The provision of the Confederation on this subject gave to the United States the exclusive right and power "of regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians not members of any of the States, provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated." The exception of such Indians as were members of any State, referred to those broken members of tribes who had lost their nationality, and had become absorbed as individuals into the political community of the whites. With all other Indians, remaining as distinct and self-governing communities, trade and intercourse were subject to the regulation of Congress; while at the same time each State retained to itself the regulation of its commerce with all other nations. The broad distinction thus early established, and thus perpetuated in the Confederation, between commerce with the Indian tribes, and commerce with "foreign nations," explains the origin and introduction of a special provision for the former, as distinguished from the latter, in the Constitution of the United States.
For although there might have been some reason to contend that commerce with "foreign nations"--if the grant of the commercial power had not expressly embraced the Indian tribes--would have extended to those tribes, as nations foreign to the United States, yet the entire history of the country, and the peculiarity of the intercourse needful for their security, made it eminently expedient that there should be a distinct recognition of the Indian communities, in order that the power of Congress to regulate all commerce with them might not only be as ample as that relating to foreign nations, but might stand upon a distinct assertion of their condition as _tribes_. Accordingly, Mr. Madison introduced the separate proposition "to regulate affairs with the Indians, as well within as without the limits of the United States";[244] and the committee to whom it was referred gave effect to it, by adding the words, "and with the Indian tribes," to the end of the clause containing the grant of the commercial power.[245]
The remaining powers of Congress may be considered in the order in which they were acted upon by the Convention. The powers to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, to coin money and regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures, were adopted without discussion and with entire unanimity, as they had been proposed in the draft prepared by the committee of detail. The power to establish post-offices was extended to embrace post-roads.[246]