Cite as: 518 U. S. 839 (1996)
Opinion of Souter, J.
control navigation), or to a claim that cannot be recognized without creating an exemption from the exercise of such a power (e. g., the equivalent of exemption from Social Security obligations). The application of the doctrine thus turns on whether enforcement of the contractual obligation alleged would block the exercise of a sovereign power of the Government.
Since the criterion looks to the effect of a contract's enforcement, the particular remedy sought is not dispositive and the doctrine is not rendered inapplicable by a request for damages, as distinct from specific performance. The respondents in Cherokee Nation sought nothing beyond damages, but the case still turned on the unmistakability doctrine because there could be no claim to harm unless the right to be free of the sovereign power to control navigation had been conveyed away by the Government.23 So, too,
in Bowen: the sole relief sought was dollars and cents, but the award of damages as requested would have been the
tracts. No such legislation would provide the Government with a defense
under the sovereign acts doctrine, see infra, at 891-899.
23 The Government's right to take the Tribe's property upon payment of compensation, of course, did not depend upon the navigational servitude; where it applies, however, the navigational easement generally obviates the obligation to pay compensation at all. See, e. g., United States v. Kansas City Life Ins. Co., 339 U. S. 799, 808 (1950) ("When the Government exercises [the navigational] servitude, it is exercising its paramount power in the interest of navigation, rather than taking the private property of anyone"); Scranton v. Wheeler, 179 U. S. 141, 163 (1900) ("Whatever the nature of the interest of a riparian owner in the submerged lands in front of his upland bordering on a public navigable water, his title is not as full and complete as his title to fast land which has no direct connection with the navigation of such water. It is a qualified title . . . to be held at all times subordinate to such use of the submerged lands and of the waters flowing over them as may be consistent with or demanded by the public right of navigation"). Because an order to pay compensation would have placed the Government in the same position as if the navigational easement had been surrendered altogether, the holding of Cherokee Nation is on all fours with the approach we describe today.
879
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