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Ward v. Race Horse

Supreme Court of the United States · 1896 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawTreatiesState SovereigntyEqual Footing DoctrineIndian Lawequal footingstate police powergame regulation

Facts

The case concerned whether a Bannock Indian could rely on Article 4 of the 1868 treaty, which granted a right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game remained and peace subsisted on the borders of the hunting districts, to kill elk within the State of Wyoming contrary to Wyoming law. The Court treated as immaterial whether the killing occurred near white settlements or on land used for cattle range, because the sole question was whether the treaty privilege could be exercised within Wyoming against state law. The place where the game was killed had been within the treaty's hunting districts in 1868. Wyoming had since been admitted to the Union with the powers of the other states, and its law regulated the taking of game within its borders.

Issue

Did the 1868 treaty with the Bannock Indians give them a continuing right to hunt on unoccupied federal lands within the State of Wyoming in violation of Wyoming's game laws after Wyoming's admission to the Union? If not, was the treaty privilege repealed or terminated insofar as those lands became subject to state authority?

Rule

A state's power to regulate the killing of game within its borders is an incident of state sovereignty. Where a prior treaty grants only a temporary and precarious hunting privilege on unoccupied lands within designated hunting districts, and a later act admits a state on an equal footing with the others without reserving that treaty burden, the treaty right is repealed or terminated to the extent it conflicts with the state's essential sovereign authority; a later act of Congress supersedes a prior treaty when the two are irreconcilable under any reasonable construction.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In 1859, the United States made a treaty with the Red Mesa Tribe allowing members to hunt on the "unoccupied lands of the United States" so long as peace remained on the borders of the tribe's designated hunting districts. Decades later, a member hunted deer on a vacant federal parcel in western Nebraska, far from the districts described in the treaty, and was charged under Nebraska game law.

How should a court applying the majority's reasoning resolve the treaty claim?

Explanation. The majority insisted that "unoccupied lands of the United States" could not be read in isolation. Read with the treaty's reference to peace on the borders of the hunting districts, the phrase was limited to unoccupied federal lands within those districts. A broad reading covering every federal parcel would make the hunting-district language meaningless.