than to the continued existence of the United States as a government to which every American citizen may look for security and protection in every part of the land.

We think that the cause of commitment in these cases was lawful, and that the application for the writ of habeas corpus must be denied.

Application denied.

MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD and MR. JUSTICE FIELD dissented.

XIII. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.-INDIAN AF

FAIRS

IN THE AMERICAN INSURANCE COMPANY V. CANTER, 1 Peters, 511 (1828), CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL said:

"The course which the argument has taken, will require that, in deciding this question, the court should take into view the relation in which Florida stands to the United States.

"The constitution confers absolutely on the government of the Union the powers of making war and of making treaties; consequently, that government possesses the power of acquiring territory, either by conquest or by treaty.

"The usage of the world is, if a nation be not entirely subdued, to consider the holding of conquered territory as a mere military occupation, until its fate shall be determined at the treaty of peace. If it be ceded by the treaty, the acquisition is confirmed, and the ceded territory becomes a part of the nation to which it is annexed, either on the terms stipulated in the treaty of cession, or on such as its new master shall impose. On such transfer of territory, it has never been held that the relations of the inhabitants with each other undergo any change. Their relations with their former sovereign are dissolved, and new relations are created between them and the government which has acquired their territory. The same act which transfers their country, transfers the allegiance of those who remain in it; and the law, which may be denominated political, is necessarily changed, although that which regulates the intercourse and general conduct of individuals, remains in force until altered by the newly created power of the state.

"On the 2d of February, 1819, Spain ceded Florida to the United States. The 6th article of the treaty of cession,1 contains the following provision: "The inhabitants of the territories which his Catholic Majesty cedes to the United States by this treaty, shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, as soon as may 18 Stats. at Large, 252.

be consistent with the principles of the federal constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of the privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States."

"This treaty is the law of the land, and admits the inhabitants of Florida to the enjoyment of the privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States. It is unnecessary to inquire whether this is not their condition, independent of stipulation. They do not, however, participate in political power; they do not share in the government till Florida shall become a State. In the meantime, Florida continues to be a territory of the United States, governed by virtue of that clause in the constitution which empowers congress "to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States."

"Perhaps the power of governing a territory belonging to the United States, which has not, by becoming a State, acquired the means of self-government, may result necessarily from the facts that it is not within the jurisdiction of any particular State, and is within the power and jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory. Whichever may be the source whence the power is derived, the possession of it is unquestioned. In execution of it, congress, in 1822, passed "an act for the establishment of a territorial government in Florida," and on the 3d of March, 1823, passed another act to amend the act of 1822. Under this act, the territorial legislature enacted the law now under consideration.

THE CHEROKEE NATION v. THE STATE OF GEORGIA. 5 Peters, 1. Decided 1831.

This was an original bill filed in this court by the Cherokee Nation against the State of Georgia, and also a supplemental bill by the same complainant against the same defendant, upon which the complainant moved for a subpoena to the State, and also for a temporary injunction to restrain the State from enforcing the laws of Georgia within the territory alleged to belong exclusively to the complainants. As the decision of the court rested solely on the ground of want of jurisdiction, it is not deemed necessary to

23 Stats. at Large, 654.

state the contents of the bills, any further than they bear on that question.

The bill set forth the complainants to be "the Cherokee Nation of Indians, a foreign state, not owing allegiance to the United States, nor to any State of this Union, nor to any prince, potentate, or state, other than their own."

"That from time immemorial, the Cherokee Nation have composed a sovereign and independent state, and in this character have been repeatedly recognized, and still stand recognized, by the United States, in the various treaties subsisting between their nation and the United States." And it proceeds to state when these were made, and their substance, and shows how certain laws of Georgia are repugnant thereto.

On the day appointed for the hearing, the counsel for the complainants filed a supplemental bill, which states that since their bill, now submitted, was drawn, acts, demonstrative of the determination of the State of Georgia to enforce her assumed authority over the complainants and their territory, property, and jurisdiction, have taken place, and it sets out those acts.

No counsel appeared for the State of Georgia.

MARSHALL, C. J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This bill is brought by the Cherokee nation, praying an injunction to restrain the State of Georgia from the execution of certain laws of that State, which, as is alleged, go directly to annihilate the Cherokees as a political society, and to seize, for the use of Georgia, the lands of the nation which have been assured to them by the United States in solemn treaties repeatedly made and still in force..

Before we can look into the merits of the case, a preliminary inquiry presents itself. Has this court jurisdiction of the cause?

The 3d article of the constitution describes the extent of the judicial power. The 2d section closes an enumeration of the cases to which it is extended, with "controversies" "between a State or the citizens thereof and foreign states, citizens, or subjects." A subsequent clause of the same section gives the supreme court original jurisdiction in all cases in which a State shall be a party. The party defendant may, then, unquestionably be sued in this court. May the plaintiff sue in it? Is the Cherokee nation a foreign state in the sense in which that term is used in the constitution?

The counsel for the plaintiffs have maintained the affirmative of this proposition with great earnestness and ability. So much

of the argument as was intended to prove the character of the Cherokees as a state, as a distinct political society, separated from others, capable of managing its own affairs and governing itself, has, in the opinion of a majority of the judges, been completely successful. They have been uniformly treated as a state from the settlement of our country. The numerous treaties made by them with the United States recognize them as a people capable of maintaining the relations of peace and war, of being responsible in their political character for any violation of their engagements, or for any aggression committed on the citizens of the United States. by any individual of their community. Laws have been enacted. in the spirit of these treaties. The acts of our government plainly recognize the Cherokee nation as a state, and the courts are bound by those acts.

A question of much more difficulty remains. Do the Cherokees constitute a foreign state in the sense of the constitution?

The counsel have shown conclusively that they are not a State of the Union, and have insisted that individually they are aliens, not owing allegiance to the United States. An aggregate of aliens composing a state must, they say, be a foreign state. Each individual being foreign, the whole must be foreign.

This argument is imposing, but we must examine it more closely before we yield to it. The condition of the Indians in relation to the United States is perhaps unlike that of any other two people in existence. In the general, nations not owing a common allegiance are foreign to each other. The term foreign nation is, with strict. propriety, applicable by either to the other. But the relation of the Indians to the United States is marked by peculiar and cardinal distinctions which exist nowhere else.

The Indian territory is admitted to form a part of the United States. In all our maps, geographical treatises, histories, and laws, it is so considered. In all our intercourse with foreign nations, in our commercial regulations, in any attempt at intercourse between Indians and foreign nations, they are considered as within the jurisdictional limits of the United States, subject to many of those restraints which are imposed upon our own citizens. They acknowledge themselves in their treaties to be under the protection of the United States; they admit that the United States shall have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the trade with them, and managing all their affairs as they think proper; and the Cherokees in particular were allowed by the treaty of Hopewell,1 which preceded the constitution, "to send a deputy of their choice, when17 Statutes at Large, 18.