States' Rights, Welfare Rights, and the "Indian Problem": Negotiating Citizenship and Sovereignty, 1935-1954 KAREN M. TANI "What distinguishes the American Indians from other native groups is ... the nature of their relationship with a government which, while protecting their welfare and their rights, is committed to the principles of tribal self-government and the legal equality of races." Felix S. Cohen, Chairman, Board of Appeals, United States Department of Interior (1942jl I. Felix S. Cohen, "The Spanish Origins oflndian Rights in the Law of the United States," Georgetown LawJourna/31 (1942): 21. Karen M. Tani is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley <
[email protected]>. For close readings and constructive criticisms, she thanks Gregory Ablavsky, Bethany Berger, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Katherine Florey, Tony Freyer, Sarah Barringer Gordon, Alexander Gourse, Ariela Gross, Martha Jones, Amalia Kessler, Jeremy Kessler, Doug Kiel, Felicia Kombluh, Julian Lim, Melissa Murray, William Novak, Zachary Price, K. Sabeel Rahman, Elizabeth Anne Reese, Keith Richotte, Harry Scheiber, Tracy Steffes, Thomas Sugrue, Lucie White, the editors of the Law and History Review, and the anonymous readers who gave this manuscript their time and attention. She also thanks participants in the Harvard Legal History Workshop, the New York University Legal History Colloquium, the Stanford Legal History Workshop, the University of Michigan Legal History Workshop, the University of California, Berkeley, Legal History Workshop, and the Berkeley Law Junior Faculty Working Ideas Group. The article further benefited from presentations at the meetings of the American Society for Legal History, the Organization of American Historians, and the Law and Society Association.