876
Opinion of Souter, J.
the Contract Clause has no application to acts of the United States, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation v. R. A. Gray & Co., 467 U. S. 717, 732, n. 9 (1984), it is clear that the National Government has some capacity to make agreements binding future Congresses by creating vested rights, see, e. g., Perry v. United States, 294 U. S. 330 (1935); Lynch v. United States, 292 U. S. 571 (1934). The extent of that capacity, to be sure, remains somewhat obscure. Compare, e. g., United States Trust Co. of N. Y. v. New Jersey, 431 U. S. 1, 26 (1977) (heightened Contract Clause scrutiny when States abrogate their own contractual obligations), with Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, supra, at 733 (contrasting less exacting due process standards governing federal economic legislation affecting private contracts). But the want of more developed law on limitations independent of the Contract Clause is in part the result of applying the unmistakability canon of construction to avoid this doctrinal thicket, as we have done in several cases involving alleged surrenders of sovereign prerogatives by the National Government and Indian tribes.
First, we applied the doctrine to protect a tribal sovereign in Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, supra, which held that long-term oil and gas leases to private parties from an Indian Tribe, providing for specific royalties to be paid to the Tribe, did not limit the Tribe's sovereign prerogative to tax the proceeds from the lessees' drilling activities. Id., at 148.
classic Contract Clause unmistakability cases like Vicksburg S. & P. R. Co. v. Dennis, 116 U. S. 665 (1886), Memphis Gas Light Co. v. Taxing Dist. of Shelby Cty., 109 U. S. 398 (1883), and Piqua Branch of State Bank of Ohio v. Knoop, 16 How. 369 (1854). And Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, 290 U. S. 398 (1934), upon which Merrion also relied, cites Charles River Bridge directly. See 290 U. S., at 435; see also Note, Forbearance Agreements: Invalid Contracts for the Surrender of Sovereignty, 92 Colum. L. Rev. 426, 453 (1992) (linking the unmistakability principle applied in Bowen v. Public Agencies Opposed to Social Security Entrapment, 477 U. S. 41 (1986), to the Charles River Bridge/Providence Bank line of cases).
Page: Index Previous 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007