Worcester v. Georgia
The Supreme Court threw out the conviction of a missionary who was sentenced to hard labor for living in Cherokee territory without a Georgia license, ruling that Georgia had no authority to extend its laws into Cherokee land.
The decision held that the Cherokee Nation was a distinct political community whose relationship with outsiders was governed by federal treaties and the U.S. Constitution, not by the laws of the surrounding state, dealing a major blow to Georgia's efforts to seize control over Cherokee territory.
How it got here: A Georgia trial court convicted Worcester after rejecting his plea that the state law was void; he brought a writ of error directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Samuel Worcester, a Vermont missionary, lived among the Cherokee in Georgia with the permission of the Cherokee Nation and under authorization from the U.S. president, preaching and translating scripture. Georgia had passed laws extending its authority over Cherokee lands and required white residents there to obtain a state license and swear allegiance to Georgia. Worcester refused, was indicted, convicted, and sentenced to four years of hard labor.
The question before the Court
Could Georgia send a Vermont missionary to prison for living among the Cherokee without a state license?
Why it matters
The ruling meant Georgia's licensing law could not be enforced inside Cherokee territory, freeing missionary Samuel Worcester and others jailed under it. More broadly, it established that dealings with Indian nations belonged exclusively to the federal government, a principle that continues to shape disputes over tribal sovereignty and state authority on Native land today.
What changes now
The Court reversed and annulled the Georgia judgment itself, ordering that the indictment be dismissed and that Worcester go free, along with a companion case against a co-defendant, Butler. This was a final decision on the merits, not a remand for further proceedings; the Court issued a special mandate directing the Georgia court to carry out the judgment. Georgia did not comply for some time, and the episode became a flashpoint in the broader conflict over federal authority and Cherokee removal.
What this does not decide
The opinion does not decide the ultimate fate of the Cherokee Nation's territory or address the political question of Indian removal policy; it addresses only whether Georgia's specific licensing law could be enforced against a resident living in Cherokee country under federal and treaty authority.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice McLean
Justice McLean agreed with the result but wrote separately to explain at length his own view of the history of federal Indian policy and the exclusivity of federal power to regulate Indian affairs. He emphasized that Indian self-government within a state's borders is contemplated as temporary and could eventually give way to state law if tribes lost the capacity for self-government, though that point had not been reached here.
Dissent — Justice Baldwin
Justice Baldwin dissented, arguing that the record had not been properly returned to the Court because it should have come from the state court itself rather than being certified by the court's clerk. On the merits, he stood by the views he had expressed the prior term in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, though his opinion was never delivered to the Court's reporter for publication.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first confirmed it had jurisdiction under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act, which allows Supreme Court review of a state court's final judgment whenever the validity of a treaty or federal law is drawn into question and the decision goes against the party relying on it; the Court held this applies equally to criminal and civil cases.
- The Court then traced the history of European claims in America, explaining that the 'doctrine of discovery' only gave discovering nations an exclusive right against other European powers to purchase land from Native nations — it did not erase the Cherokee Nation's own pre-existing right to self-government and possession of its territory.
- Examining a series of treaties between the United States and the Cherokee Nation (Hopewell, Holston, and others), the Court concluded that these treaties recognized the Cherokee as a sovereign nation capable of governing itself, with a guaranteed territory into which citizens of Georgia had no right to enter without Cherokee consent.
- The Court read the Constitution's grant to Congress of power to regulate commerce with the Indian tribes, combined with the treaty power, as vesting exclusive authority over relations with Indian nations in the federal government, leaving no room for a state to legislate within recognized Cherokee territory.
- Because the Georgia statute asserted state jurisdiction over Cherokee land and required a license to reside there, the Court found it directly conflicted with the treaties and with the 1802 federal Indian intercourse statute, making the law repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States and therefore void as applied to Worcester.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Cohens v. Virginia (6 Wheat. 264)
Relied on to confirm the Supreme Court can review state court rulings affecting personal liberty, not just property.
Reaffirms Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1 Wheat. 304)
Cited to confirm that a clerk's certified record, without a judge's signature, is a sufficient return in this Court.