years ago: "Unless it is evident that the legislature would not have enacted those provisions which are within its power, independently of that which is not, the invalid part may be dropped if what is left is fully operative as a law." Champlin Refining Co. v. Corporation Comm'n of Okla., 286 U.S. 210, 234 (1932). See also Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 684 (1987); Regan v. Time, Inc., supra, at 653. Translated to the present context, we must determine whether the President would not have revoked the 1837 Treaty privileges if he could not issue the removal order.
We think it is clear that President Taylor intended the 1850 order to stand or fall as a whole. The 1850 order embodied a single, coherent policy, the predominant purpose of which was removal of the Chippewa from the lands that they had ceded to the United States. The federal officials charged with implementing the order certainly understood it as such. As soon as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs received a copy of the order, he sent it to Governor Ramsey and placed him in charge of its implementation. The Commissioner's
When the 1850 order is understood as announcing aremoval policy, the portion of the order revoking Chippewa usufructuary rights is seen to perform an integral function in this policy. The order tells the Indians to "go," and also tells them not to return to the ceded lands to hunt and fish. The State suggests that President Taylor might also have revoked Chippewa usufructuary rights as a kind of "incentive program" to encourage the Indians to remove had he known that he could not order their removal directly. The State points to no evidence, however, that the President or his aides ever considered the abrogation of hunting and fishing rights as an "incentive program." Moreover, the State does not explain how this incentive was to operate. As the State characterizes Chippewa Treaty rights, the revocation of those rights would not have prevented the Chippewa from hunting, fishing, and gathering on the ceded territory; the revocation of treaty rights would merely have subjected Chippewa hunters, fishers, and gatherers to territorial, and, later, state regulation. Brief for Petitioners 47, n. 21. The
There is also no evidence that the treaty privileges themselves—as opposed to the presence of the Indians—caused any problems necessitating the revocation of those privileges. In other words, there is little historical evidence that the treaty privileges would have been revoked for some other purpose. The only evidence in this regard is Governor Ramsey's statement to the Minnesota Territorial Legislature that settlers in the Sauk Rapids and Swan River area were complaining about the Chippewa Treaty privileges. But the historical record suggests that the settlers were complaining about the Winnebago Indians, and not the Chippewa, in that area. See App. 671-672 (Cleland Report). When Governor Ramsey was put in charge of enforcing the 1850 Executive Order, he made no efforts to remove the Chippewa from the Sauk Rapids area or to restrict hunting and fishing privileges there. In fact, his attempts to enforce the order consisted primarily of efforts to move the Chippewa from the Wisconsin and Michigan areas to Minnesota—closer to the Sauk Rapids and Swan River settlements. App. 1099— 1100 (White Report); id., at 677-678, 1025-1027 (Cleland Report). More importantly, Governor Ramsey and the Minnesota Territorial Legislature explicitly tied revocation of the treaty privileges to removal. Common sense explains the logic of this strategy: If the legislature was concerned with ensuring "the security and tranquility of the white settlements," App. to Pet. for Cert. 567 (Joint Resolution), this concern was not addressed by merely revoking Indian treaty rights; the Indians had to be removed.
We conclude that President Taylor's 1850 Executive Order was ineffective to terminate Chippewa usufructuary rights under the 1837 Treaty. The State has pointed to no statutory or constitutional authority for the President's removal
III
The State argues that the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians relinquished its usufructuary rights under the 1855 Treaty with the Chippewa. Specifically, the State argues that the Band unambiguously relinquished its usufructuary rights by agreeing to the second sentence of Article 1 in that Treaty:
This sentence, however, does not mention the 1837 Treaty, and it does not mention hunting, fishing, and gathering rights. The entire 1855 Treaty, in fact, is devoid of any language expressly mentioning—much less abrogating—usufructuary rights. Similarly, the Treaty contains no language providing money for the abrogation of previously held rights. These omissions are telling because the United States treaty drafters had the sophistication and experience to use express language for the abrogation of treaty rights. In fact, just a few months after Commissioner Manypenny completed the 1855 Treaty, he negotiated a Treaty with the Chippewa of Sault Ste. Marie that expressly revoked fishing rights that had been reserved in an earlier Treaty. See Treaty with the Chippewa of Sault Ste. Marie, Art. 1, 11 Stat. 631 ("The said Chippewa Indians surrender to the United States the right of fishing at the falls of St. Mary's
The State argues that despite any explicit reference to the 1837 Treaty rights, or to usufructuary rights more generally, the second sentence of Article 1 nevertheless abrogates those rights. But to determine whether this language abrogates Chippewa Treaty rights, we look beyond the written words to the larger context that frames the Treaty, including "the history of the treaty, the negotiations, and the practical construction adopted by the parties." Choctaw Nation v. United States, 318 U.S. 423, 432 (1943); see also El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 525 U.S. 155, 167 (1999). In this case, an examination of the historical record provides insight into how the parties to the Treaty understood the terms of the agreement. This insight is especially helpful to the extent that it sheds light on how the Chippewa signatories to the Treaty understood the agreement because we interpret Indian treaties to give effect to the terms as the Indians themselves would have understood them. See Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U.S. 658, 675-676 (1979); United States v. Winans, 198 U.S. 371, 380-381 (1905).
