3. In 1831, the state of Georgia charged and convicted Samuel Worcester and other United States citizens for violating a state law that regulated and often prevented non-Native Americans from residing with the local Cherokee Indian tribe. Worcester and the others challenged their guilty conviction, arguing that the state of Georgia could not create and enforce such a law because it violated the Constitution, existing treaties between the United States and the Cherokee nation, and at least one congressional law that addressed relations between U.S. citizens and the Cherokee. In this case of Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme Court sided 5:1 with Worcester and fellow litigants, overturning the convictions. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, "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 the powers who are capable of making treaties." Marshall and the Court went on to say "treaty" and "nation" are words "selected in our diplomatic and legislative proceedings" that apply to Indians as to the other nations.