This was a writ of error to the superior court for the county of Gwinnett, in the state of Georgia. In an effort to stop the missionaries, the state in 1830 passed an act that forbade white persons from living on Cherokee lands unless they obtained a license from the governor of Georgia and swore an oath of loyalty to the state. And this defendant saith that the several acts charged in the bill of indictment were done or omitted to be done, if at all, within the said territory so recognized as belonging to the said Nation, and so, as aforesaid, held by them, under the guarantee of the United States; that for those acts the defendant is not amenable to the laws of Georgia, nor to the jurisdiction of the courts of the said State; and that the laws of the State of Georgia, which profess to add the said territory to the several adjacent counties of the said State, and to extend the laws of Georgia over the said territory, and persons inhabiting the same, and, in particular, the act on which this indictment against this defendant is grounded, to-wit:", "An act entitled an act to prevent the exercise of assumed and arbitrary power by all persons, under pretext of authority from the Cherokee Indians, and their laws, and to prevent white persons from residing within that part of the chartered limits of Georgia occupied by the Cherokee Indians, and to provide a guard for the protection of the gold mines, and to enforce the laws of the State within the aforesaid territory,", "are repugnant to the aforesaid treaties, which, according to the Constitution of the United States, compose a part of the supreme law of the land, and that these laws of Georgia are therefore unconstitutional, void, and of no effect; that the said laws of Georgia are also unconstitutional and void because they impair the obligation of the various contracts formed by and between the aforesaid Cherokee Nation and the said United States of America, as above recited; also that the said laws of Georgia are unconstitutional and void because they interfere with, and attempt to regulate and control, the intercourse with the said Cherokee Nation, which, by the said Constitution, belongs exclusively to the Congress of the United States; and because the said laws are repugnant to the statute of the United States, passed on ___ day of March 1802, entitled 'an act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers;' and that, therefore, this Court has no jurisdiction to cause this defendant to make further or other answer to the said bill of indictment, or further to try and punish this defendant for the said supposed offence or offences alleged in the bill of indictment, or any of them; and therefore this defendant prays judgment whether he shall be held bound to answer further to said indictment.". It cannot be less clear when the judgment affects personal liberty, and inflicts disgraceful punishment, if punishment could disgrace when inflicted on innocence. It is said that these treaties are nothing more than compacts, which cannot be considered as obligatory on the United States from a want of power in the Indians to enter into them. At no time has the sovereignty of the country been recognized as existing in the Indians, but they have been always admitted to possess many of the attributes of sovereignty. Worcester v. Georgia is a case that impacted tribal sovereignty in the United States and the amount of power the state had over native American territories. To reverse this judgment, a writ of error was obtained which, having been returned with the record of the proceedings, is now before this Court. The whole intercourse between the United States and this Nation, is, by our Constitution and laws, vested in the Government of the United States. The exercise of this independent power surely does not become more objectionable as it assumes the basis of justice and the forms of civilization. It is important, on this part of the case, to ascertain in what light Georgia has considered the Indian title to lands, generally, and particularly, within her own boundaries, and also as to the right of the Indians to self-government. Various acts of her legislature have been cited in the argument, including the contract of cession made in the year 1802, all tending to prove her acquiescence in the universal conviction that the Indian nations possessed a full right to the lands they occupied until that right should be extinguished by the United States, with their consent; that their territory was separated from that of any State within whose chartered limits they might reside by a boundary line, established by treaties; that, within their boundary, they possessed rights with which no State could interfere; and that the whole power of regulating the intercourse with them was vested in the United States. Brown et al. The state of Georgia in turn refused to ap . Worcester was convicted and sentenced. In the treaty of 1817, the Cherokees are encouraged to adopt a regular form of government. Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the means. 5. We have punished them for their violation of treaties, but we have inflicted the punishment on them as a nation, and not on individual offenders among them as traitors. Corrections? The most important of these is the cession of their lands and security against intruders on them. The State of Georgia has repeatedly remonstrated to the President on this subject, and called upon the government to take the necessary steps to fulfil its engagement. The Treaty of Holston, negotiated with the Cherokees in July, 1791, explicitly recognising the national character of the Cherokees and their right of self-government, thus guarantying their lands, assuming the duty of protection, and of course pledging the faith of the United States for that protection, has been frequently renewed, and is now in full force. Chief Justice John Marshall laid out in this opinion that the relationship between the Indian Nations and the United States is that of nations. Later, the Worcester decision was revived and became a legal weapon against encroachments on Native American rights. [2], Justice John Marshall, writing for the court, argued that the treaty signed between the United States and the Cherokee Nation was valid and therefore could not be impeded by state statutes:[2]. This is shown by the settled policy of the government, in the extinguishment of their title, and especially by the compact with the State of Georgia. 