The Indian nations had always been considered as distinct, independent
political communities, retaining their original natural rights, as the
undisputed possessors of the soil, from time immemorial, with the
single exception of that imposed by irresistible power, which excluded
them from intercourse with any other European potentate than the first
discoverer of the coast of the particular region claimed: and this was
a restriction which those European potentates imposed on themselves, as
well as on the Indians. The very term, "nation," so generally applied
to them, means "a People distinct from others." The constitution, by
declaring treaties already made, as well as those to be made, to be the
supreme law of the land, has adopted and sanctioned the previous
treaties with the Indian nations, and, consequently, admits their rank
among those Powers who are capable of making treaties. The words
"treaty" and "nation" are words of our own language, selected in our
diplomatic and legislative proceedings, by ourselves, having each a
definite and well understood meaning. We have applied them to Indians,
as we have applied them to the other nations of the earth. They are
applied to all in the same sense.

Georgia, herself, has furnished conclusive evidence that her former
opinions on this subject concurred with those entertained by her sister
States, and by the Government of the United States. Various acts of her
Legislature have been cited in the argument, including the contract of
cession made in the year 1802, all tending to prove her acquiescence in
the universal conviction that the Indian nations possessed a full right
to the lands they occupied, until that right should be extinguished by
the United States, with their consent; that their territory was
separated from that of any State within whose chartered limits they
might reside, by a boundary line, established by treaties; that, within
their boundary, they possessed rights with which no State could
interfere; and that the whole power of regulating the intercourse with
them, was vested in the United States. A review of these acts, on the
part of Georgia, would occupy too much time, and is the less necessary,
because they have been accurately detailed in the argument at the bar.
Her new series of laws, manifesting her abandonment of these opinions,
appears to have commenced in December, 1828.

In opposition to this original right, possessed by the undisputed
occupants