The 1855 Treaty was designed primarily to transfer Chippewa land to the United States, not to terminate Chippewa usufructuary rights. It was negotiated under the authority of the Act of December 19, 1854. This Act authorized treaty
In the winter of 1854-1855, Commissioner Manypenny summoned several Chippewa chiefs to Washington, D. C., to begin negotiations over the sale of Chippewa land in Minnesota to the United States. See App. 288 (letter from Manypenny to Gorman, Jan. 4, 1855). The negotiations ran from February 12 through February 22. Commissioner Manypenny opened the negotiations by telling the Chippewa chiefs that his goal for the negotiations was to buy a portion of their land, id., at 304 (1855 Treaty Journal), and he stayed firm to this proposed course throughout the talks, focusing the discussions on the purchase of Chippewa land. Indeed all of the participants in the negotiations, including the Indians, understood that the purpose of the negotiations was to transfer Indian land to the United States. The Chief of the Pillager Band of Chippewa stated: "It appears to me that I understand what you want, and your views from the few words I have heard you speak. You want land." Id., at 309 (1855 Treaty Journal) (statement of Flat Mouth). Commissioner Manypenny confirmed that the chief correctly understood the purpose of the negotiations:
Like the authorizing legislation, the Treaty Journal, recording the course of the negotiations themselves, is silent with respect to usufructuary rights. The journal records no discussion of the 1837 Treaty, of hunting, fishing, and gathering rights, or of the abrogation of those rights. Id., at 297-356. This silence suggests that the Chippewa did not understand the proposed Treaty to abrogate their usufructuary rights as guaranteed by other treaties. It is difficult to believe that in 1855, the Chippewa would have agreed to relinquish the usufructuary rights they had fought to preserve in 1837 without at least a passing word about the relinquishment.
After the Treaty was signed, President Pierce submitted it to the Senate for ratification, along with an accompanying memorandum from Commissioner Manypenny describing the Treaty he had just negotiated. Like the Treaty and the Treaty Journal, this report is silent about hunting, fishing, and gathering rights. Id., at 290-294 (message of the President of the United States communicating a treaty made with the Mississippi, the Pillager, and the Lake Winnibigoshish Bands of Chippewa Indians).
Commissioner Manypenny's memorandum on the 1855 Treaty is illuminating not only for what it did not say, but also for what it did say: The report suggests a purpose for the second sentence of Article 1. According to the Commissioner's report, the Treaty provided for the purchase of between 11 and 14 million acres of Chippewa land within the boundaries defined by the first article. In addition to this defined tract of land, the Commissioner continued, "those Indians (and especially the Pillager and Lake Winnibigoshish bands) have some right of interest in a large extent of other lands in common with other Indians in Minnesota, and which
One final part of the historical record also suggests that the 1855 Treaty was a land purchase treaty and not a treaty that also terminated usufructuary rights: the 1854 Treaty with the Chippewa. Most of the Chippewa Bands that resided within the territory ceded by the 1837 Treaty were signatories to the 1854 Treaty; only the Mille Lacs Band was a party to the 1855 Treaty. If the United States had intended to abrogate Chippewa usufructuary rights under the 1837 Treaty, it almost certainly would have included a provision to that effect in the 1854 Treaty, yet that Treaty contains no such provision. To the contrary, it expressly secures new usufructuary rights to the signatory Bands on the newly ceded territory. The State proposes no explanation— compelling or otherwise—for why the United States would have wanted to abrogate the Mille Lacs Band's hunting and fishing rights, while leaving intact the other Bands' rights to hunt and fish on the same territory.
