Cite as: 510 U. S. 399 (1994)
Blackmun, J., dissenting
What the negotiations do show is that the Indians overwhelmingly opposed the allotments. After six days of meetings between McLaughlin and the Ute Tribe, only 82 of the 280 adult male Utes agreed to sign the allotment agreement, see Letter of May 30, 1903, from McLaughlin to the Secretary of the Interior, reprinted in H. Doc. No. 33, 58th Cong., 1st Sess., 5 (1903), and McLaughlin reported that the Ute Indians were "unanimously opposed to the opening of their reservation." Id., at 7. Although after Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U. S. 553 (1903), Congress unquestionably had authority to terminate reservations unilaterally, we relied heavily on the presence of tribal consent in Rosebud and De-Coteau to find a contemporaneous intent to diminish. In Solem, by contrast, we held that the surrounding circumstances "fail[ed] to establish a clear congressional purpose to diminish the reservation" because the 1908 Act there "did not begin with an agreement between the United States and the Indian Tribes." 465 U. S., at 476. To the extent that the absence of formal tribal consent counseled against a finding of diminishment in Solem, therefore, the Ute Indians' persistent withholding of consent requires a similar conclusion here.
III
A
Even if the 1902 Act's public domain language were express language of diminishment, I would conclude that the Uintah Valley Reservation was not diminished because that provision did not remain operative in the 1905 Act. It was this latter Act that actually opened the Uintah Valley Reservation to sale and settlement, and that Act's language on its face does not support a finding of diminishment. The Act provided in relevant part:
"That the time for opening to public entry the unallotted lands on the Uintah Reservation in Utah having been fixed by law . . . it is hereby provided that the time
433
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