Powers Inherent in Sovereignty: Indians, Aliens, Territories, and the Nineteenth Century Origins of Plenary Power Over Foreign Affairs
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Columbia Law School Scholarship Archive Faculty Scholarship Faculty Publications 2002 Powers Inherent in Sovereignty: Indians, Aliens, Territories, and the Nineteenth Century Origins of Plenary Power over Foreign Affairs Sarah H. Cleveland Columbia Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Immigration Law Commons, Indigenous, Indian, and Aboriginal Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Sarah H. Cleveland, Powers Inherent in Sovereignty: Indians, Aliens, Territories, and the Nineteenth Century Origins of Plenary Power over Foreign Affairs, 81 TEX. L. REV. 1 (2002). Available at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1027 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Scholarship Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarship Archive. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Texas Law Review Volume 81, Number 1, November 2002 Articles Powers Inherent in Sovereignty: Indians, Aliens, Territories, and the Nineteenth Century Origins of Plenary Power over Foreign Affairs Sarah H. Cleveland* I. Introduction ............................................................................ 3 II. Sovereignty and the Constitution ......................................... 15 A . Sovereignty .................................................................................. 15 B. The Constitution's Scope .............................................................. 17 1. EnumeratedPowers-Limited Government ............................... 19 2. Social Contract-Membership................................................... 20 3. Territoriality............................................................................ 22 III. Inherent Power Over Indian Tribes ..................................... 25 A. Indians and Sovereignty under International Law ........................ 28 B. The Doctrine of Discovery and The Marshall Court .................... 30 1. Johnson v. M 'Intosh ................................................................ 31 2. The Cherokee Cases ................................................................. 35 3. W orcester v. Georgia .............................................................. 39 C. The Taney Court and U.S. Criminal Jurisdiction .......................... 42 Marrs McLean Professor in Law, University of Texas School of Law; A.B. 1987, Brown University; M.St. 1989, Oxford University; J.D. 1992, Yale Law School. I am particularly grateful for the assistance of William Forbath, Thomas Grey, Douglas Laycock, Sanford Levinson, Gerald Neuman, Reva Siegel, and Edward Tuddenham, who provided extensive comments on prior drafts, and for the advice and support of T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Hans Baade, Kenneth Bobroff, Richard Friedman, Harold Koh, Stephen Legomsky, Scot Powe, David Rabban, and Peter Spiro. This project would not have been possible without the unflagging library assistance of Jonathan Pratter and the meticulous research support of Joanne Savage, Suzan Kern, Mark Curley, Kelly Rock, Ellen Oberwetter, Sigmund Bloom, and Deena Kalai. I am also grateful for the tireless and professional assistance of Matthew Frederick and the Board and staff of the Texas Law Review. This paper was presented as the "Constitutional Law-Historical Foundations" selection at the Third Annual Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum at Yale Law School in May 2002, and has benefitted from the comments of participants at colloquia at the University of Texas and the University of Michigan Schools of Law. The Article is a more complete explication of a thesis first advanced in Sarah H. Cleveland, The Plenary Power Background of Curtiss-Wright, 70 U. COLO. L. REV. 1127 (1999). The author welcomes comments at [email protected]. 2 Texas Law Review [Vol. 81:1 1. United States v. Rogers ............................................................ 44 D. The End of the Treaty Era ............................................................. 48 1. The Cherokee Tobacco ............................................................ 52 E. Assimilation and the Inherent Powers Era ................................... 54 1. Indians as Citizens? Elk v. Wilkins ......................... 56 2. United States v. Kagama .......................................................... 58 F. The End of Sovereignty for the Civilized Tribes .......................... 63 G. Inherent Power and Citizenship ................................................... 74 H. The Constitutionalization of Inherent Power over Indians ........... 77 IV . Inherent Authority over Im m igration ................................... 81 A. International Law .......................................................................... 83 B. The Alien Act ............................................................................... 87 C. Immigration and Slavery ............................................................... 98 D. The Antebellum Era: Commerce v. Police ................................... 99 1. New York v. M iln ....................................................................... 100 2. The Passenger Cases ................................................................... 103 E. The Post-Civil War Era and the Ascendance of the Commerce Clause ............................................. 106 F. Chinese Immigration and the Exclusion Laws ............................... 112 1. Yick W o v. Hopkins ................................................................... 119 G. The Inherent Powers Era ................................................................. 123 1. Chae Chan Ping v. United States ................................................ 124 2. Nishimura Ekiu v. United States ................................................. 134 3. Fong Yue Ting v. United States .................................................. 137 4. Lem M oon Sing v. United States ................................................ 149 H. The Competing Vision .................................................................... 150 1. W ong W ing v. United States ...................................................... 151 2. United States v. W ong Kim Ark................................................. 154 I. The Constitutionalization of the Imm igration Power ...................... 158 V . Authority over the Territories ................................................ 163 A. International Law and the Territories .............................................. 165 B. The Louisiana Purchase .................................................................. 167 1. The Power to Acquire Territory.................................................. 168 2. TerritorialGovernance and Citizenship..................................... 171 C. The Constitution and W estern Expansion ....................................... 181 1. American Insurance Co. v. Canter .............................................. 183 2. Fleming v. Page .......................................................................... 187 D. Slavery and the Territories .............................................................. 189 1. Cross v. Harrison ........................................................................ 191 2. Scott v. Sandford ........................................................................ 193 E. Post-Civil W ar Consensus .............................................................. 197 20021 Powers Inherent in Sovereignty F. The Early Inherent Powers Era ....................................................... 200 1. The Morm on Cases ..................................................................... 200 2. Overseas Expansion and Extraterritoriality............................... 203 G. The Spanish-American War and the Insular Possessions ............... 207 1. De Lima, Dooley I, and American Diamond: U.S. Law Applies to the Territories ............................................................................. 2 14 2. Downes v. Bidwell: Limiting the Constitution'sApplication ..... 217 3. D ooley v. U nited States .............................................................. 230 H. The M odem Territorial Doctrine .................................................... 239 VI. Inherent Powers and Constitutional Faith .............................. 250 A. Doctrinal Justifications for an Anomalous Doctrine ....................... 253 B. The Will to Power: Nativist Authoritarianism and the Gilded Age 256 1. Nativist Ideology ......................................................................... 258 2. Nation-Building and Imperial Expansion................................... 261 3. Nativism, Imperialism, and Inherent Powers ............................. 263 C. Dual Federalism and Foreign Affairs .............................................. 268 VII. Curtiss-W rightRevisited ........................................................ 273 V III. C onclusion ............................................................................. 277 I. Introduction Does the United States have powers inherent in sovereignty? At least since the 1819 decision in McCulloch v. Maryland, conventional wisdom has held that the national government is one of limited, enumerated powers and exercises "only the powers granted to it" by the Constitution and those implied powers "necessary and proper" to the exercise of the