The argument that the money could be used to address those conditions has been made repeatedly and is not without merit.

The tribal governments that have maintained the position of refusal have done so not out of indifference to those conditions but out of a judgment that the land question and the conditions question are connected — that the poverty of the reservations is, in significant part, a consequence of the land that was taken, and that accepting money in lieu of land would not address the underlying structural loss.

That judgment may be right or wrong.

It is not irrational.

It reflects an understanding of what was taken and what would need to be returned to make it right that goes deeper than the monetary accounting the legal system has provided.

The Final Accounting