219 U.S. 346 (1911)
In 1902 Congress enacted legislation providing for the allotment of lands of the Cherokee Nation and the disposition of townsites.1 Subsequent acts passed in 1904 and 1906 authorized the Secretary of the Interior to grant rights of way for pipelines over allotted lands and extended for twenty-five years the restrictions on alienation by full-blooded members of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes; the 1906 legislation also expanded the class of persons entitled to participate in the distribution of Cherokee lands and funds by permitting the enrollment of children who were minors living on March 4, 1906, whose parents had theretofore been enrolled as members of the Cherokee tribe or had applications pending for that purpose.2
David Muskrat and J. Henry Dick, Cherokee citizens enrolled as of September 1, 1902, instituted suit in the Court of Claims on their own behalf and on behalf of others similarly situated to challenge the 1906 acts increasing the number of distributees.3 William Brown and Levi B. Gritts, who had received allotments under the 1902 act, brought a separate suit challenging the 1904 and 1906 legislation extending alienation restrictions and authorizing pipeline rights of way.4
These proceedings were authorized by a provision in the Indian appropriation act of March 1, 1907, which empowered the named individuals to sue the United States in the Court of Claims to determine the validity of the post-1902 legislation and conferred appellate jurisdiction on the Supreme Court.5 The 1907 act directed the Attorney General to defend the suits and provided for payment of attorneys' fees from tribal funds if the challenged acts were invalidated.6 The Court of Claims sustained the validity of the acts and dismissed both petitions.7
The cases came before the Supreme Court on appeal from the judgments of dismissal.8
Whether the Act of March 1, 1907, which authorizes named Cherokee citizens to sue the United States in the Court of Claims with appeal to the Supreme Court to determine the constitutional validity of subsequent legislation affecting land allotments and distribution rights, confers jurisdiction within the judicial power established by Article III of the Constitution?9
Article III limits the judicial power of the United States to cases and controversies between adverse litigants duly instituted in courts of proper jurisdiction. Congress may not confer authority to render advisory opinions on the constitutional validity of legislation absent such a justiciable controversy.10
No. The Act of March 1, 1907 authorized Muskrat and Dick to sue on behalf of Cherokee citizens enrolled as of September 1, 1902. Brown and Gritts were authorized to sue on behalf of Cherokee citizens allotted lands under the 1902 act. Both suits were brought solely to test the validity of the 1904 and 1906 legislation increasing distributees and extending alienation restrictions. The United States was named as defendant and the Attorney General was charged with defense, but the government possessed no interest adverse to the claimants.11
The resulting judgment would determine only the doubtful character of the legislation in the government's sovereign capacity rather than adjudicate property rights between opposing parties.12 It could not be executed in any legal sense, amounting merely to an expression of opinion.13
The Act of March 1, 1907 does not confer jurisdiction within the judicial power established by Article III because the proceedings present no justiciable case or controversy.14