Worcester v. Georgia

Common card · No. 237034

Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832), is a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court vacated the conviction of Samuel Worcester and held that the Georgia criminal statute that prohibited non-Native Americans from being present on Native American lands without a license from the state was unconstitutional. While the state law was an effort to restrict white settlement on Cherokee territory, Worcester reasoned that obeying the law would, in effect, be surrendering the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation to manage their own territory. The opinion is most famous for its dicta, which laid out the relationship between tribes, state, and federal governments. It is considered to have built the foundations of the doctrine of tribal sovereignty in the United States.

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