2. Add to Favorites: Add. Without any written definition of powers, they employed diplomatic agents to represent the United States at the several Courts of Europe; offered to negotiate treaties with them, and did actually negotiate treaties with France. A group of white missionaries, which included Samuel Worcester, were doing missionary work in Cherokee territory in the State of Georgia. The charter to Georgia professes to be granted for the charitable purpose of enabling poor subjects to gain a comfortable subsistence by cultivating lands in the American provinces "at present waste and desolate." Worcester argued that the Superior Court for the County of Gwinnett in the State of Georgia could not prosecute him because the Georgia law violated the U.S. Constitution, treaties between the United States and the Cherokee Nation, and an act of Congress that regulated trade and dealings with the Cherokee Nation. Get free summaries of new US Supreme Court opinions delivered to your inbox! These barbarous nations whose incursions were feared, and to repel whose incursions the power to make war was given, were surely not considered as the subjects of Penn, or occupying his lands during his pleasure. [2] While the state law was an effort to restrict white settlement on Cherokee territory, Worcester reasoned that obeying the law would, in effect, be surrendering the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation to manage their own territory. On 3 rd March 1832, the U.S. Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Marshall in a 5:1 decision held that the Georgia legislation was unconstitutional and thus void. The extravagant and absurd idea that the feeble settlements made on the sea coast, or the companies under whom they were made, acquired legitimate power by them to govern the people, or occupy the lands from. Had the Constitution emanated from the people, and the States had been referred to merely as convenient districts by which the public expression could be ascertained, the popular vote throughout the Union would have been the only rule for the adoption of the Constitution. The forcible seizure and abduction of the plaintiff in error, who was residing in the nation with its permission and by authority of the President of the United States, is also a violation of the acts which authorise the chief magistrate to exercise this authority. ", "Sec. Far from advancing a claim to their lands, or asserting any right of dominion over them, Congress resolved "that the securing and preserving the friendship of the Indian nations appears to be a subject of the utmost moment to these colonies. Neither the British Government nor the Cherokees ever understood it otherwise. You can explore additional available newsletters here. The Constitution also bars the states from passing laws that alter the obligations of contractsin this case, treaties. Neither Georgia nor the United States, when the cession was made, contemplated that force should be used in the extinguishment of the Indian title; nor that it should be procured on terms that are not reasonable. ", "Sec. The law acts upon our own citizens, and not upon the Indians, the same as the laws referred to act upon our own citizens in their foreign commercial intercourse. The practice is both ways. Her chartered limits, to the extent claimed, embraced a great number of different nations of Indians, all of whom were governed by their own laws and were amenable only to them. Miles , " After John Marshall's Decision: Worcester v. Georgia and the Nullification Crisis ," 39 J. Under such circumstances, the agency of the General Government, of necessity, must cease. doctrine of the law of nations is that a weaker power does not surrender its independence -- its right to self-government -- by associating with a stronger and taking its protection. While these states were colonies, this power, in its utmost extent, was admitted to reside in the Crown. How did the Court's opinion in the Cherokee Nation case differ from Worcester? ", "Sec. It involved practically no claim to their lands, no dominion over their persons. The commissioners brought forward the claim with the profession that their motive was "the benefit and comfort of the Indians, and the prevention of injuries or oppressions." That the treaties, subsisting between the United States, and the Cherokees, acknowledge their right as a sovereign nation to govern themselves and all persons who have settled within their territory, free from any right of legislative interference by the several states composing the United States of America. Andrew Jackson declined to enforce the Supreme Courts decision, thus allowing states to enact further legislation damaging to the tribes. So with respect to the words "hunting grounds." "United States of America, ss. There is the more reason for supposing that the Cherokee chiefs were not very critical judges of the language, from the fact that every one makes his mark; no chief was capable of signing his name. This repugnance is made so clear by an exhibition of the respective acts that no force of demonstration can make it more palpable. Are not the United States sovereign within their territories? As a jurisdictional matter, the case should not have come to the U.S. Supreme Court on a writ of error. Examples of this kind are not wanting in Europe. The third article acknowledges