United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

The Cherokee Tobacco, 78 U.S. 11 Wall. 616 616 (1870)

The Cherokee Tobacco

78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 616

Syllabus

1. The 107th section of the Internal Revenue Act of July 20, 1868, which enacts that

"The internal revenue laws imposing taxes on distilled spirits, fermented liquors, tobacco, snuff, and cigars, shall be construed to extend to such articles produced anywhere within the exterior boundaries of the United States, whether the same shall be within a collection district or not,"

applies to and is in force in the Indian territory embraced within the Western District of Arkansas, and occupied by the Cherokee nation of Indians, notwithstanding the 10th article of the prior treaty of 1866, between the United States and that nation, by which it was agreed that

"Every Cherokee Indian and freed person residing in the Cherokee nation shall have the right to sell any products of his farm, including his or her livestock, or any merchandise or manufactured products, and to ship and drive the same to market without restraint, paying any tax thereon which is now or may be levied by the United States on the quantity sold outside of the Indian territory."

2. An act of Congress may supersede a prior treaty.

Error to the District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, the case involving first the question of the intention of Congress, and second, assuming the intention to exist, the question of its power, to tax certain tobacco in the Territory of the Cherokee nation in the face of a prior treaty between that nation and the United States that such tobacco should be exempt from taxation.

Page 78 U. S. 617