ommitted to a
policy which offered only the alternatives of removal or subjection;
and, thus encouraged, the Georgia Legislature voted to proceed with
the extension of the full authority of the State over both the
Cherokees and the Creeks after June 1, 1830. To make matters worse,
the discovery of gold in the northeastern corner of the State in 1829
brought down upon the Cherokee lands a horde of scrambling, lawless
fortune seekers, numbered already in 1830 by the thousand. None the
less, the Cherokee opposition stiffened. The Indian legislative
council voted that all who accepted lands beyond the Mississippi and
settled on them should forfeit their tribal membership, that those who
sold their individual property to emigrate should be flogged, and that
those who voted to sell a part or all of the tribal possessions should
be put to death.

One resource remained to be exhausted in defense of the Indian claims;
this was the courts. But here again things went unfavorably. After
many delays a test case, Cherokee Nation vs. State of Georgia, was
placed upon the docket of the Supreme Court. The bill set forth the
plaintiff to be "the Cherokee Nation of Indians, a foreign State, not
owning allegiance to the United States, nor to any State of this
union, nor to any prince, potentate, or State other than their own,"
and it asked that the Court declare null the Georgia Acts of 1828 and
1829 and enjoin the Georgia officials from interfering with Cherokee
lands, mines, and other property, or with the persons of Cherokees on
account of anything done by them within the Cherokee territory. The
Indians were represented before the Court by two attorneys, one of
them being William Wirt; Georgia employed no counsel. The opinion of
the Court as announced at the January term, 1831, by Chief Justice
Marshall was that while the Cherokee nation was a State and had
uniformly been dealt with as such by the Federal Government since
1789, it was not a "foreign State" within the meaning of the
Constitution, and therefore was not entitled to sue in that character
in the courts of the United States. "If it be true," the decision
concluded, "that wrongs have been inflicted and that still greater are
to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal which can redress the past
or prevent the future. The motion for an injunction is denied."

The case was thus thrown out of court. Yet the Cherokees were
recognized as a "domestic, dependent" nation, and there