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Worcester v. Georgia (1832)

On March 3, 1832, the U.S. Supreme Court published its ruling in the case of Samuel A. Worcester against the state of Georgia. The case deals with the arrest of two Congregationalist missionaries residing among the Cherokee and defying an 1830 Georgia bill prohibiting the passage of any white person onto Cherokee Nation territory without the permission of the state. Not only did the high court deem the Georgia law in question unconstitutional and asked for the missionaries to be released, but it also argued that the contested state legislation violated the political rights of the Cherokee Republic. Affirming Native American sovereignty, land title, and procedural rights, Worcester v. Georgia has been broadly conceived of as a landmark decision in the historical development of multicultural America and as the most extensive commentary by a federal court with respect to the status of Native American governments and property rights up to that time.

Disputing Georgia's Extension Laws

Since the late 1820s, the Congregationalist missionary Samuel A. Worcester had labored among the Cherokee in New Echota and had become a figure of trust in the Cherokee community and a significant advocate of Cherokee sovereignty. Georgia officials in favor of removing Native tribes from the state territory attempted to eliminate the influence of missionaries such as Worcester, seeking to quash the budding sovereignty movement among the Cherokee.

In late 1830, the Georgia General Assembly passed a bill prohibiting whites from residing among the Cherokee unless they could procure a writ of permission and would swear an oath of loyalty to the state of Georgia and its laws. When Worcester and several other missionaries declared this law to be a violation of Cherokee sovereignty and refused to relocate within the time period indicated, they were arrested, tried, and sentenced to four years of imprisonment in the state penitentiary. Although most missionaries accepted Governor George Gilmer's subsequent pardon offer, Worcester and Elizur Butler did not relent, voicing their intention to have Georgia's anti-Indian legislation declared unconstitutional. On October 27, 1831, one of their lawyers, William Wirt, filed a petition for a writ of error, allowing him to plead the case in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court Decides

On March 3, 1832, the Supreme Court ruled against the state of Georgia. Writing for the majority of the Court, Chief Justice John Marshall argued, first, that Georgia's laws and actions in dispute were “repugnant to the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States,” and therefore Worcester and Butler should be released; and second, that the state's extension laws violated the federal government's exclusive authority over Indian affairs and the political rights of the Cherokee. Reviewing the historical evolution of relations between Great Britain, the United States, and the Cherokee, Marshall emphasized the latter's independent political status and exclusive title to their lands: “The Indian nations [have] always been considered as distinct, independent political communities, retaining their original natural rights, as the undisputed possessors of the soil.” The chief justice used Worcester v. Georgia to repudiate the language of conquest he had employed in Johnson v. McIntosh (1823) and to elaborate on and clarify the concept of “domestic dependent nations” he had developed in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831).

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