204
Opinion of the Court
ing fundamental attributes of state sovereignty when it admits new States into the Union. Id., at 573. According to the Race Horse Court, because the treaty rights conflicted irreconcilably with state regulation of natural resources— "an essential attribute of its governmental existence," 163 U. S., at 516—the treaty rights were held an invalid impairment of Wyoming's sovereignty. Thus, those rights could not survive Wyoming's admission to the Union on "equal footing" with the original States.
But Race Horse rested on a false premise. As this Court's subsequent cases have made clear, an Indian tribe's treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather on state land are not irreconcilable with a State's sovereignty over the natural resources in the State. See, e. g., Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., supra; see also Antoine v. Washington, 420 U. S. 194 (1975). Rather, Indian treaty rights can coexist with state management of natural resources. Although States have important interests in regulating wildlife and natural resources within their borders, this authority is shared with the Federal Government when the Federal Government exercises one of its enumerated constitutional powers, such as treaty making. U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2. See, e. g., Missouri v. Holland, 252 U. S. 416 (1920); Kleppe v. New Mexico, 426 U. S. 529 (1976); United States v. Winans, 198 U. S., at 382-384; United States v. Forty-three Gallons of Whiskey, 93 U. S. 188 (1876). See also Menominee Tribe v. United States, supra, at 411, n. 12. Here, the 1837 Treaty gave the Chippewa the right to hunt, fish, and gather in the ceded territory free of territorial, and later state, regulation, a privilege that others did not enjoy. Today, this freedom from state regulation curtails the State's ability to regulate hunting, fishing, and gathering by the Chippewa in the ceded lands. But this Court's cases have also recognized that Indian treaty-based usufructuary rights do not guarantee the Indians "absolute freedom" from state regulation. Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife v. Klamath
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