Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1884

Elk v. Wilkins

112 U.S. 94 | 5 S. Ct. 41 | 28 L. Ed. 643 | 1884 U.S. LEXIS 1857

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Takeaway

In short, this case held that, before Congress acted, an Indian born into a recognized tribe could not claim Fourteenth Amendment citizenship merely by leaving the tribe and living in a state; Congress later displaced that rule through the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

Background

John Elk was an Indian born in the United States as a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe. He later left his tribe, moved to Omaha, Nebraska, and alleged that he had fully surrendered himself to the jurisdiction of the United States. He met Nebraska's age and residence requirements for voting and sought registration as a voter.

The registrar, Charles Wilkins, refused to register Elk. Elk sued, claiming that the Fourteenth Amendment made him a United States citizen and that the Fifteenth Amendment protected his right to vote. The federal Circuit Court for the District of Nebraska dismissed the action and awarded costs. On writ of error, the Supreme Court treated the dismissal as a decision on the merits rather than a dismissal for want of jurisdiction.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the federal Circuit Court had jurisdiction over Elk's constitutional claim.

Holding

Yes. The Circuit Court had jurisdiction because Elk's suit arose under the Constitution and involved the required amount in controversy.

Reasoning

Elk sought to vindicate rights he claimed under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Under the Act of March 3, 1875, a common-law action meeting the monetary threshold and arising under the Constitution could be heard in federal circuit court, even if the parties were citizens of the same state.

The Supreme Court also inferred that the lower court had dismissed on the merits. A dismissal for lack of jurisdiction could not have included an award of costs, so the case properly presented the substantive sufficiency of Elk's claim.

Issue #2

Whether an Indian born into a federally recognized tribe became a United States citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment merely by leaving the tribe and residing among non-Indians.

Holding

No. An Indian born as a member of a recognized tribe was not, at birth, fully subject to the political jurisdiction of the United States, and could become a citizen only through naturalization authorized by treaty or statute.

Reasoning

The Court read the Citizenship Clause to require more than being physically subject to United States laws in some limited sense. The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" meant being completely subject to the nation's political jurisdiction and owing it direct and immediate allegiance at the time of birth.

In the Court's view, tribal Indians owed immediate allegiance to their tribes, which the United States historically treated as distinct, dependent political communities. Although tribes were not foreign states in the strict constitutional sense, their members were not understood to be part of the American political people merely because they lived within United States territory.

The Constitution's original apportionment provisions and the Fourteenth Amendment's continued exclusion of "Indians not taxed" reinforced that understanding. The Court concluded that this exclusion would make little sense if tribal Indians were already citizens entitled to representation on the same basis as other persons.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 likewise declared citizens to be persons born in the United States and not subject to a foreign power, while expressly excluding Indians not taxed. The Court viewed this language as confirming that tribal Indians were not automatically included in national citizenship by birth.

Congress and the Executive had repeatedly used treaties and statutes to confer citizenship on particular tribes or individual Indians under specified conditions. Those measures showed, in the Court's view, that citizenship required the United States' consent and could not be acquired solely through an individual's unilateral departure from tribal life.

Elk did not allege that the United States or Nebraska had accepted his claimed surrender, naturalized him, taxed him, or otherwise recognized him as a citizen. Nor did he identify a treaty or statute granting him citizenship. His voluntary separation from the tribe therefore did not establish citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Issue #3

Whether Wilkins's refusal to register Elk to vote violated the Fifteenth Amendment.

Holding

No. Because Elk was not a United States citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment, he had not been denied a voting right secured by the Fifteenth Amendment.

Reasoning

The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits denial or abridgment of the right of citizens of the United States to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It did not itself make noncitizens eligible to vote.

Because Elk had not shown that he was a citizen, the Court held that his exclusion from voter registration did not deprive him of a federally protected right under the Fifteenth Amendment. The judgment dismissing his action was therefore affirmed.

Dissents

Justice Harlan

Reasoning

Justice Harlan, joined by Justice Woods, maintained that Elk became a citizen when he abandoned his tribal relations and became a bona fide Nebraska resident subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States. In the dissent's view, the Fourteenth Amendment does not require a person claiming citizenship by birth to have been fully subject to United States jurisdiction at the moment of birth; it permits citizenship once that complete jurisdiction exists.

The dissent stressed that Elk had left his tribe, lived within Nebraska with the state's consent, and was subject to its laws, taxes, militia obligations, and courts. These facts, Harlan argued, placed Elk within the United States' complete jurisdiction and eliminated the divided allegiance that justified excluding tribal Indians who remained within tribal communities.

Harlan also relied heavily on the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which extended citizenship to persons born in the United States who were not subject to a foreign power, while excluding only "Indians not taxed." The legislative debates, he argued, showed an intent to include Indians who had abandoned tribal relations and become subject to ordinary state authority.

In the dissent's account, the Fourteenth Amendment preserved rather than withdrew that policy. Its framers understood that tribal Indians were not fully subject to United States jurisdiction, but intended citizenship to reach Indians who had left tribal life and become members of the broader civil community.

Harlan rejected the majority's analogy between tribal Indians and children of foreign nationals or diplomats. Indian tribes were domestic dependent communities under United States sovereignty, not foreign states. Denying citizenship to Indians like Elk, who were born in the country, owed no allegiance to a foreign power, and bore the burdens of government, would leave them without political membership in any nation.