Among other laws passed by the State of Georgia was one that went into effect on the 1st of February, 1831, which prohibited the Cherokees from holding councils, or assembling for any purpose; provided for a distribution of their lands among her citizens; required all whites residing in the Cherokee Nation within her chartered limits to take an oath of allegiance to the State, and made it an offense punishable by four years' imprisonment in the penitentiary to refuse to do so. Under this law two missionaries, Messrs. Worcester and Butler, were indicted in the superior court of Gwinnett County for residing without license in that part of the Cherokee country attached to Georgia by her laws and in violation of the act of her legislature approved December 22, 1830. In the trial of Mr. Worcester's case, which was subsequently made the test case in the Supreme Court of the United States, he pleaded that he was a citizen of Vermont and entered the Cherokee country as a missionary with the permission of the President of the United States and the approval of the Cherokee Nation; that Georgia ought not to maintain the prosecution inasmuch as several treaties had been entered into by the United States with the Cherokee Nation, by which the latter were acknowledged as a sovereign nation, and by which the territory occupied by them had been guaranteed to them by the United States. The superior court overruled this plea, and Mr. Worcester was tried, convicted, and sentenced to four years in the penitentiary.