Opinion of the Court.

ian nations, and consequently admits their rank among those powers who are capable of making treaties."

In reviewing the whole subject in Kagama v. United States, 118 U. S. 375, this court said (p. 381):

"With the Indians themselves these relations are equally difficult to define. They were, and always have been, regarded as having a semi-independent position when they preserved their tribal relations; not as States, not as nations, not as possessed of the full attributes of sovereignty, but as a separate people with the power of regulating their internal and social relations, and thus far not brought under the laws of the Union, or of the State within whose limits they resided."

True it is that in many adjudications of this court the fact has been fully recognized, that although possessed of these attributes of local self government, when exercising their tribal functions, all such rights are subject to the supreme legislative authority of the United States. Cherokee Nation v. Kansas Railway Co., 135 U. S. 641, where the cases are fully reviewed. But the existence of the right in Congress to regulate the manner in which the local powers of the Cherokee nation shall be exercised does not render such local powers Federal powers arising from and created by the Constitution of the United States. It follows that as the powers of local self government enjoyed by the Cherokee nation existed prior to the Constitution, they are not operated upon by the Fifth Amendment, which, as we have said, had for its sole object to control the powers conferred by the Constitution on the National Government. The fact that the Indian tribes are subject to the dominant authority of Congress, and that their powers of local self government are also operated upon and restrained by the general provisions of the Constitution of the United States, completely answers the argument of inconvenience which was pressed in the discussion at bar. The claim that the finding of an indictment by a grand jury of less than thirteen violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is conclusively answered by Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, and McNulty v. California, 149

Syllabus.

U. S. 645. The question whether a statute of the Cherokee nation which was not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States or in conflict with any treaty or law of the United States had been repealed by another statute of that nation, and the determination of what was the existing law of the Cherokee nation as to the constitution of the grand jury, were solely matters within the jurisdiction of the courts of that nation, and the decision of such a question in itself necessarily involves no infraction of the Constitution of the United States. Such has been the decision of this court with reference to similar contentions arising upon an indictment and conviction in a state court. In re Duncan, 139 U. S. 449. The ruling in that case is equally applicable to the contentions in this particular arising from the record before us.

The counsel for the appellant has very properly abandoned any claim to relief because of alleged errors occurring subsequent to the finding of the indictment. As to the point raised in reference to the date of the commission of the offence as stated in the indictment, the record as corrected shows that the error in question did not exist. It is, therefore, unnecessary to notice the argument based upon the assumption that the indictment charged the offence to have been committed subsequent to the finding of the true bill.

The judgment is

MR. JUSTICE HARLAN dissented.

Affirmed.

MEYER v. RICHARDS.

ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA.

No. 89. Submitted October 25, 1694. —Decided May 25, 1896.

A., an alien, sold to B. in New Orleans thirteen bonds of the State of Louisiana, delivered them to him, and received from him payment for them in full. Both parties contemplated the purchase and delivery of valid and VOL. CLXIII-25

Statement of the Case.

lawful obligations of the State, and both regarded the bonds so delivered as such valid and lawful obligations. It turned out that the bonds were absolutely void, having never been lawfully put into circulation. B. thereupon sued A. in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Louisiana, to recover the purchase money paid for them. Held,

(1) That as the sale was a Louisiana contract, the rights and obligations of the parties must be determined by the laws of that State; (2) That by the civil law, which prevails in Louisiana, warranty, whilst not of the essence, is yet of the nature of the contract of sale, and is implied in every such contract, unless there be a stipulation to the contrary;

(3) That by the rule of the common law, both in England and in the United States the doctrine is universally recognized that where commercial paper is sold without indorsement or without express assumption of liability on the paper itself, the contract of sale and the obligations which arise from it, as between vendor and vendee, are governed by the common law, relating to the sale of goods and chattels; and that the undoubted rule is that in such a sale the obligation of the vendor is not restricted to the mere question of forgery vel non, but depends upon whether he has delivered that which he contracted to sell, this rule being designated, in England, as a condition of the principal contract, as to the essence and substance of the thing agreed to be sold, and in this country being generally termed an implied warranty of identity of the thing sold;

(4) That whilst the civil law enforces in the contract of sale generally the broadest obligation of warranty, it has so narrowed it, when dealing with credits and incorporeal rights, as to confine it to the title of the seller and to the existence of the credit sold, and, e converso, the common law, which restricts warranty within a narrow compass, virtually imposes the same duty by broadening the warranty as regards personal property so as to impose the obligation on the vendor to deliver the thing sold as a condition of the principal contract or by implication of warranty as to the identity of the thing sold; and thus, by these processes of reason the two great systems, whilst apparently divergent in principle, practically work substantially to the same salutary conclusions; (5) That B. is entitled to recover the sum so paid by him, with interest from the time of judicial demand.