To attack the conclusion that the 1855 Treaty does not abrogate the usufructuary rights guaranteed under the 1837 Treaty, the State relies primarily on our decision in Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife v. Klamath Tribe, 473 U.S. 753 (1985). Klamath required this Court to interpret two agreements. In the first agreement, an 1864 Treaty between the United States and several Indian Tribes now collectively known as the Klamath Indian Tribe, the Indians conveyed their remaining lands to the United States, and a portion of this land was set aside as a reservation. Id., at 755. The 1864 Treaty provided that the Tribe had the "`exclusive right of taking fish in the streams and lakes, included in said reservation, and of gathering edible roots, seeds, and berries within its limits,' " but it provided for no offreservation usufructuary rights. Ibid. (quoting Treaty of Oct. 14, 1864). Due to a surveying error, the reservation excluded land that, under the terms of the Treaty, should
We rejected the Tribe's argument and held that it had in fact relinquished its usufructuary rights to the lands at issue. We recognized that the 1864 Treaty had secured certain usufructuary rights to the Tribe, but we also recognized, based on an analysis of the specific terms of the Treaty, that the 1864 Treaty restricted those rights to the lands within the reservation. Id., at 766-767. Because the rights were characterized as "exclusive," this "foreclose[d] the possibility that they were intended to have existence outside of the reservation." Id., at 767. In other words, "because the right to hunt and fish reserved in the 1864 Treaty was an exclusive right to be exercised within the reservation, that right could not consistently survive off the reservation" on the lands the Tribe had sold. Id., at 769-770. This understanding of the Tribe's usufructuary rights under the 1864 Treaty—that those rights were exclusive, on-reservation rights—informed our conclusion that the Klamath Tribe did not retain any usufructuary rights on the land that it ceded in the 1901 agreement, land that was not part of the reservation. In addition, we noted that there was nothing in the historical record of the 1901 agreement that suggested that the parties intended to change the background understanding of the scope of the usufructuary rights. Id., at 772-773.
Klamath does not control this case. First, the Chippewa's usufructuary rights under the 1837 Treaty existed independently of land ownership; they were neither tied to a
IV
Finally, the State argues that the Chippewa's usufructuary rights under the 1837 Treaty were extinguished when Minnesota was admitted to the Union in 1858. In making this argument, the State faces an uphill battle. Congress may abrogate Indian treaty rights, but it must clearly express its intent to do so. United States v. Dion, 476 U.S. 734, 738-740 (1986); see also Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S., at 690; Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U.S. 404, 413 (1968). There must be "clear evidence that Congress actually considered the conflict between its intended action on the one hand and Indian treaty rights on the other, and chose
This language, like the rest of the Act, makes no mention of Indian treaty rights; it provides no clue that Congress considered the reserved rights of the Chippewa and decided to abrogate those rights when it passed the Act. The State concedes that the Act is silent in this regard, Brief for Petitioners 36, and the State does not point to any legislative history describing the effect of the Act on Indian treaty rights.
With no direct support for its argument, the State relies principally on this Court's decision in Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U.S. 504 (1896). In Race Horse, we held that a Treaty reserving to a Tribe "`the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States, so long as game may be found thereon, and so long as peace subsists among the whites and Indians on the borders of the hunting districts' " terminated when Wyoming became a State in 1890. Id., at 507 (quoting Art. 4 of the Treaty). This case does not bear the weight the State places on it, however, because it has been qualified by later decisions of this Court.
