Lesson quiz 12 2 conflicts over land 2. in which supreme court decision did chief justice john marshall rule that georgia had no right to interfere with the cherokee?

Worcester v. Georgia (1832)

There had been a case the previous year in which the Cherokee claimed that because they were an independent nation, they could not be governed by state laws.  In that previous case (Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 1831), the Supreme Court said it did not have jurisdiction to rule because the Cherokee could not be considered an independent nation, but were a dependent nation within the United States.  In declining to rule in that case, though, Chief Justice Marshall left open the possibility of a "proper case with proper parties." 

The following year, in Worcester v. Georgia (1852), that sort of case was presented and ruled in favor of the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. Samuel Worcester was a Christian minister working among the Cherokee and was supportive of the Cherokee cause.  To block the activity of a man like Rev. Worcester, the state of Georgia passed a law prohibiting white persons to live within the Cherokee Nation territory without permission from the Georgia state government.  Worcester and other missionaries challenged this law, and the case rose to the level of a Supreme Court decision.  The decision by the Supreme Court, written by Marshall, struck down the Georgia law and reprimanded Georgia for interfering in the affairs of the Cherokee Nation.  Marshall wrote that Indian nations are "distinct, independent political communities retaining their original natural rights." 

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