inhabiting the Territory (as will appear below) the United States was, to some extent at least, pledged to maintain the prohibition. Besides these considerations, it is to be noted that the Enabling Act, while containing most stringent clauses for preventing (at least for twenty-one years) the manufacture of and traffic in liquors within the Indian Territory, and their transportation from other parts of the new State into the Territory, imposes no duty upon the new State with respect to preventing liquors from being brought into the Territory from other States.

In view of these considerations, and others to be mentioned, it seems to us that Congress, so far from intending by the Enabling Act to repeal so much of the act of 1895 as prohibits the carrying of intoxicating liquors into the Indian Territory from points without the State, framed the Enabling Act with a clear view of the distinction between the powers appropriate to be exercised by the new State over matters within her borders, and the powers appropriate to be exercised by the United States over traffic originating beyond the borders of the new State and extending within the Indian Territory.

In addition, there is the proviso contained in section one of the act, that nothing contained in the state constitution shall be construed "to limit or affect the right or authority of the Government of the United States to make any law or regulation respecting such Indians, their lands, property, or other rights by treaties, agreement, law or otherwise, which it would have been competent to make if this act had never been passed." It is contended that this does not preserve the existing laws and regulations respecting the Indians, but rather excludes the inference of their continued force and existence by indicating a purpose on the part of Congress to thereafter enact regulations for the protection of the Indians in Oklahoma if necessity requires. This, we think, is an inadmissible

225 U.S.

Opinion of the Court.

construction. We deem it unreasonable to suppose that Congress, possessing the constitutional power and recognizing the moral duty to make laws and regulations respecting the Indians, and having already established laws and regulations of this character applicable in the Territory, including some that were established by treaties and agreements, should resolve to wipe them out, and thereby impose upon future Congresses the labor and difficulty of establishing other proper laws and regulations in their stead. In our opinion, the purpose expressed in the proviso to reserve to the Government of the United States the authority to make laws and regulations in the future respecting the Indians is, under the circumstances, evidence tending to negative a purpose to repeal by implication the existing laws and regulations on the subject.

Of course an act of Congress may repeal a prior treaty as well as it may repeal a prior act. The Cherokee Tobacco, 11 Wall. 616; Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698, 720; Ward v. Race Horse, 163 U. S. 504, 511; Draper v. United States, 164 U. S. 240, 243.

But it is a settled rule of statutory construction that repeals by implication are not favored, and will not be held to exist if there be any other reasonable construction. Cope v. Cope, 137 U. S. 682, 686, and cases cited; Ward v. Race Horse, supra.

The reservation of the authority of Congress to legislate in the future respecting the Indians residing within the new State is clearly supportable under the Federal Constitution, Art. I, § 8, which confers upon Congress the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." It has been repeatedly held by this court that under this clause traffic or intercourse with an Indian tribe or with a member of such a tribe is subject to the regulation of Congress, although it be within the limits of a State. United States v. Holliday, 3 Wall. 407, 418; United States

v. 43 Gallons of Whiskey, 93 U. S. 188, 195, 197; Dick v. United States, 208 U. S. 340, and cases cited.

And it is as clearly consistent with the Constitution to maintain in force an existing act of Congress relating to such traffic and intercourse, so that it shall continue effective within the limits of the new State, as it is to reserve the right to enact new laws in the future upon the same subject-matter.

We must read the proviso contained in § 1 of the Enabling Act, and also the declaration in § 21 that "The laws of the United States not locally inapplicable shall have the same force and effect within the said state as elsewhere within the United States," in the light of the existing relations, then recently established by treaties and by acts of Congress, between the Government of the United States and the Five Civilized Tribes that occupied the area known as the Indian Territory. Although those tribes had long been treated more liberally than other Indians, they remained none the less wards of the Government, and in all respects subject to its control. Cherokee Nation v. Southern Kansas R. R. Co., 135 U. S. 641, 653, and cases cited. And after Congress, in the year 1893, had inaugurated the policy of terminating their tribal existence and government and allotting their lands in severalty (act of March 3, 1893, c. 209, § 16; 27 Stat. 645), agreements were negotiated by the Dawes Commission with each of the tribes designed to carry out the objects indicated; and in each of those agreements there was some recognition of the importance of preserving restrictions upon the introduction of intoxicating liquors from without and the traffic in them within the Indian Territory.