The first part of the holding in Race Horse was based on the "equal footing doctrine," the constitutional principle that all States are admitted to the Union with the same attributes of sovereignty (i. e., on equal footing) as the original 13 States. See Coyle v. Smith, 221 U.S. 559 (1911). As relevant here, it prevents the Federal Government from impairing
But Race Horse rested on a false premise. As this Court's subsequent cases have made clear, an Indian tribe's treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather on state land are not irreconcilable with a State's sovereignty over the natural resources in the State. See, e. g., Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., supra; see also Antoine v. Washington, 420 U.S. 194 (1975). Rather, Indian treaty rights can coexist with state management of natural resources. Although States have important interests in regulating wildlife and natural resources within their borders, this authority is shared with the Federal Government when the Federal Government exercises one of its enumerated constitutional powers, such as treaty making. U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2. See, e. g., Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416 (1920); Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U.S. 529 (1976); United States v. Winans, 198 U. S., at 382-384; United States v. Forty-three Gallons of Whiskey, 93 U.S. 188 (1876). See also Menominee Tribe v. United States, supra, at 411, n. 12. Here, the 1837 Treaty gave the Chippewa the right to hunt, fish, and gather in the ceded territory free of territorial, and later state, regulation, a privilege that others did not enjoy. Today, this freedom from state regulation curtails the State's ability to regulate hunting, fishing, and gathering by the Chippewa in the ceded lands. But this Court's cases have also recognized that Indian treaty-based usufructuary rights do not guarantee the Indians "absolute freedom" from state regulation. Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife v. Klamath
We do not understand Justice Thomas to disagree with this fundamental conclusion. Race Horse rested on the premise that treaty rights are irreconcilable with state sovereignty. It is this conclusion—the conclusion undergirding the Race Horse Court's equal footing holding—that we have consistently rejected over the years. Justice Thomas' only disagreement is as to the scope of state regulatory authority. His disagreement is premised on a purported distinction between "rights" and "privileges." This Court has never used a distinction between rights and privileges
The equal footing doctrine was only part of the holding in Race Horse, however. We also announced an alternative holding: The treaty rights at issue were not intended to survive Wyoming's statehood. We acknowledged that Congress, in the exercise of its authority over territorial lands, has the power to secure off-reservation usufructuary rights to Indian tribes through a treaty, and that "it would be also within the power of Congress to continue them in the State, on its admission into the Union." 163 U. S., at 515. We also acknowledged that if Congress intended the rights to survive statehood, there was no need for Congress to preserve those rights explicitly in the statehood Act. We concluded, however, that the particular rights in the Treaty at issue there— "the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States"—were not intended to survive statehood. Id., at 514; see id., at 514-515.
The Chief Justice reads Race Horse to establish a rule that "temporary and precarious" treaty rights, as opposed to treaty rights "which were `of such a nature as to imply their perpetuity,' " are not intended to survive statehood. Post, at 219. But the "temporary and precarious" language in Race Horse is too broad to be useful in distinguishing rights that survive statehood from those that do not. In Race
The focus of the Race Horse inquiry is whether Congress (more precisely, because this is a treaty, the Senate) intended the rights secured by the 1837 Treaty to survive statehood. Id., at 514-515. The 1837 Treaty itself defines the circumstances under which the rights would terminate: when the exercise of those rights was no longer the "pleasure of the President." There is no suggestion in the Treaty that the President would have to conclude that the privileges should end when a State was established in the area. Moreover, unlike the rights at issue in Race Horse, there is no fixed termination point to the 1837 Treaty rights. The Treaty in Race Horse contemplated that the rights would continue only so long as the hunting grounds remained unoccupied and owned by the United States; the happening of these conditions was "clearly contemplated" when the Treaty was ratified. Id., at 509. By contrast, the 1837 Treaty does not tie the duration of the rights to the occurrence of some clearly contemplated event. Finally, we note that there is nothing inherent in the nature of reserved treaty rights to suggest that they can be extinguished by implication at statehood. Treaty rights are not impliedly terminated upon statehood. Wisconsin v. Hitchcock, 201 U.S. 202, 213-214 (1906); Johnson v. Gearlds, 234 U.S. 422, 439-440 (1914). The Race Horse Court's decision to the contrary—that Indian treaty rights were impliedly repealed by Wyoming's statehood Act—was informed by that Court's conclusion that the Indian treaty rights were inconsistent with state sovereignty
Accordingly, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whom Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
The Court holds that the various Bands of Chippewa Indians retain a usufructuary right granted to them in an 1837 Treaty. To reach this result, the Court must successively conclude that: (1) an 1850 Executive Order explicitly revoking the privilege as authorized by the 1837 Treaty was unlawful; (2) an 1855 Treaty under which certain Chippewa Bands ceded "all" interests to the land does not include the treaty right to come onto the land and hunt; and (3) the admission of Minnesota into the Union in 1858 did not terminate the discretionary hunting privilege, despite established precedent of this Court to the contrary. Because I believe that each one of these three conclusions is demonstrably wrong, I dissent.
