The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, commonly known as the Jay Treaty, and also as Jay's Treaty, was a 1794 treaty between the United States and Great Britain that averted war, resolved issues remaining since the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and facilitated ten years of peaceful trade between Americans and the British in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars, which had begun in 1792. For the Americans, the treaty's policy was designed by Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, supported by President George Washington. It angered France and bitterly divided American public opinion, encouraging the growth of two opposing American political parties, the pro-Treaty Federalists and the anti-Treaty Democratic-Republicans.
Philip Pendleton Barbour was the tenth speaker of the United States House of Representatives and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is the only individual to serve in both positions.
Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the concept of the inherent authority of Indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States.
The Preamble to the United States Constitution, beginning with the words We the People, is a brief introductory statement of the US Constitution's fundamental purposes and guiding principles. Courts have referred to it as reliable evidence of the Founding Fathers' intentions regarding the Constitution's meaning and what they hoped the Constitution would achieve.
Statutory interpretation is the process by which courts interpret and apply legislation. Some amount of interpretation is often necessary when a case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and a straightforward meaning. But in many cases, there is some ambiguity in the words of the statute that must be resolved by the judge. To find the meanings of statutes, judges use various tools and methods of statutory interpretation, including traditional canons of statutory interpretation, legislative history, and purpose. In common law jurisdictions, the judiciary may apply rules of statutory interpretation both to legislation enacted by the legislature and to delegated legislation such as administrative agency regulations.
Federal tribunals in the United States are those tribunals established by the federal government of the United States for the purpose of resolving disputes involving or arising under federal laws, including questions about the constitutionality of such laws. Such tribunals include both Article III tribunals as well as adjudicative entities which are classified as Article I or Article IV tribunals. Some of the latter entities are also formally denominated as courts, but they do not enjoy certain protections afforded to Article III courts. These tribunals are described in reference to the article of the United States Constitution from which the tribunal's authority stems. The use of the term "tribunal" in this context as a blanket term to encompass both courts and other adjudicative entities comes from section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, which expressly grants Congress the power to constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938), was a United States Supreme Court decision holding that states which provided a school to white students had to provide in-state education to Black students as well. States could satisfy this requirement by allowing Black and white students to attend the same school or creating a second school for Black students.
The Treaty Clause of the United States Constitution establishes the procedure for ratifying international agreements. It empowers the President as the primary negotiator of agreements between the United States and other countries, and holds that the advice and consent of a two-thirds supermajority of the Senate renders a treaty binding with the force of federal law.
Valentine v. United States, 299 U.S. 5 (1936), is known in the study of international criminal law for its contribution to the concept that while it is permissible for the United States to receive an accused without a treaty-based extradition, the United States itself will not extradite without authority found in statute or treaty.
Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U.S. 530 (1962), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that judges of the Court of Claims and the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals were judges created under Article III of the Constitution. As such, it was permissible for the Chief Justice of the United States under 28 U.S.C. § 293(a) to designate judges from the Court of Claims and the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals to serve on district courts and courts of appeals.
Seneca Nation of Indians v. Christy, 162 U.S. 283 (1896), was the first litigation of aboriginal title in the United States by a tribal plaintiff in the Supreme Court of the United States since Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831). It was the first such litigation by an indigenous plaintiff since Fellows v. Blacksmith (1857) and its companion case of New York ex rel. Cutler v. Dibble (1858). The New York courts held that the 1788 Phelps and Gorham Purchase did not violate the Nonintercourse Act, one of the provisions of which prohibits purchases of Indian lands without the approval of the federal government, and that the Seneca Nation of New York was barred by the state statute of limitations from challenging the transfer of title. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the merits of lower court ruling because of the adequate and independent state grounds doctrine.
The Marshall Court (1801–1835) issued some of the earliest and most influential opinions by the Supreme Court of the United States on the status of aboriginal title in the United States, several of them written by Chief Justice John Marshall himself. However, without exception, the remarks of the Court on aboriginal title during this period are dicta. Only one indigenous litigant ever appeared before the Marshall Court, and there, Marshall dismissed the case for lack of original jurisdiction.
Fellows v. Blacksmith, 60 U.S. 366 (1857), is a United States Supreme Court decision involving Native American law. John Blacksmith, a Tonawanda Seneca, sued agents of the Ogden Land Company for common law claims of trespass, assault, and battery after he was forcibly evicted from his sawmill by the Company's agents. The Court affirmed a judgement in Blacksmith's favor, notwithstanding the fact that the Seneca had executed an Indian removal treaty and the Company held the exclusive right to purchase to the land by virtue of an interstate compact ratified by Congress.
New York ex rel. Cutler v. Dibble, 62 U.S. 366 (1858), was a companion case to the more well-known Fellows v. Blacksmith (1857). At the time Fellows was decided, this case had reached the U.S. Supreme Court but had not yet been argued.
Aboriginal title in California refers to the aboriginal title land rights of the indigenous peoples of California. The state is unique in that no Native American tribe in California is the counterparty to a ratified federal treaty. Therefore, all the Indian reservations in the state were created by federal statute or executive order.
The Supreme Court of the United States, under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (1836–1864), issued several important decisions on the status of aboriginal title in the United States, building on the opinions of aboriginal title in the Marshall Court.
The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United States establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the "supreme Law of the Land", and thus take priority over any conflicting state laws. It provides that state courts are bound by, and state constitutions subordinate to, the supreme law. However, federal statutes and treaties must be within the parameters of the Constitution; that is, they must be pursuant to the federal government's enumerated powers, and not violate other constitutional limits on federal power, such as the Bill of Rights—of particular interest is the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that the federal government has only those powers that are delegated to it by the Constitution. It is the responsibility of the United States Supreme Court in that case to exercise the power of judicial review: the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution.
United States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11 (1955), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that expanded the rights of citizens to civilian trials, holding that an ex-serviceman cannot be court-martialed for crimes alleged during his military service.
Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel Mezei, 345 U.S. 206 (1953), was a United States Supreme Court case that established the federal government's power to detain migrants at the border pending deportation. The Supreme Court, in a five to four decision, held that the Attorney General's continued exclusion of the unauthorized immigrant without a hearing does not amount to an unlawful detention, and the court may not temporarily admit such individuals into the United States pending arrangements for their departure abroad. Some consider the decision in Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel Mezei as the Court's strongest statement of the plenary power doctrine as the power to permanently exclude noncitizens is based in U.S. sovereignty and largely immune from judicial control.
United States ex rel. Knauff v. Shaughnessy, 338 U.S. 537 (1950), was a United States Supreme Court case that notably ruled that the executive and legislative branches have the inherent power to exclude immigrants from the United States, that courts lack jurisdiction regarding the deportation of individuals within the United States unless it is explicitly stated in law, and that the Constitution does not grant aliens any protections when trying to enter the United States. In a four-to-three decision, this case firmly demonstrates the plenary powers of Congress and the Executive Branch, as it is one of the first cases that bars the judicial review of executive or legislative orders of exclusion in most circumstances.
