The Supreme Court is established by Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court .

The size of the Court is not specified; the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the number of justices.

The decision is considered to have built the foundations of the doctrine of tribal sovereignty in the United States.

He reasoned that the United States, in the character of the federal government, inherited the legal rights of The Crown.

He acknowledged that the exercise of conquest and purchase can give political dominion, but that those are in the hands of the federal government, and individual states had no authority in American Indian affairs.