Editing Trail of Tears (section)

==Legal background==
{{Further|Worcester v. Georgia}}

The establishment of the [[Indian Territory]] and the extinguishing of Indian land claims east of the Mississippi by the Indian Removal Act anticipated the U.S. [[Indian reservation]] system, which was imposed on remaining Indian lands later in the 19th century.{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}} The statutory argument for Indian sovereignty persisted until the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] ruled in ''[[Cherokee Nation v. Georgia]]'' (1831), that the Cherokee were not a sovereign and independent nation, and therefore not entitled to a hearing before the court. In the years after the Indian Removal Act, the Cherokee filed several lawsuits regarding conflicts with the state of Georgia. Some of these cases reached the Supreme Court, the most influential being ''[[Worcester v. Georgia]]'' (1832).{{citation needed|date=January 2025}} Samuel Worcester and the group of white Christian missionaries he was in were convicted by Georgia law for living in Cherokee territory in the state of Georgia without a license in 1831.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}} Worcester was sentenced to prison for four years and appealed the ruling, arguing that this sentence violated treaties made between Indian nations and the United States federal government by imposing state laws on Cherokee lands. The Court ruled in Worcester's favor, declaring that the Cherokee Nation was subject only to federal law and that the [[Supremacy Clause]] barred legislative interference by the state of Georgia.

Chief Justice Marshall argued, "The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community occupying its own territory in which the laws of Georgia can have no force. The whole intercourse between the United States and this Nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coates |first=Julia |title=Trail of Tears}}<br />{{Cite web |title=Worcester v. Georgia |url=https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/31us515 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170122232751/https://www.oyez.org/cases/1789-1850/31us515 |archive-date=January 22, 2017 |access-date=February 5, 2017 |publisher=Oyez}}</ref>

The Court did not ask [[federal marshal]]s to carry out the decision.{{sfn|Berutti|1992|pp=305—306}} ''Worcester'' thus imposed no obligations on Jackson; there was nothing for him to enforce,<ref>{{cite book |last=Banner |first=Stuart |title=How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |pages=218–224 |year=2005}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Norgren |first=Jill |title=The Cherokee Cases: Two Landmark Federal Decisions in the Fight for Sovereignty |location=Norman, OK |publisher=[[University of Oklahoma Press]] |pages=122–130 |year=2004}}</ref> although Jackson's' political enemies conspired to find evidence, to be used in the [[1832 United States presidential election|forthcoming political election]], to claim that he would refuse to enforce the ''Worcester'' decision.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ellis |first=Richard E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H8rQCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA31 |title=The Union at Risk: Jacksonian Democracy, States' Rights and the Nullification Crisis |date=1987 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-802084-4 |pages=31 |language=en}}</ref> He feared that enforcement would lead to open warfare between federal troops and the Georgia militia, which would compound the [[Nullification Crisis|ongoing crisis in South Carolina]] and lead to a broader civil war. Instead, he vigorously negotiated a land exchange treaty with the Cherokee.<ref name="CherokeeR">{{Cite book |last=Gilbert |first=Joan |title=The Trail of Tears Across Missouri |publisher=[[University of Missouri Press]] |year=1996 |isbn=0-8262-1063-5 |page=14 |chapter=The Cherokee Home in the East}}</ref><ref name="The Journal of Southern History">{{Cite journal |last=Miles |first=Edwin A |date=November 1973 |title=After John Marshall's Decision: Worcester v Georgia and the Nullification Crisis |journal=The Journal of Southern History |volume=39 |issue=4 |pages=519–544 |doi=10.2307/2205966 |jstor=2205966}}</ref>

After this, Jackson's political opponents [[Henry Clay]] and [[John Quincy Adams]], who supported the ''Worcester'' decision, became outraged by Jackson's alleged refusal to uphold Cherokee claims against the state of Georgia.<ref name="Cave Abuse">{{Cite journal |last=Cave |first=Alfred A. |date=Winter 2003 |title=Abuse of Power: Andrew Jackson and the Indian Removal Act of 1830 |journal=The Historian |volume=65 |issue=6 |pages=1347–1350 |doi=10.1111/j.0018-2370.2003.00055.x |jstor=24452618 |doi-access=free |s2cid=144157296}}</ref> Author and political activist [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] wrote an account of Cherokee assimilation into the American culture, declaring his support of the ''Worcester'' decision.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Frey |first=Rebecca Joyce |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m569AfPJkB4C |title=Genocide and International Justice |publisher=[[Infobase Publishing]] |year=2009 |isbn=978-0816073108 |pages=128–131 |access-date=December 16, 2016}}<br />{{Cite web |last=Emerson |first=Ralph Waldo |title=Letter to Martin Van Buren President of the United States 1836 |url=http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/History/TrailofTears/RalphWaldoEmersonsLetter.aspx |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160617163041/http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/History/TrailofTears/RalphWaldoEmersonsLetter.aspx |archive-date=June 17, 2016 |access-date=June 14, 2016 |publisher=www.cherokee.org/}}</ref>

At the time, members of individual Indian nations were not considered [[United States citizen]]s.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tribes - Native Voices - 1924: American Indians granted U.S. citizenship |url=https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/431.html |publisher=[[United States National Library of Medicine]] |access-date=June 29, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240629193503/https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/431.html |archive-date=June 29, 2024}}</ref> While citizenship tests existed for Indians living in newly annexed areas before and after forced relocation, individual U.S. states did not recognize the Indian nations' land claims, only individual [[Title (property)|title]] under State law, and distinguished between the rights of white and non-white citizens, who often had limited standing in court; and [[Indian removal]] was carried out under U.S. military jurisdiction, often by state militias. As a result, individual Indians who could prove U.S. citizenship were nevertheless displaced from newly annexed areas.<ref name="Jahoda" />