I was just listening to ad nauseum comments on the podcast of the Feb 16 Morning Show on KGMI on the Point Elliot treaty of 1855.
Cute.
There is another document of which I am aware.
It was ratified in 1889.
The Washington State Constitution.
Perhaps you have heard of it.
But it is unlikely any of you who are flapping your gums about the Point Elliot treaty of 1855 have read it.
Spare a glance at a portion of Article XXVI (26) of the State Constitution.
Second Clause...
...
That the people inhabiting this state do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying with the boundaries of this state, and to all lands lying within said limits owned or held by any Indian or Indian tribes;
...
I'm pretty sure that the State Constitution has precedence over a pre-civil war, pre-statehood treaty signed with any tribe.
And there is also the little matter of us keeping our end of those treaties that no one on KGMI bothered to mention. That little fact has slipped every one's mind. Those treaties, pretty much all of them, were one sided affairs and we (the pale faces) broke virtually every one of them as we saw fit. If the United States held up its end of the Point Elliot treaty of 1855 then that would be the first time I've ever heard of us actually not breaking such a treaty.
Those of you with chronic selective amnesia syndrome need to bear in mind that a contract becomes just a worthless piece of paper once broken by either party. You can't break a treaty in the 19th Century and then insist in the 21st Century that it be upheld. The law doesn't work that way. Ask any attorney. Ask any first year law student.
The historic illiteracy that is required to hold up a tribal treaty the U.S. entered into in the mid 1800s and accuse a tribe of violating it in the 21st Century is breathtaking.
It takes a lot of nerve to do that, and not much sense.
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