CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS—OCT. 21, 1988
102 STAT. 4933
the exercise of powers reserved to the Federal Government in the Commerce Clause of the Constitution (art. I, s.2, cl. 3), dealt with Indian tribes on a government-to-government basis and has, through the treaty clause (art. II, s.2, cl. 2) entered into three hundred and seventy treaties with Indian tribal Nations; Whereas, from the first treaty entered into with an Indian Nation, the treaty with the Delaware Indians of September 17, 1778, the Congress has assumed a trust responsibility and obligation to Indian tribes and their members; Whereas this trust responsibility calls for Congress to "exercise the utmost good faith in dealings with Indians" as provided for in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, (1 Stat. 50); Whereas the judicial system of the United States has consistently recognized and reaffirmed this special relationship: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That— (1) the Congress, on the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution, acknowledges the contribution made by the Iroquois Confederacy and other Indian Nations to the formation and development of the United States; (2) the Congress also hereby reaffirms the constitutionally recognized government-to-government relationship with Indian tribes which has been the cornerstone of this Nation's official Indian policy; (3) the Congress specifically acknowledges and reaffirms the trust responsibility and obligation of the United States Government to Indian tribes, including Alaska Natives, for their preservation, protection, and enhancement, including the provision of health, education, social, and economic assistance programs as necessary, and including the duty to assist tribes in their performance of governmental responsibility to provide for the social and economic well-being of their members and to preserve tribal cultural identity and heritage; and (4) the Congress also acknowledges the need to exercise the utmost good faith in upholding its treaties with the various tribes, as the tribes understood them to be, and the duty of a great Nation to uphold its legal and moral obligations for the benefit of all of its citizens so that they and their posterity may also continue to enjoy the rights they have enshrined in the United States Constitution for time immemorial. Agreed to October 21, 1988.
THE UNITED STATES SENATE HISTORICAL ALMANAC—SENATE PRINT Whereas the Senate of the United States in 1989 will commemorate its two hundredth anniversary; and Whereas the Senate has determined that the series of "Senate Bicentennial Minutes", which Senator Bob Dole began on January 6, 1987, is worthy of separate publication and wide distribution: Now, therefore, be it
Oct. 21.1988 [s. con. Res. i46]
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