{ "id": 1868252, "name": "Taylor et al. vs. Drew", "name_abbreviation": "Taylor v. Drew", "decision_date": "1860-07", "docket_number": "", "first_page": "485", "last_page": "488", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "21 Ark. 485" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ark.", "id": 8808, "name": "Arkansas Supreme Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 34, "name_long": "Arkansas", "name": "Ark." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "17 Ark. 43", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 8724823 ], "weight": 2, "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/ark/17/0043-01" ] }, { "cite": "17 Ark. 43", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ark.", "case_ids": [ 8724823 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ark/17/0043-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 304, "char_count": 4743, "ocr_confidence": 0.537, "pagerank": { "raw": 8.843275907716476e-08, "percentile": 0.4983145735523577 }, "sha256": "3cbb6c90eaa8afdccce4205420cf9383ffa852b0c83b978f49596abb3ad10966", "simhash": "1:1864191d4dedd9d6", "word_count": 838 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T19:46:32.809826+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "Taylor et al. vs. Drew." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Mr. Chief Justice English\ndelivered the opinion of the Court.\nTaylor & Raddin, merchants, etc., brought assumpsit by attachment, in the Crawford Circuit Court, against Drew & Scales, merchants and partners, etc., upon a note for $506 70 bearing date 24th April, 1857, and alleged in the declaration to have been executed by the defendants, to the plaintiffs, at New Orleans.\nThe goods of Drew were attached, and also personal service upon him; and he appeared and interposed the following plea:\nAclio non; because he says that he, the said defendant, is a Cherokee Indian, and a native born subject of the Cherokee nation, west of the State of Arkansas, of which said Cherokee nation he, the said defendant, was a citizen and subject at the time of the execution of the said promissory note sued on and in the plaintiff\u2019s declaration mentioned, and this he is ready to verify; wherefore, etc.\nThe plaintiff demurred to the plea, the court overruled the demurrer, they rested, Drew was discharged, and they appealed.\nThe plea is wanting in a material allegation, to make out a good defence to the. action under the decision of this court in Clarke vs. Crosland, 17 Ark. 43.\nThere is no averment in the plea that the note declared on was executed in the Indian country.\nDrew may have been born in the Cherokee nation, and have been a citizen and subject of that nation at the time the note was executed, and yet he may have executed the note, for any thing that appears in the plea to the contrary, at New Orleans, in the State of Louisiana, or at Van Bur\u00e9n, in the State of Arkansas.\nCongress has not undertaken to say that an executory contract made by an Indian within the limits of one of the States of the Union, shall be void, and shall not be enforced in our courts, and if Congress were so to enact, we should be slow to concede the constitutional validity of the act.\nCongress exercising a parental guardianship over the Indian people, has enacted laws for their protection from imposition in their own country, but when an Indian goes into any one of the States and makes a contract there, its validity must depend, as a general rule, upon the laws of that State.\nThat Congress has the constitutional power \u201c to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes,\u201d is beyond question \u2014 But the clause of the Intercourse act declaring that executory contracts made by an Indian for the payment of money or goods shall be null and void, was no exercise of the power to \u201c regulate commerce,\u201d etc., within the meaning of the constitution.\nThe judgment must be reversed, and the cause remanded, with instructions to the court below'to sustain the demurrer to the plea.", "type": "majority", "author": "Mr. Chief Justice English" } ], "attorneys": [ "Walker & Green, and Williams & Williams, for the appellants,", "Fowler & Stillwell, for the appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "Taylor et al. vs. Drew.\nWhen an Indian goes into one of the States and makes a contract there, its validity must depend, as a general rule, upon the laws of that state: and so an executory contract m^de by an Indian within the State will be enforced.\n\u2022 Appeal from Crawford Circuit Court.\nHon. Felix I. Batson, Circuit Judge.\nWalker & Green, and Williams & Williams, for the appellants,\nThe case of Clarke vs Crosland, 17 Ark. 43, is not an authority governing this case, because in that case the plea alleged that the contract was made in the Indian country; and in this, there is no such averment; and under the rule that the pleading must be construed most strongly against the pleader (1 Chit. PI. 578), it will be presumed that the contract was entered into in New Orleans as alleged in the declaration.\nThe act of Congress declaring that executory contracts, entered into by an Indian shall be void (9 U. S. Statutes at large, 203,) creates a personal disability upon the Indian to contract, which can only have effect in the Indian country, and upon the Indian as a member of his tribe, and cannot affect contracts entered into in any of the States. The power conferred upon Congress by the constitution to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes, does not, by implication, involve the power to declare his contracts within a State and in reference to its laws null and void: And though the act be broad enough in its terms to embrace all contracts, wherever made by an Indian, yet as effect can be given to the act onty by construing it as intending to include such contracts as were made within the Indian country, that construction will be adopted.\nIn all contracts, the law of the place where the contract is made must govern, as well in reference to the ability of the person to contract, as to the construction of the contract. Story\u2019s Conf. of Laws, 75 to 92; 2 Kent\u2019s Com. p. 458; 5 B <\u00a7\u2022 Cres. 438.\nFowler & Stillwell, for the appellee.\nWe submit the case on the authority of Clark vs. Crosland, 17 Ark. 43." }, "file_name": "0485-01", "first_page_order": 487, "last_page_order": 490 }