The agreement with the Seminoles was made in 1897 (30 Stat. 567), with the Creeks in 1901 and 1902 (31 Stat. 861, 32 Stat. 500), with the Choctaws and Chickasaws in 1898 (30 Stat. 507) and in 1902 (32 Stat. 641), and with the Cherokees in the latter year (32 Stat. 716).

Section 73 of the agreement with the Cherokees (32 Stat. 727) continued in force in that Nation the fourteenth section of an act of June 28, 1898, entitled "An act for the protection of the people of the Indian Territory and for other purposes," (30 Stat. 500), which contained a proviso against the sale of liquor in the Territory, and against the introduction thereof into the Territory.

In the first Choctaw and Chickasaw agreement there was a provision (30 Stat. 509) that no law or ordinance should be passed by any town interfering with the enforcement of or conflicting with the laws of the United States in force in said Territory, "and the United States agrees to maintain strict laws in the territory of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes against the introduction, sale, barter, or giving away of liquors and intoxicants of any kind or quality."

In the Choctaw-Chickasaw agreement of 1902, § 64, which provided for the cession to the United States of lands at the Sulphur Springs, contained a provision (32 Stat. 656) that "Until otherwise provided by Congress, the laws of the United States relating to the introduction, possession, sale, and giving away of liquors or intoxicants of any kind in the Indian country or Indian Reservations shall be applicable to the lands so ceded, and said lands shall remain within the jurisdiction of the United States court for the Southern District of Indian Territory."

The Seminole agreement likewise provided that "the United States agrees to maintain strict laws in the Seminole country against the introduction, sale, barter, or giving away of intoxicants of any kind or quality." (30 Stat. 568.)

The first Creek agreement provided that "The United States agrees to maintain strict laws in said Nation against the introduction, sale, barter, or giving away of liquors or intoxicants of any kind whatsoever." (Act of March 1, 1901, c. 676, § 43, 31 Stat. 872.) And this was not modi

fied by the supplemental agreement. (Act of June 30, 1902, c. 1323, 32 Stat. 500.)

It seems to us that the provisions of the Enabling Act show that Congress recognized that, because of these agreements or otherwise, the Government of the United States was under a duty to the inhabitants of the Indian Territory different from its duty to the inhabitants of the other territory that went to form the new State. We are unable otherwise to explain the insertion in the proposed constitution of the clause establishing liquor prohibition within the Indian Territory, and the exclusion of the other territory from the operation of this clause. This action is indicative of a purpose on the part of Congress to fulfill the spirit as well as the letter of the agreements with the Five Tribes. There were differences in those treaties, so far as the liquor traffic is concerned. But in the Enabling Act all the tribes were treated alike, and in a manner to fulfill the amplest promise given to any tribe, so far-but only so far as the establishment of general prohibition within the new State was concerned.

But if the Federal law that had prevented the bringing in of intoxicating liquors from without the State was at the same time repealed, the pledges of the Government were thereby in a material part broken. For manifestly it would be of comparatively little use to prohibit the manufacture of intoxicating liquors within the Territory and their shipment from other parts of the State into the Territory, if at the same time all laws prohibiting the introduction of such liquors from other States into the Territory were to be repealed.

And it is clear that in framing the Enabling Act, Congress was mindful not only of its jurisdiction over commerce with the Indian tribes, but was mindful that traffic in liquors between one State and another is subject only to the control of Congress. Bowman v. Chicago & N. W.