the Cherokees to be under the protection of the United States of America, and of no other power. The fifth article withdraws the protection of the United States from any citizen who has settled, or shall settle, on the lands allotted to the Indians for their hunting grounds, and stipulates that, if he shall not remove within six months, the Indians may punish him. The eleventh section authorises the Governor, should he deem it necessary for the protection of the mines or the enforcement of the laws in force within the Cherokee Nation, "to raise and organize a guard," &c. "that the said guard or any member of them, shall be, and they are hereby, authorised and empowered to arrest any person legally charged with or detected in a violation of the laws of this State, and to convey, as soon as practicable, the person so arrested before a justice of the peace, judge of the superior, or justice of inferior Court of this State to be dealt with according to law.". [23][24] Further entreaties by Georgia politicians and representatives of the federal government convinced Worcester and Butler of the risk to the Cherokee nation if Georgia were to join South Carolina's attempt at secession. Continue with Recommended Cookies, Following is the case brief for Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832). The same return is required in both. But, by the enactments of the State of Georgia, this shield is broken in pieces -- the infant institutions of the Cherokees are abolished, and their laws annulled. This power to repel invasion, and, upon just cause, to invade and destroy the natives, authorizes offensive as well as defensive war, but only "on just cause." 10. [4], Marshall's language in Worcester may have been motivated by his regret that his earlier opinions in Fletcher v. Peck and Johnson v. M'Intosh had been used as a justification for Georgia's actions. Are not those nations of Indians who have made some advances in civilization better neighbours than those who are still in a savage state? Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. These newly asserted titles can derive no aid from the articles so often repeated in Indian treaties, extending to them, first, the protection of Great Britain, and afterwards that of the United States. [30] Worcester and Butler were criticized by supporters of the Nullification effort, accusing them of aiding Jackson's effort to inaugurate war against South Carolina. These branches are essential to the existence of any free government, and that they should possess powers, in their respective spheres, coextensive with each other. By the treaties and laws of the United States, rights are guarantied to the Cherokees, both as it respects their territory and internal polity. Now all these provisions relate to the Cherokee country, and can it be supposed by anyone that such provisions would have been made in the act if Congress had not considered it as applying to the Cherokee country, whether in the State of Georgia or in the State of Tennessee? The consequence was that their supplies were derived chiefly from that nation, and their trade confined to it. At the present day, more than one state may be considered as holding its right of self-government under the guarantee and protection of one or more allies. Samuel A. Worcester V. the State of Georgia., 31 U.S. 515, 6 Pet. The boundaries of your hunting grounds will be accurately fixed, and no settlement permitted to be made upon them. "[6][7] This quotation first appeared twenty years after Jackson had died, in newspaper publisher Horace Greeley's 1865 history of the U.S. Civil War, The American Conflict. And that a special mandate do go from this Court to the said Superior Court to carry this judgment into execution. Some cessions of territory may have been made by the Indians in compliance with the terms on which peace was offered by the whites, but the soil thus taken was taken by the laws of conquest, and always as an indemnity for the expenses of the war, commenced by the Indians. Its origin may be traced to the nature of their connexion with those powers, and its true meaning is discerned in their relative situation. In opposition to the original right, possessed by the undisputed occupants of every country, to this recognition of that right, which is evidenced by our history in every change through which we have passed, are placed the charters granted by the monarch of a distant and distinct region parceling out a territory in possession of others, whom he could not remove and did not attempt to remove, and the cession made of his claims by the treaty of peace. We. Worcester was indicted, arrested, and con-victed by a jury of the Superior Court of Gwinnett County. The observation may be repeated that the stipulation is itself an admission of their right to make or refuse it. The two missionaries at first refused, because the Supreme Court decision had ruled they had not broken any law. Within the sphere allotted to them, the coordinate branches of the General Government revolve unobstructed by any legitimate exercise of power by the State governments. To accommodate the differences still existing between the State of Georgia and the Cherokee Nation, the Treaty of. The refutation of this argument is found in our past history. them of the right of self-government, nor destroy their capacity to enter into treaties or compacts. The Cherokee were a self-governing people who had autonomy and rights to land through agreements with the United States government. A free, unmolested road was agreed to be given through the Indian lands, and the free navigation of the Tennessee river. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. The object was too immense for any one of them to grasp the whole, and the claimants were too powerful to submit to the exclusive or unreasonable pretensions of any single potentate.
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