266 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
within their boundary they possessed rights with which no State could 
interfere, and that the whoie power of regulating the intercourse with 
them was vested in the United States. The legislation of Georgia on 
this subject was therefore unconstitutional and void.! 
Georgia refuses to submit to the decision of the Supreme Court.—Georgia 
refused to submit to the decision and alleged that the court possessed no 
right to pronounce it, she being by the Constitution of the United States 
a sovereign and independent State, and no new State could be formed 
within her limits without her consent. 
President Jacksons dilemma.—The President was thus placed between 
two fires, Georgia demanding the force of his authority to protect her 
constitutional rights by refusing to enforce the decision of the court, 
and the Cherokees demanding the maintenance of their rights as guar- 
anteed them under the treaty of 1791 and sustained by the decision of 
the Supreme Court. 
It was manifest the request of both could not be complied with. If 
he assented to the desire of the Cherokees a civil war was likely to 
ensue with the State of Georgia. If he did not enforce the decision 
and protect the Cherokees, the faith of the nation would be violated? 
in this dilemma a treaty was looked upon as the only alternative, by 
which the Cherokees should relinquish to the United States all their 
interest in lands east of the Mississippi and remove to the west of that 
river, and more earnest, urgent, aud persistent pressure than before was 
applied from this time forward to compel their acquiescence in such a 
scheme, 
DISPUTED BOUNDARIES BETWEEN CHEROKEES AND CREEKS. 
Mention has already been made in discussing the terms of the treaty 
of September 22, 1816, of the complications arising out of the question 
of disputed boundaries between the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and 
Chickasaws. These disputes related chiefly to an adjustment of bound- 
aries within the Territory of Alabama, rendered necessary for the defi- 
nite ascertainment of the limits of the Creek cession of 1814. But as 
a result of the Cherokee cession of 1817 and the Creek cessions of 1818, 
1821, 1826, and 1827, the true boundary between the territories of these 
two latter nations became not only a matter of dispute, but one that 
for years lent additional bitterness to the contest between the people 
of Georgia and the Indians, especially the Cherokees. Prior to the 
Revolution, the latter had claimed to own the territory within the limits 
of Georgia, as far south as the waters of Broad River, and extending 
from the headwaters of that river westward. Some of this territory 



1 Worcester vs. State of Georgia, Peters’s United States Supreme Court Reports, Vol, 
VI, p. 515. 
2 According to the statement of Hon. Geo. N. Briggs, a member of Congress from 
Massachusetts, President Jackson remarked, after the case of Worcester vs. State of 
Georgia was decided, ‘‘ Well, John Marshall has made his decision, now let him en- 
force it.” 
