Supreme Court Mandate to Carry the Judgment into Execution in Worcester v. Georgia
3/3/1832
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This document comes from the case file for Worcester v. Georgia. The Supreme Court sent it to the Superior Court of Gwinnett County. It orders the State of Georgia to let Elizur Butler go free after the Supreme Court found in favor of Worcester and Butler and overturned the State of Georgia.
Worcester and Butler had pleaded not guilty to the charge of failing to obtain a permit or license to reside on Cherokee land. In 1830, Georgia had passed a law requiring non-Cherokee to obtain a permit from the state of Georgia to do so. A group of missionaries, including Worcester and Butler, were indicted by a grand jury after they went to live on Cherokee land in Georgia, with permission from the Cherokee Nation and the U.S. Government. The Superior Court of Gwinnet in Georgia found them guilty, and sentenced them to four years of hard labor.
The men appealed. After they were unsuccessful in the highest state court, they appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on a writ of error (which demands the lower court provide the full record to a higher court for review of errors) in Worcester v. Georgia. The Federal question raised (necessary to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court) was whether the state of Georgia had jurisdiction, since the men were present in the territory under authority of the U.S. President doing missionary work, and with the permission of the Cherokee Nation. In other words, did the state of Georgia have the authority to hear the case or to pass laws concerning sovereign Indian nations?
The question had been asked of the Supreme Court before. In 1828, Georgia had passed a series of acts taking away rights of Cherokees residing within the state, including Cherokee removal from land that the state wanted. The Cherokee asserted that Georgia did not have the jurisdiction or authority to do these things, since the Cherokee Nation was sovereign and protected under a treaty with the United States. They sought an injunction — or order to stop what the State of Georgia was doing — from the U.S. Supreme Court in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia in 1831. The Supreme Court said they lacked jurisdiction to hear the case and it was dismissed, leaving the Cherokee at the mercy of the laws of the state of Georgia.
In Worcester v. Georgia in 1832, however, the Supreme Court ruled that states, like Georgia, could not diminish rights of tribes because the Cherokee Nation constituted a nation holding distinct sovereign powers as granted by Congress and the United States. This established the principle of "tribal sovereignty." The Court also issued a mandate to release Worcester and Butler.
Georgia ignored the ruling, however, and did not release the men. President Andrew Jackson did not intervene to enforce the Supreme Court ruling. (Georgia Governor Wilson Lumpkin pardoned Butler and Worcester in 1833.)
So the judicial branch handed down a ruling that should have freed Butler and Worcester and established more sovereignty for the tribes; but it didn't have that effect because the executive branch did not enforce it.
President Andrew Jackson had called for the relocation of eastern Native American tribes to land west of the Mississippi River, and Congress had passed the Indian Removal Act, in 1830. The Cherokee were forcibly removed from Georgia — a journey west that became known as the “Trail of Tears” because of the thousands of deaths along the way.
This document was digitized by teachers in our Primarily Teaching 2016 summer workshop in Washington, D.C.
The men appealed. After they were unsuccessful in the highest state court, they appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on a writ of error (which demands the lower court provide the full record to a higher court for review of errors) in Worcester v. Georgia. The Federal question raised (necessary to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court) was whether the state of Georgia had jurisdiction, since the men were present in the territory under authority of the U.S. President doing missionary work, and with the permission of the Cherokee Nation. In other words, did the state of Georgia have the authority to hear the case or to pass laws concerning sovereign Indian nations?
The question had been asked of the Supreme Court before. In 1828, Georgia had passed a series of acts taking away rights of Cherokees residing within the state, including Cherokee removal from land that the state wanted. The Cherokee asserted that Georgia did not have the jurisdiction or authority to do these things, since the Cherokee Nation was sovereign and protected under a treaty with the United States. They sought an injunction — or order to stop what the State of Georgia was doing — from the U.S. Supreme Court in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia in 1831. The Supreme Court said they lacked jurisdiction to hear the case and it was dismissed, leaving the Cherokee at the mercy of the laws of the state of Georgia.
In Worcester v. Georgia in 1832, however, the Supreme Court ruled that states, like Georgia, could not diminish rights of tribes because the Cherokee Nation constituted a nation holding distinct sovereign powers as granted by Congress and the United States. This established the principle of "tribal sovereignty." The Court also issued a mandate to release Worcester and Butler.
Georgia ignored the ruling, however, and did not release the men. President Andrew Jackson did not intervene to enforce the Supreme Court ruling. (Georgia Governor Wilson Lumpkin pardoned Butler and Worcester in 1833.)
So the judicial branch handed down a ruling that should have freed Butler and Worcester and established more sovereignty for the tribes; but it didn't have that effect because the executive branch did not enforce it.
President Andrew Jackson had called for the relocation of eastern Native American tribes to land west of the Mississippi River, and Congress had passed the Indian Removal Act, in 1830. The Cherokee were forcibly removed from Georgia — a journey west that became known as the “Trail of Tears” because of the thousands of deaths along the way.
This document was digitized by teachers in our Primarily Teaching 2016 summer workshop in Washington, D.C.
Transcript
by the said Superior Court for the County of Gwinnett in the State of Georgia before which the said indictment was pending and tried; and that there was in error in the said Superior Court of the State of Georgia in overruling the pleas so pleaded as aforesaid. It is therefore ordered and adjudged, that the Judgment rendered in the premises by the said Superior Court of Georgia upon the verdict upon the plea of not guilty afterwards pleaded by the said Elizur Butler, whereby the said Elizur Butler is sentenced to hard labour in the penitentiary of the State of Georgia, ought to be reversed and annulled. And this court proceeding to render such Judgment as the said Superior Court of the State of Georgia should have rendered, it is further ordered and adjudged that the said judgment ^of the said Superior Court be and hereby is reversed and annulled, and that Judgment be and hereby is awarded that the special plea is bar so as aforesaid pleaded is a good and sufficient plea and is bar in law to the indictment aforesaid, and that all proceedings on the said indictment do forever surcease [cease], and that the said Elizur Butler be and hereby is henceforth dismissed therefrom, and that he go thereof quit without [illegible] – And that a special mandate [illegible] go from this court to the said Superior Court to carry this Judgment into execution.March 3, 1832
This primary source comes from the Records of the Supreme Court.
National Archives Identifier: 38995510
Full Citation: Mandate to Carry the Judgment into Execution in Worcester v. Georgia; 3/3/1832; Appellate Case File Number 1705; Case File for Worcester v. Georgia; Appellate Jurisdiction Case Files, 1792-2010; Records of the Supreme Court, Record Group 267; National Archives Building, Washington, DC. [Online Version, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/worcester-v-georgia-mandate, September 18, 2024]Rights: Public Domain, Free of Known Copyright Restrictions. Learn more on our privacy and legal page.
