The Cherokee Case: Jackson vs. Marshall
I just discovered that President Jackson and the federal government did not so clearly ignore the Supreme Court opinion about the Cherokees as I’d thought. The holding was that a Georgia state criminal law was unconstitutional, not a federal action. Thus, the federal government was involved only indirectly. From a good webpage summarizing important cases, here is Worcester v. Georgia:
Second Cherokee Indian Case Worcester v. GeorgiaCitation: 6 Pet. 515 [+/-]
(1832) State Powers/Federal Jurisdiction/Tribal
SovereigntyFacts
A Georgia law required all whites living in Cherokee Indian Territory to obtain a state license. Two missionaries refused to obey the state law, were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to
four years of hard labor for violating the state licensing law. They appealed their case to the Supreme Court of the United States arguing that the laws they had been convicted under were
unconstitutional because states have no power or authority to pass laws concerning sovereign Indian Nations.Issue
Whether States had the reserve power to pass laws concerning the Indian Nations.
Opinion
The Court ruled that the State had no power to pass any laws affecting the Cherokees because Federal jurisdiction over the Cherokees was exclusive. The missionaries’ convictions were therefore reversed. The President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, was rumored to have said that the Chief Justice has made his decision with this case, now let him enforce it. In what has been described as a political outcome to this case, the state of Georgia would, in time, pardon the two missionaries.
Here’s an excerpt from the opinion
… the acts of Georgia are repugnant to the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States.
They interfere forcibly with the relations established between the United States and the Cherokee nation, the regulation of which, according to the settled principles of our constitution, are committed exclusively to the government of the union.
They are in direct hostility with treaties, repeated in a succession of years, which mark out the boundary that separates [31 U.S. 515, 562] the Cherokee country from Georgia; guaranty to them all the land within their boundary; solemnly pledge the faith of the United States to restrain t eir citizens from trespassing on it; and recognize the pre-existing power of the nation to govern itself.
They are in equal hostility with the acts of congress for regulating this intercourse, and giving effect to the treaties.
The forcible seizure and abduction of the plaintiff in error, who was residing in the nation with its permission, any by authority of the president of the United States, is also a violation of the acts which authorise the chief magistrate to exercise this authority.
So in fact the case illustrates not an aggressive executive power, extending its power, but a passive one, giving up its power. President Jackson did not want to claim as much power as the Supreme Court said he had (and as he undoubtedly did have).
March 27th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Perhaps because “Worchester vs Georgia” pertains to white missionaries helping the Cherokee nation did Jackson not illustrate aggressive executive power (being politically correct for the common man already?). But clearly in the case of Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia (1831) documentation indicates that Jackson not only sided with Georgia on the removal of the Cherokee Indians but ignored the decision handed down by John Marshall, Supreme Court Chief Justice. Both cases pertained to the rights of the Cherokee Nation and both were basically disputed by Andrew Jackson, a known Indian fighter.
March 29th, 2006 at 11:50 am
No—in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Marshall and the majority dismissed the Cherokees’ lawsuit for want of jurisdiction, never reaching the merits of the complaint. See http://www.tngenweb.org/cessions/18310100.html#johnson