194
Opinion of the Court
order, and the Executive Order, embodying as it did one coherent policy, is inseverable.5 We do not mean to suggest that a President, now or in the future, cannot revoke
5 The Chief Justice disagrees with this conclusion primarily because he understands the removal order to be a mechanism for enforcing the revocation of usufructuary rights. Post, at 213-214 (dissenting opinion). The implicit premise of this argument is that the President had the inherent power to order the removal of the Chippewa from public lands; this premise is flawed. The Chippewa were on the land long before the United States acquired title to it. The 1837 Treaty does not speak to the right of the United States to order them off the land upon acquisition of title, and in fact, the usufructuary rights guaranteed by the Treaty presumed that the Chippewa would continue to be on the land. Although the revocation of the rights might have justified measures to make sure that the Chippewa were not hunting, fishing, or gathering, it does not follow that revocation of the usufructuary rights permitted the United States to remove the Chippewa from the land completely. The Chief JusticeTMs suggestion that the removal order was merely a measure to enforce the revocation of the usufructuary rights is thus unwarranted. It cannot be presumed that the ends justified the means; it cannot be presumed that the rights of the United States under the Treaty included the right to order removal in defense of the revocation of usufructuary rights. The Treaty, the statutory law, and the Constitution were silent on this matter, and to presume the existence of such Presidential power would run counter to the principles that treaties are to be interpreted liberally in favor of the Indians, Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. 658, 675-676 (1979), and treaty ambiguities to be resolved in their favor, Winters v. United States, 207 U. S. 564, 576- 577 (1908).
The Chief Justice also argues that the removal order ought to be severable from the part of the order purporting to extinguish Chippewa usufructuary rights because of the strong presumption supporting the legality of executive action that has been authorized expressly or by implication. Post, at 215-216. Presumably, The Chief Justice understands the 1837 Treaty to authorize the executive action in question. In this context, however, any general presumption about the legality of executive action runs into the principle that treaty ambiguities are to be resolved in favor of the Indians. Winters v. United States, supra, at 576- 577; see also County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 502 U. S. 251, 269 (1992). We do not think the general presumption relied upon by The Chief Justice carries the same weight when balanced against the counterpresumption specific to Indian treaties.
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