geekyThere is an apocryphal story which says that when President Andrew Jackson learned of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Worcester v. Georgia, he said "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." While the quote may not be accurate, the sentiment expressed by it is reflective of the lack of respect that Jackson showed towards the court's decision and the Cherokee nation.
Worcester v. Georgia was a case in which the United States Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Samuel Worcester, who was convicted under a Georgia statute that prohibited non-Native Americans from being present on Native American lands without a license from the state. Worcester sought a declaration that the Georgia law was unconstitutional.
In September of 1831, Samuel A. Worcester and a number of other non-Native Americans, were indicted in the Supreme Court for the County of Gwinnett in Georgia. They were charged with "residing within the limits of the Cherokee nation without a license" and "without having taken the oath to support and defend the constitution and laws of the state of Georgia." These were offences under an 1830 act of the Georgia legislature entitled "An Act to Prevent the Exercise of Assumed and Arbitrary Power by All Persons, Under Pretext of Authority from the Cherokee Indians." Worcester was present on the land with the permission of the Cherokee. He was a missionary who believed in the Cherokee people's right of sovereignty. He helped to establish the first newspaper for Native Americans.
In his defense, Worcester argued that the state had violated the Constitution, had violated existing treaties between the United States and the Cherokee nation, and had also violated an act of Congress entitled "An Act to Regulate Trade and Intercourse with the Indian tribes." Worcester was unsuccessful at trial. He was convicted and his sentence was pronounced as "hard labor in the penitentiary for four years."
The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, where Worcester sought an order quashing his conviction. In giving the decision of the court, Chief Justice John Marshall held that the relationship between the Indian Nations and the United States is that of nations. He said that the United States inherited the rights of Great Britain as they were held by that nation. Those rights give the federal government the exclusive sole right of dealing with the Indian nations in North America. They do not include the rights of possession to their land or 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 in the hands of the individual states. Individual states such as Georgia had no authority in American Indian affairs.
The court ordered that Worcester (pictured below) be freed, and Georgia eventually complied after several months. In 1833, the newly elected governor, Wilson Lumpkin, offered to pardon Worcester and Butler if they ceased their activities among the Cherokee. The two agreed and were freed. They never returned to Cherokee lands.
There is a popular quotation in which Andrew Jackson reportedly said "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it!" According to historian Robert Remini, Jackson never said this. Remini notes that the quote first appeared in Horace Greeley's The American Conflict in 1864. The quote probably comes from something Jackson wrote about the case in a letter to John Coffee: "The decision of the Supreme Court has fell still born, and they find that they cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate." The federal government was not a party to the suit and so there was no order for Jackson to enforce. The Court did not ask federal marshals to carry out the decision.
The opinion is most famous for setting out the relationship between tribes and the state and federal governments, building the foundations of the doctrine of tribal sovereignty in the United States.
Jackson used the Georgia crisis to pressure Cherokee leaders to sign a removal treaty. A small faction of Cherokees led by John Ridge negotiated the Treaty of New Echota with Jackson's representatives. Ridge was not a recognized leader of the Cherokee Nation, and this treaty was rejected by most Cherokees as illegitimate. Over 15,000 Cherokees signed a petition in protest of the proposed removal. It was ignored by Congress. The treaty was enforced by Jackson's successor, Martin Van Buren, who ordered 7,000 armed troops to remove the Cherokees even though many Cherokees thought their appeals were still being considered when the troops arrived. This abrupt and forced removal resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 Cherokees on what became known as the "Trail of Tears".