Significance: In this case, the Supreme Court determined that a state could not enforce its laws in American Indian territory. However, both the state of Georgia and President Andrew Jackson ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling. Jackson later forced the Cherokee Indians to move west of the Mississippi in a march known as the “Trail of Tears.”
Background: After the Supreme Court’s decision in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), Georgia continued to make laws enforceable within the Cherokee Nation, even though this land was protected by federal treaties. One law required all white people to obtain a state license in order to live on Cherokee land and to swear allegiance to the state of Georgia. Samuel Worcester, a Congregational missionary, and several other missionaries were convicted for not having the license. Worcester was sentenced to four years in a Georgia prison. He appealed his conviction, arguing that the law was outside Georgia’s jurisdiction.
Decision: This case was argued on February 20, 1832, and decided on March 3, 1832, by a vote of 5 to 1. Justice John Marshall spoke for the Court. Justice Henry Baldwin dissented. The Court modified its previous ruling in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) by deciding that it could rule on the case because the Cherokees were an independent nation. Marshall argued that Georgia's laws were considered void because they violated the federal treaty with the Indian nation. However, Georgia and President Jackson refused to acknowledge the ruling.
Excerpt from the Opinion of the Court: “The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory, with boundaries accurately described, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter, but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in conformity with treaties, and with the acts of congress. 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 act of the state of Georgia, under which the plaintiff in error was prosecuted, is consequently void, and the judgment a nullity.”
