Liar Liar 1924 Did Not Make Indians Citizens of the United States: A Strict Constructionist Reading of the Law
© TCNPress.Org
By Line: Fort Smith, AR
December 23, 2025 4:00 AM
A terciary reading of the plain language of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act appears to make all Indians “citizens” of the United States. For most observers, ignorance is bliss until they realize that their entire lives and everything they believed to be true are based on the foundation of a LIE.
A Strict Constructionist reading of the LAW's text destroys the myth and raises more profound questions about the constitutionality of the language used.
THE INDIAN CITIZENSHIP ACT
“ Sixty-eighth Congress of the United States of America;
At the First Session,
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the third day of
December, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three.
AN ACT
To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to issue certificates of
Citizenship to Indians.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That all non-
citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United
States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United
States: Provided, That the granting of such citizenship shall not
in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian
to tribal or other property.
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Acting President pro tempore of the Senate
Approved June 2, 1924.”
The Act itself is IMPOSSIBLE to implement. First, it authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to issue certificates of Citizenship to Indians. This never happened. It could never happen because there has never been a list of who is and who is not an Indian. When this law (farse) was passed, the Congress of the United States knew there was no such list for the Secretary of the Interior to issue certificates from. The law cannot offer blanket Citizenship to Indians without the first part of the ACT being enacted, the issuance of Citizenship Certificates. The first part of the law eliminates everything else because there is no severability clause allowing the second part to stand on its own. Therefore, the ACT is impossible to implement.
Second, the ACT eliminates Treaty Rights and Tribal Sovereignty over Indian Affairs. No government has the right or the authority to force another Sovereign Nation to become citizens without their consent. Even Vattel’s The Laws of Nations is clear on this matter. Further, Elks v Wilkins establishes that an Indian owes his allegiance first to his Tribe and no other sovereign. Forcing Citizenship upon a group of individuals is Genocide and ethnic cleansing. Why would an Indian want to become a citizen of the United States, which has systematically stolen their lands and said they were less than human? Why would an Indian want to become a citizen of the United States, which has systematically tried to eliminate them from the face of the earth? Why would an Indian want to become a citizen of the United States and lose their cultural and traditional ties to the land?
Finally, the ACT was a fraud perpetrated upon Indians so they could be taxed, in direct violation of the Constitution, which explicitly states that the Indians are not taxed. The government of the United States knew it could not tax Indians because they are not citizens. Indians are sovereigns of another Nation and therefore cannot be taxed.
In conclusion, a fraud was perpetrated against the Native American Indians in 1924 but that is nothing new for Native American Indians. By now, they should be used to a government stealing everything they have, murdering, raping, and pillaging them, and then taxing them into oblivion. If at first, Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing does not get rid of the Indian Problem, then maybe the Final Solution of citizenship will.