Living There Without A Licence

A missionary lived and worked among an Indian nation on land inside a state's claimed borders. A new state law made it a crime for any white person to live in that territory without a permit from the governor and an oath to support the state's constitution and laws. He had neither. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to four years' hard labour. He said the state's law simply had no force on that ground, because treaties with the United States governed it.