PLAINTIFFS below (plaintiffs in error here) commenced their action to recover the sum of $8383.75, with interest from judicial demand, the facts averred in the petition being substantially as follows: In February, 1889, the defendant sold to plaintiffs thirteen bonds of the State of Louisiana, which

Statement of the Case.

were described in and annexed to the petition; that the price paid for these bonds was the amount sought to be recovered, and the bonds were (we quote from the petition) "sold and delivered to your petitioners as good, valid and legal bonds of the State of Louisiana. Petitioners aver that the said

Richards delivered to them the above described bonds as good and legal bonds of the State of Louisiana, and represented them to be such; that petitioners received them as such, and paid for them the market price for valid bonds, and held them for several months without any knowledge or suspicion that the bonds were not such as they were represented to be." The petition then averred that after the sale and delivery of the bonds in September, 1889, it was discovered that they were not valid, that they had never been lawfully issued by the State, and were at the time of the sale declared by the constitution of the State of Louisiana to be null and void, and that the State through its officials treated them as wholly invalid. The prayer was, as already stated, for a judgment for the amount which had been paid as the purchase price of the bonds.

The answer of the defendant denied all the material allegations contained in the petition, except in so far as the same were admitted or confessed. It averred that on the day of the sale, the 27th of February, 1889, the defendant was the owner of the bonds described in the petition; that they were payable to bearer, and were on the face thereof bonds and obligations of the State of Louisiana, and purporting to be issued under valid acts of the legislature, sanctioned by the constitution of the State of Louisiana; that when sold to the plaintiff the bonds were not mature according to their terms, and were so drawn that the title thereof passed by delivery. The answer, moreover, averred that the defendant acquired the bonds long prior to the date of the sale to the plaintiffs, "by purchase in open market, for a full and valuable consideration in money, before the maturity thereof, in full and exact good faith, and with no knowledge, suspicion or belief of any defect in the title or obligation of said bonds or any outstanding equity relating thereto, to change, modify or

Statement of the Case.

destroy the obligation as written and contained in said bonds severally." After admitting the sale as alleged in the petition for the price therein stated, the answer declared "that it is true that at the time of the delivering of said bonds to the plaintiffs as aforesaid this defendant did represent the same to be good and legal obligations and bonds of the State of Louisiana, and believed then and still believes that the same are in all things valid and legal obligations of the State in the hands of all good-faith holders thereof, and that it is true, as stated in said petition, that the plaintiffs received said bonds, believing the same valid, and paid therefor the full market value thereof in open market of that day." After making the admission, "that if the plaintiffs are entitled to recover anything from this defendant, the amount of such is correctly stated in the prayer of petition herein," the answer concluded by the following: "But as to all other matters and obligations set forth and contained in said petition this defendant specially denies and traverses the same, and avers that the said several bonds so by him sold and delivered to the said plaintiffs are, each and all of them, in the hands of said plaintiffs, good, valid, complete and existing obligations of the State of Louisiana to pay to the said plaintiffs the sums of money named in said bonds at the time and on the terms and conditions written in the bonds, and that there is and has been no breach of warranty of the title thereof by this defendant."

The cause was submitted to the court without the intervention of a jury, the parties having previously entered into a stipulation in writing, commencing with the following recital: "That the following shall be taken as the statement of facts in this cause, and shall stand and be taken as a special verdict in the cause." The facts embraced in the stipulation relate, on the one hand, to the sale and the title held by the defendant (the vendor) to the bonds at the time of the sale and the representations made when the sale took place, and, on the other hand, to the nature and validity of the bonds sold. As to the first of these questions the stipulation declares:

"1. The defendant, prior to the sale of the bonds to the plaintiffs, as averred in the petition, was the bona fide holder