Worcester v. Georgia

Worcester v. Georgia
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 20, 1832 Decided March 3, 1832
Full case name	Samuel A. Worcester v. Georgia
Citations	31 U.S. 515 (more) 8 L. Ed. 483
Case history
Prior	Plaintiff convicted in Gwinnett County, Georgia by the Georgia Superior Court (Sept. 15, 1831)
Subsequent	None
Holding
Worcester's conviction is void, because states have no criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country
Court membership
Chief Justice John Marshall Associate Justices William Johnson · Gabriel Duvall Joseph Story · Smith Thompson John McLean · Henry Baldwin
Case opinions
Majority	Marshall, joined by Johnson, Duvall, Story, Thompson
Concurrence	McLean
Dissent	Baldwin
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. I

Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester, holding that the Georgia criminal statute, prohibiting non-Indians from being present on Indian lands without a license from the state, was unconstitutional.

The opinion is most famous for its dicta, which lays out the relationship between tribes and the state and federal governments, building the foundations of the doctrine of tribal sovereignty in the United States.

Background

Facts

Georgia law required all whites living in Cherokee Indian Territory to obtain a state license. Seven missionaries refused to obey the state law and were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to four years of hard labor. They also refused to obey the military when they were asked to leave the state. They appealed their case to the Supreme Court of the United States, arguing that the laws under which they had been convicted were unconstitutional because states have no power or authority to pass laws concerning sovereign Indian Nations.

The missionaries Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler were targeted by Georgia because of their opposition to Cherokee removal. If they had applied for state licenses, they would have been denied. The Georgia state courts had previously been deferential to Worcester because of his federal appointment as postmaster to New Echota, the Cherokee capital. However, the governor of Georgia, George Rockingham Gilmer, personally persuaded the federal government to withdraw Worcester's appointment as postmaster in order to make him subject to arrest.

Opinion

Chief JusticeJohn Marshall laid out in this opinion the relationship between the Indian nations and the United States is that of nations. He argued that the United States, in the character of the federal government, inherited the rights of Great Britain as they were held by that nation. Those rights, he stated, are the sole right of dealing with the Indian nations to the exclusion of any other European power, and not the rights of possession to their land nor political dominion over their laws. He acknowledged that the exercise of conquest and purchase can give political dominion,but those are in the hands of the federal government and not the states.

The court ruled that the Cherokee nation was a "distinct community" with self-government "in which the laws of Georgia can have no force," establishing the doctrine that the national government of the United States, and not individual states, had authority in Indian affairs.

Legacy

Samuel Worcester

Jackson's response

It is often said that, in response to the decision, President Andrew Jackson, said something to the effect of: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" More reputable sources recognize this as a false quotation.

In fact, the ruling in Worcester ordered nothing more than that Worcester be freed; Georgia complied after several months. In 1833, the newly elected governor, Wilson Lumpkin, offered to pardon Worcester and Butler on the condition that they ceased their Cherokee activities; the two complied, and never returned to Cherokee lands (under the authority of a January 14, 1833 general proclamation, not a formal pardon). The federal government, and the Cherokees, were not party to the suit, and Worcester imposed no obligations on Jackson; there was nothing for him to enforce. The Court did not even ask federal marshalls to carry out the decision, as had become standard. Worcester may be seen as a prudential decision, for avoiding the possibility of political conflict between the Court and the Executive, while still delivering what appeared to be a pro-Indian decision.

As a tribal sovereignty precedent

Marshall language in Worcester may have been motivated by his regret that his earlier opinions in Fletcher and Johnson had been used as a justification for Georgia's actions. Justice Story considered it similarly, writing, in a letter to his wife dated March 4, 1832: "Thanks be to God, the Court can wash their hands clean of the iniquity of oppressing the Indians and disregarding their rights." In fact, because Jackson proceeded with Cherokee removal, Worcester did little more for indigenous rights than Johnson or Cherokee Nation.

In 1835, a dissident faction of Cherokees signed a removal treaty, the Treaty of New Echota. Jackson actively lobbied the U.S. Senate to ratify the treaty in 1836, where it passed by a majority of one vote. In 1838, under President Martin Van Buren, this led to the forcible relocation by the U.S. Army of the Cherokees to Indian Territory (part of present-day Oklahoma) in what would become known as the Trail of Tears.

Worcester is cited in several later opinions on the subject of tribal sovereignty in the United States.

References

• Stuart Banner, How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier (2005).
• Berutti, Ronald A. (1992). "The Cherokee Cases: The Fight to Save the Supreme Court and the Cherokee Indians". American Indian Law Review. 17: 291. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Burke, Joseph C. (1969). "The Cherokee Cases: A Study in Law, Politics, and Morality". Stanford Law Review. 21 (3). Stanford Law Review, Vol. 21, No. 3: 500. doi:10.2307/1227621. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Chused, Richard (1999). Cases, Materials, and Problems in Property (2nd ed.). New York: M. Bender. ISBN 0820541354. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Lytle, Cliford M. (1980). "The Supreme Court, Tribal Sovereignty, and Continuing Problems of State Encroachment into Indian Country". American Indian Law Review. 8: 65. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Jill Norgren, The Cherokee Cases: Two Landmark Federal Decisions in the Fight for Sovereignty (2004).
• Prucha, Francis Paul (1984). The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians. Vol. I. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803236689. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Lindsay G. Robertson, Conquest by Law: How the Discovery of America Dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of Their Lands (2005).
• Smith, Jean Edward (1996). John Marshall: Definer Of A Nation. New York: Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 080501389X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Charles Warren. The Supreme Court in United States History, (2d. ed., 1926). 2 vols.

External links

• Text of Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (1832) is available from: Findlaw  Justia 
• Worcester v. Georgia in the New Georgia Encyclopedia