In November 1876, two Oneida Indians, Abram Elm and Lewis Doxtator, were arrested for voting illegally in the twenty-third congressional district election in New York. Their trial was held the next year in a federal court in the Northern District of New York, the same venue where Susan B. Anthony had been tried and convicted on a similar charge four years earlier. This essay focuses on the significance of the historically neglected United States v. Elm case, its origins, why the decision was rendered, and its short-term and long-term impact. Importantly, United States v. Elm has cast a long shadow over Supreme Court decisions—from the time of Elk v. Wilkins in 1884 right up to City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation in New York in 2005. In going to the polls, the two Native Americans were not trying to deny their Oneida identity; they saw themselves as dual citizens advocating a different course of resistance.