I
I begin with the text of the Treaty negotiated in 1837. In that Treaty, the Chippewa ceded land to the United States in exchange for specified consideration. Article 1 of the Treaty describes the land ceded by the Chippewa to the United States. Article 2 of the 1837 Treaty provides:
"5. Two thousand dollars in provisions.
"6. Five hundred dollars in tobacco.
Thus, in exchange for the land cessions, the Chippewa agreed to receive an annuity payment of money, goods, and the implements necessary for creating blacksmith's shops and farms, for a limited duration of 20 years.
As the Court also notes, the Chippewa were aware that their right to come onto the ceded land was not absolute— the Court quotes the statement of Governor Dodge to the Chippewa that he would "`make known to your Great Father, your request to be permitted to make sugar, on the lands; and you will be allowed, during his pleasure, to hunt and fish on them.' " Ante, at 176; App. 46 (1837 Journal of Treaty Negotiations).
Thus, the Treaty by its own plain terms provided for a quid pro quo: Land was ceded in exchange for a 20-year annuity of money and goods. Additionally, the United States granted the Chippewa a quite limited "privilege" to hunt and fish, "guarantied . . . during the pleasure of the President." Art. 5, 7 Stat. 537.
II
In 1850, President Taylor expressly terminated the 1837 Treaty privilege by Executive Order. The Executive Order provides:
In deciding that this seemingly ironclad revocation was not effective as a matter of law, the Court rests its analysis on four findings. First, the Court notes that the President's power to issue the order must stem either from an Act of Congress or the Constitution itself. Second, the Court determines that the Executive Order was a "removal order." Third, the Court finds no authority for the President to order the Chippewa to remove from the ceded lands. And fourth, the Court holds that the portion of the Executive Order extinguishing the hunting and fishing rights is not severable from the "removal order" and thus also was illegal. I shall address each of these dubious findings in turn.
The Court's first proposition is the seemingly innocuous statement that a President's Executive Order must be authorized by law in order to have any legal effect. In so doing, the Court quotes our decision in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 585 (1952), which held that President Truman's seizure of the steel mills by Executive Order during the Korean War was unlawful. However, the Court neglects to note that treaties, every bit as much as statutes, are sources of law and may also authorize Executive actions. See Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654, 680 (1981). In Dames & Moore, we noted that where the President acts with the implied consent of Congress in his Executive actions, "he exercises not only his own powers but also those delegated by Congress," and that such an action was entitled to high deference as to its legality. Id., at 668. This case involves an even stronger case for deference to Executive power than Dames & Moore, in which Presidential power under an Executive agreement was impliedly authorized by Congress, because the Executive Order in this
The Court's second assumption is that the Executive Order was a "removal order"—that its primary purpose was the removal of the Chippewa. This assumption rests upon scattered historical evidence that, in the Court's view, "[t]he officials charged with implementing this order understood it primarily as a removal order, and they proceeded to implement it accordingly." Ante, at 179. Regardless of what the President's remote frontier agents may have thought, the plain meaning of the text of President Taylor's order can only support the opposite conclusion. The structure of the Executive Order is not that of a removal order, with the revocation of the hunting privileges added merely as an afterthought. Instead, the first part of the order (not to mention the bulk of its text) deals with the extinguishment of the Indians' privilege to enter onto the lands ceded to the United States and hunt. Only then (and then only in its final five words) does the Executive Order require the Indians to "remove to their unceded lands." App. to Pet. for Cert. 565 (Exec. Order, Feb. 6, 1850).
