Congress Reaches The Reservation

One Indian man was charged with murdering another, and a second man with helping him. The killing happened on a reservation inside a state. Congress had just passed a law giving the federal courts power to try Indians for certain serious crimes committed on reservations. The accused argued that Congress had no constitutional power to pass such a law: the Constitution says nothing about punishing crimes between Indians on their own land, and if anyone could try him it was the state.