State v. Wise
| Decision Date | 11 November 1897 |
| Docket Number | 10,209--(3) |
| Citation | 72 N.W. 843,70 Minn. 99 |
| Parties | STATE OF MINNESOTA v. EDWARD WISE |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Indictment for selling spirituous liquor to an Indian.
When the defendant was arraigned before the district court for Traverse county and required to plead, he interposed a motion to set the indictment aside because the person described as an Indian in the indictment was born within the territorial limits of the United States, and at the time alleged was a resident of South Dakota, and a citizen of the United States who had accepted the provisions of the act of congress of February 8, 1887. The facts upon which the motion was based were admitted by the state for the purposes of the motion and to obtain a decision upon the questions presented thereby. The motion was denied. The case was then certified to the supreme court, C. L. Brown, J., the defendant "desiring and consenting thereto." Affirmed.
The cause is therefore remanded to the lower court for further proceedings.
F. J Steidl, for the State.
A. S Crossfield and O'Hair & Murphy, for defendant.
The defendant was indicted under G. S. 1894, § 2002, for selling spirituous liquors to an Indian in 1895. The statute provides that "whoever sells * * * any spirituous liquors or wines to any Indian within this state shall on conviction thereof be punished," etc. The person to whom the spirituous liquor was sold was by blood an American Indian, formerly belonging to the Sisseton and Wahpeton band of Sioux Indians, but in 1891 he had severed all his relations with his tribe, adopted the habits and customs of civilization, and taken up an allotment of land in severalty under the provisions of the United States "Land in Severalty Act," of February 8, 1887, [3] and thereby became a citizen of the United States, as well as of the state of South Dakota in which he resided.
The questions certified to this court are substantially two: First, whether the statute under which defendant was indicted applies to Indians who have thus become citizens of the United States under the act of congress, or only to those who retain their original status as members of "domestic dependent nations"; and, second, if the statute applies to the former, whether it is in contravention of the provisions of either the state or federal constitution, particularly section 33 of article 4 of the former and section 1 of the fourteenth amendment to the latter.
General words in a statute may be limited by the object of the act, but, in view of the nature and manifest purpose of this statute and the well-known conditions which induced its enactment, there is no warrant for limiting it by excluding from its operation sales of intoxicating liquors to any person of Indian blood, even although he may have become a citizen of the United States by compliance with the act of congress. The statute is a police regulation. It was enacted in view of the well-known social condition, habits, and tendencies of Indians as a race. While there are doubtless notable individual exceptions to the rule, yet it is a well-known fact that Indians as a race are not as highly civilized as the whites; that they are less subject to moral restraint, more liable to acquire an inordinate appetite for intoxicating...
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