If the structure and apparent plain meaning of the Executive Order reveal that the order was primarily a revocation of the privilege to hunt during the President's pleasure, what then should we make of the fact that the officials charged with "implementing" the order viewed their task as primarily effecting removal? The answer is simple. First, the bulk of the Executive Order that terminates the hunting privilege was self-executing. Second, while the President could terminate the legal right (i. e., the privilege to enter onto the ceded lands and hunt) without taking enforcement action, a removal order would require actual implementation. The historical evidence cited by the Court is best
The Court's third finding is that the removal portion of the order is invalid because President Taylor had no authority to order removal. Although the Court sensibly concludes that the Removal Act of 1830 is inapplicable to this case, it then curiously rejects the notion that the 1837 Treaty authorizes removal, largely on the grounds that "[t]he Treaty makes no mention of removal." Ante, at 189. The Court is correct that the Treaty does not mention removal, but this is because the Treaty was essentially a deed of conveyance— it transferred land to the United States in exchange for goods and money. After the Treaty was executed and ratified, the ceded lands belonged to the United States, and the only real property interest in the land remaining to the Indians was the privilege to come onto it and hunt during the pleasure of the President. When the President terminated that privilege (a legal act that the Court appears to concede he had a right to make, ante, at 193-194), he terminated the Indians' right to come onto the ceded lands and hunt. The Indians had no legal right to remain on the ceded lands for that purpose, and the removal portion of the order should be viewed in this context. Indeed, the Indians then had no legal rights at all with respect to the ceded lands, in which all title was vested in the United States. And this Court has long held that the President has the implied power to administer the public lands. See, e. g., United States v. Mid-
But even if I were to assume that the President were without authority to order removal, I would conclude that the removal provision is severable from that terminating the treaty privileges. There is no dispute that the President had authority under the 1837 Treaty to terminate the treaty privileges. We have long held that "[w]hen the President acts pursuant to an express or implied authorization from Congress, . . . the executive action `would be supported by the strongest of presumptions and the widest latitude of judicial interpretation, and the burden of persuasion would rest heavily upon any who might attack it.' " Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U. S., at 668 (quoting Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S., at 637 (Jackson, J., concurring)). Against this deferential standard, the Court musters little more than conjecture and inference, reinforced by its upside-down reading of the Executive Order's plain text. Not only does the Court invert the plain meaning of the Executive Order, it inverts the proper standard of review. Given the deference we are to accord this valid action made pursuant to a treaty, the order's termination of
Rather than engage in the flawed analysis put forward by the Court, I would instead hold that the Executive Order constituted a valid revocation of the Chippewa's hunting and fishing privileges. Pursuant to a Treaty, the President terminated the Indians' hunting and fishing privileges in an Executive Order which stated, in effect, that the privilege to come onto federal lands and hunt was terminated, and that the Indians move themselves from those lands.
No party has questioned the President's power to terminate the hunting privilege; indeed, the only other evidence in the record of a President's intent regarding the Executive Order is a 1938 letter from President Franklin Roosevelt to one of the Chippewa, in which he stated his understanding that the Indians had "temporarily" enjoyed "the right to hunt and fish on the area ceded by them until such right was revoked by the President" in the 1850 Executive Order. App. to Pet. for Cert. 575 (letter from President Roosevelt to Whitebird, Mar. 1, 1938). President Roosevelt went on to add that since the right to hunt and fish was terminated in 1850, the Chippewa "now have no greater right to hunt or fish on the ceded area . . . than do the other citizens of the State. Therefore, the Indians who hunt or fish . . . are amenable to the State game laws and are subject to arrest and conviction [f]or violation thereof." Id., at 576.
III
Although I believe that the clear meaning of the Executive Order is sufficient to resolve this case, and that it is unnecessary to address the Court's treatment of the 1855 Treaty and the 1858 admission of Minnesota to the Union, I shall briefly express my strong disagreement with the Court's analysis on these issues also.
As the Court notes, in 1855, several of the Chippewa Bands agreed, in exchange for further annuity payments of money and goods, to "fully and entirely relinquish and convey to the United States, any and all right, title, and interest, of whatsoever nature the same may be, which they now have in, and to any other lands in the Territory of Minnesota or elsewhere." 10 Stat. 1166. The plain meaning of this provision is a relinquishment of the Indians of "all" rights to the land. The Court, however, interprets this provision in a manner contrary to its plain meaning by first noting that the provision does not mention "usufructuary" rights. It argues, citing examples, that since the United States "had the sophistication and experience to use express language for the abrogation of treaty rights," ante, at 195, but did not mention the 1837 Treaty rights in drafting this
I think this conclusion strained, indeed. First, the language of the Treaty is so broad as to encompass "all " interests in land possessed or claimed by the Indians. Second, while it is important to the Court that the Treaty "is devoid of any language expressly mentioning—much less abrogating—usufructuary rights," ibid., the definition of "usufructuary rights" explains further why this is so. Usufructuary rights are "a real right of limited duration on the property of another." See Black's Law Dictionary 1544 (6th ed. 1990). It seems to me that such a right would fall clearly under the sweeping language of the Treaty under any reasonable interpretation, and that this is not a case where "even `learned lawyers' of the day would probably have offered differing interpretations of the [treaty language]." Cf. Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U.S. 658, 677 (1979). And third, although the Court notes that in other treaties the United States sometimes expressly mentioned cessions of usufructuary rights, there was no need to do so in this case, because the settled expectation of the United States was that the 1850 Executive Order had terminated the hunting rights of the Chippewa. Thus, rather than applying the plain and unequivocal language of the 1855 Treaty, the Court holds that "all" does not in fact mean "all."
