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GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 557
But we are moving too rapidly forward. Crimes were of frequent
occurrence on the Indian lands and to check these lawless deeds an act
was passed by the Legislature in 1829 in which power was given to
the courts of adjacent counties to try all persons charged with com
mitting crimes in the territory of the nation. This explains Judge
Clayton's letter to Governor Gilmer. The Cherokees strongly objected
to such an assumption of authority, asserting themselves to be an inde
pendent power; and they even went so far as to retain one of the most
distinguished lawyers of his day to represent them as counsel: Wil
liam Wirt, of Maryland. Mr. Wirt, in a letter to Governor Gilmer, of
June 4, 1830, suggested that the Supreme Court of the United States
be asked to arbitrate the matter; but Governor Gilmer declined to
entertain .this proposal, which he characterized as disrespectful to the
commonwealth. Nevertheless, Mr. Wirt applied to the Supreme Court
for an injunction to prevent the execution of the obnoxious Georgia
laws.
Meanwhile, the Cherokee country became the center of dramatic
scenes. To execute the laws forbidding trespass on the Indian lands,
there was need for an effectual application of force by the state gov
ernment. The miners had defied the officers of the law and the
gold-digging had continued. Thereupon Major Wagner, an officer of
the United States army, marched into the Cherokee Nation with a com
pany of soldiers from Charleston and Augusta and destroyed the camps,
provisions and tools of the gold-diggers. Not a few of the trespassers
themselves were arrested, but in lieu of imprisonment were taken to
the nearest ferry and put across the Chattahoochee River. The Indians
likewise were forbidden to mine for gold.*
But an opportunity for testing the new law soon arose. To quote
Mr. Phillips: t "Before the motion for injunction was argued, a case
arose which the Cherokees thought might 'test the matter. George
Tassel, a Cherokee Indian, had been convicted of murder in the Hall
County Superior Court, and lay in jail under sentence of death. When
a writ of error was carried to the United States Supreme Court, the
State of Georgia was cited through its governor, December 12, 1830,
to appear and show cause why the writ should not be decided against
the state. Governor Gilmer, in a message of December 22, submitted
the citation to the Legislature, stating in his own behalf: 'So far as
concerns the executive department, orders received from the Supreme
Court in any manner interfering with the decisions of the courts of
this state in the constitutional exercise of their jurisdiction will be dis
regarded, and any attempt to enforce such orders will be resisted with
whatever force the laws have placed at my command.' The response
of the General Assembly was a resolution requiring the governor to
use all his legal power to repel every invasion upon the administration
of the criminal laws of the state from whatever quarter. Said this
resolution: "The State of Georgia will never so far compromit her
sovereignty as an independent state as to become a party to the case
sought to be made before the Supreme Court of the United States by
* "History of Georgia," Lawton B. Evans, p. 220.
t "Georgia and State Bights," pp. 75-77.