[GladesGuru]

Have you considered the Constitutional barriers to allowing race to be an accepted reason to grant financial advantages - correction, make that a financial monopoly - to an American? What makes them any sort of "special" citizen?

Please be so kind as to restrict your answer (if any is forthcoming) to the Constitutional justification for granting Indians such monopoly status?

[vbmoneyspender]

Are you familiar with the treaties that were negotiated with the Indian tribes? Those treaties provide the constitutional basis for the treatment of the tribes. If you need further information on this let me know and I'll dig up some info for you on how treaties work in conjunction with the Constitution.

[vbmoneyspender]

Here is what the 6th Article of the Constitution says in this regard:

This Constitutioon, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

In interpreting this article of the Constitution, here is what the Supreme Court said when citizens of Switzerland, pursuant to a treaty between the United States and Switzerland, were trying to remove certain monies from the possession of the state of Virginia:

If doubts could exist before the adoption of the present national government, they must be entirely removed by the sixth article of the Constitution, which provides that 'all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding ... A treaty cannot be the supreme law of the land, that is, of all the United States, if any act of a State legislature can stand in its way. . . It must always be borne in mind that the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States are as much a part of the law of every State as its own local laws and Constitution. This is a fundamental principle in our system of complex national polity Hauenstein v. Lynham, 100 U.S. 483 (1880).