Finally, I note my disagreement with the Court's treatment of the equal footing doctrine, and its apparent overruling sub silentio of a precedent of 103 years' vintage. In Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U.S. 504 (1896), we held that a Treaty granting the Indians "the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States, so long as game may be found thereon, and so long as peace subsists among the whites and the Indians on the borders of the hunting districts," did not survive the admission of Wyoming to the Union since the treaty right was "temporary and precarious." Id., at 515.
But the Court, in a feat of jurisprudential legerdemain, effectively overrules Race Horse sub silentio. First, the Court notes that Congress may only abrogate Indian treaty rights if it clearly expresses its intent to do so. Next, it asserts that Indian hunting rights are not irreconcilable with state sovereignty, and determines that "because treaty rights are reconcilable with state sovereignty over natural resources, statehood by itself is insufficient to extinguish Indian treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather on land within state boundaries." Ante, at 205. And finally, the Court hints that Race Horse rested on an incorrect premise—that Indian rights were inconsistent with state sovereignty.
Without saying so, this jurisprudential bait-and-switch effectively overrules Race Horse, a case which we reaffirmed as recently as 1985 in Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife v. Klamath Tribe, 473 U.S. 753 (1985). Race Horse held merely that treaty rights which were only "temporary and precarious," as opposed to those which were "of such a nature as to imply their perpetuity," do not survive statehood.
Perhaps the strongest indication of the temporary nature of the treaty rights is presented unwittingly by the Court in its repeated (and correct) characterizations of the rights as "usufructuary." As noted supra, at 218, usufructuary rights are by definition "of limited duration." Black's Law Dictionary, supra, at 1544. Thus, even if the Executive Order is invalid; and even if the 1855 Treaty did not cover the usufructuary rights: Under Race Horse, the temporary and precarious treaty privileges were eliminated by the admission of Minnesota to the Union on an equal footing in 1858. Today the Court appears to invalidate (or at least substantially limit) Race Horse, without offering any principled reason to do so.
V
The Court today invalidates for no principled reason a 149-year-old Executive Order, ignores the plain meaning of a 144-year-old treaty provision, and overrules sub silentio a 103-year-old precedent of this Court. I dissent.
Justice Thomas, dissenting.
I join The Chief Justice 2122s dissent, but also write separately because contrary to the majority's assertion, in dicta,
As the Court has ruled today that the Chippewa retain the privilege to hunt, fish, and gather on the land they ceded in the 1837 Treaty, the question of the scope of the State's regulatory power over the Chippewas' exercise of those privileges assumes great significance—any limitations that the Federal Treaty may impose upon Minnesota's sovereign authority over its natural resources exact serious federalism costs. The questions presented, however, do not require the Court to decide whether the 1837 Treaty limits the State's regulatory authority in any way. All that they require is a judgment as to whether the usufructuary privileges at issue survive three potentially extinguishing events: President Taylor's 1850 Executive Order, the 1855 Treaty, and Minnesota's admission to the Union in 1858.
The Court nevertheless offers the following observation:
In light of the importance of this federalism question, the Court should not pass on it, even in dicta, without the benefit of the parties' briefing and argument. But as the Court has done so, I think it important to explain my disagreement with the italicized propositions.
The plain language of the 1837 Treaty says nothing about territorial, let alone future state, regulation. The historical evidence that the Court reviews, ante, at 176-178, to the extent that it is relevant, is likewise silent as to whether the Chippewa expected to be subject to any form of regulation
Indeed, the Court retreats from its assertion that the 1837 Treaty gave the Chippewa an unlimited right to hunt, fish, and gather free from regulation when it states: "We have repeatedly reaffirmed state authority to impose reasonable and necessary nondiscriminatory regulations on Indian hunting, fishing, and gathering rights in the interest of conservation." Ante, at 205. If the 1837 Treaty gives the Chippewa a right to be free from state regulation, why may Minnesota impose any regulations, reasonable and necessary or otherwise? The Court's answer to that question is that our prior decisions have established that Indians never have "`absolute freedom,' " ante, at 204, from state regulation, no matter what a treaty might say; rather, Indians' hunting, fishing, and gathering activities are limited by those state regulations which are necessary for ensuring the conservation of natural resources.
