Worcester v. Georgia
Overview
Case citation
Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
(1832), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester
Samuel Worcester
Samuel Austin Worcester , was a missionary to the Cherokee, translator of the Bible, printer and defender of the Cherokee's sovereignty. He was a party in Worcester v...
and held that the Georgia criminal statute that prohibited 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 lay out the relationship between tribes
Indian tribe
In the United States, a Native American tribe is any extant or historical tribe, band, nation, or other group or community of Indigenous peoples in the United States...
and the state and federal government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
s, building the foundations of the doctrine of tribal sovereignty in the United States.
Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
passed laws restricting the right to take away the authority of the Cherokee over their lands.
