212
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
case was issued pursuant to a Treaty ratified by the advice and consent of the Senate, and thus became the supreme law of the land. See U. S. Const., Art. VI; United States v. Belmont, 301 U. S. 324 (1937). The Court's contrary conclusion is simply wrong.
The Court's second assumption is that the Executive Order was a "removal order"—that its primary purpose was the removal of the Chippewa. This assumption rests upon scattered historical evidence that, in the Court's view, "[t]he officials charged with implementing this order understood it primarily as a removal order, and they proceeded to implement it accordingly." Ante, at 179. Regardless of what the President's remote frontier agents may have thought, the plain meaning of the text of President Taylor's order can only support the opposite conclusion. The structure of the Executive Order is not that of a removal order, with the revocation of the hunting privileges added merely as an afterthought. Instead, the first part of the order (not to mention the bulk of its text) deals with the extinguishment of the Indians' privilege to enter onto the lands ceded to the United States and hunt. Only then (and then only in its final five words) does the Executive Order require the Indians to "re-move to their unceded lands." App. to Pet. for Cert. 565 (Exec. Order, Feb. 6, 1850).
If the structure and apparent plain meaning of the Executive Order reveal that the order was primarily a revocation of the privilege to hunt during the President's pleasure, what then should we make of the fact that the officials charged with "implementing" the order viewed their task as primarily effecting removal? The answer is simple. First, the bulk of the Executive Order that terminates the hunting privilege was self-executing. Second, while the President could terminate the legal right (i. e., the privilege to enter onto the ceded lands and hunt) without taking enforcement action, a removal order would require actual implementation. The historical evidence cited by the Court is best
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