To be sure, Indians do not have absolute freedom from state regulation of their off-reservation activities. Indeed, the general rule is that the off-reservation activities of Indians are subject to a State's nondiscriminatory laws, absent express federal law to the contrary. See, e. g., Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife v. Klamath Tribe, 473 U.S. 753, 765, n. 16 (1985); New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe, 462 U.S. 324, 335, n. 18 (1983). The majority, however, overlooks the fact that the scope of a State's regulatory authority depends upon the language of the treaty in question. At a minimum, States may issue and enforce those regulations of Indians' off-reservation usufructuary activities that are necessary in the interest of conservation. Our decisions suggest that state regulatory authority is so limited when, with
The conservation necessity standard appears to have its origin in Tulee v. Washington, 315 U.S. 681 (1942). In the 1859 Treaty with the Yakima Indians, the Yakima reserved "`the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places, in common with citizens of the Territory.' " Id., at 683 (quoting 12 Stat. 953). The Court held that Washington State had the "power to impose on Indians, equally with others, such restrictions of apurely regulatory nature concerning the time and manner of fishing outside the reservation as are necessary for the conservation of fish, " but that the Treaty foreclosed "the state from charging the Indians a fee of the kind in question." 315 U. S., at 684 (emphasis added). Its conclusion was driven by the language of the Treaty as well as the report of the treaty negotiations and what it revealed to be the Yakimas' understanding of the Treaty—to preserve their right "to hunt and fish in accordance with the immemorial customs of their tribes. " Ibid. (emphasis added).
In New York ex rel. Kennedy v. Becker, 241 U.S. 556 (1916), the Court considered significantly different language. The Big Tree Treaty of 1797, as the agreement was known, provided that the Seneca were to retain "the privilege of fishing and hunting on the said tract of land" conveyed by the agreement. 7 Stat. 602 (emphasis added); see also 241 U. S., at 562 (quoting the reservation clause). The Court characterized the Senecas' claim as one "sought to be maintained in derogation of the sovereignty of the State." Ibid. In rejecting such a claim, it stated:
The only fair reading of Kennedy is that the Treaty reserved for the Seneca a privilege in common with all persons to whom the State chose to extend fishing and hunting privileges. The Court did not indicate that the Treaty limited New York's regulatory authority with respect to the Seneca in any way. See id., at 564 (the treaty privilege was subject to "that necessary power of appropriate regulation, as to all those privileged, which inhered in the sovereignty of the State over the lands where the privilege was exercised" (emphasis added)). Of course, then, what was "appropriate" state regulation as applied to non-Indians was "appropriate" regulation as applied to the Seneca. Cf. Puyallup Tribe, supra, at 402, n. 14 ("The measure of the legal propriety of [regulations that are to be measured by the conservation necessity standard] is . . . distinct from the federal constitutional standard concerning the scope of the police power of a State").
This language more closely resembles the language of the Big Tree Treaty at issue in Kennedy. Although Minnesota's regulatory authority is not at issue here, in the appropriate case we must explain whether reserved treaty privileges limit States' ability to regulate Indians' off-reservation usufructuary activities in the same way as a treaty reserving rights.
FootNotes
Carter G. Phillips, Virginia A. Seitz, and John Bell filed a brief for the National Congress of American Indians et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.
Douglas Y. Freeman filed a brief for the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance as amicus curiae.
The Chief Justice also argues that the removal order ought to be severable from the part of the order purporting to extinguish Chippewa usufructuary rights because of the strong presumption supporting the legality of executive action that has been authorized expressly or by implication. Post, at 215-216. Presumably, The Chief Justice understands the 1837 Treaty to authorize the executive action in question. In this context, however, any general presumption about the legality of executive action runs into the principle that treaty ambiguities are to be resolved in favor of the Indians. Winters v. United States, supra, at 576— 577; see also County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 502 U.S. 251, 269 (1992). We do not think the general presumption relied upon by The Chief Justice carries the same weight when balanced against the counter presumption specific to Indian treaties.
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