Cherokee Phoenix

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Published December, 26, 1830

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From the National Intelligencer Extra.

EXTRACT FROM THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.

It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements, is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress; and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes, also, to seek the same obvious advantages.

The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual States, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the Government are the least of its recommendations. It puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the General and State Governments, on account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now occupied by a few savage hunters. By opening the whole territory between Tennessee on the north, and Louisiana on the south, to the settlement of the whites, it will incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier, and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasion without remote aid. It will relieve the whole State of Mississippi, and the western part of Alabama of Indian occupancy, and enable these States to advance rapidly in population, wealth and power. It will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; free them from the power of the States; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way, and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers; and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the Government, and through the influence of good counsels to cast off their savage habits, and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community. These consequences, some of them so certain, and the rest so probable, make the complete execution of the plan sanctioned by Congress at their last session an object of much solicitude.

Toward the aborigines of the country no one can indulge a more friendly feeling than myself, or would go further in attempting to reclaim them from their wandering habits, and make them a happy and prosperous people. I have endeavored to impress upon them my own solemn convictions of the duties and powers of the General Government in relation to the State authorities. For the justice of the laws passed by the States within the scope of their reserved powers, they are not responsible to this Government. As individuals, we may entertain and express our opinions of their acts; but, as a Government, we have as little right to control them as we have to prescribe laws to foreign nations.

With a full understanding of the subject, the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes have, with great unanimity, determined to avail themselves of the liberal offer presented by the act of Congress, and have agreed to remove beyond the Mississippi River. Treaties have been made with them, which in due season, will be submitted for consideration. In negotiating these treaties, they were made to understand their true condition; and they have preferred maintaining their independence in the Western forests to submitting to the laws of the States in which they now reside. These treaties being probably the last which will ever be made with them, are characterized by great liberality on the part of the Government. They give the Indians a liberal sum in consideration of their removal, and comfortable sustenance on their arrival at their new homes. If it be their real interest to maintain a separate existence, they will there be a liberty to do so without the inconveniences and vexations to which they would unavoidably have been subject in Alabama and Mississippi.

Humanity has often wept over the fate of the aborigines of this country; and philanthropy has been long busily employed in devising means to avert it. But its progress has never for a moment been arrested; and one by one have many powerful tribes disappeared from the earth. To follow to the tomb the last of his race, and to tread on the graves of extinct nations, excites melancholy reflections. But true philanthropy reconciles the mind to these vicissitudes, as it does to the extinction of one generation to make room for another. In the monuments and fortresses of all unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the West, we behold the memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated, or has disappeared, to make room for the existing savage tribes. Nor is there any thing in this, which, upon a comprehensive view of the general interests of the human race, is to be regretted. Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers. What good man would prefer a country covered with forest, and ranged by a few thousand savages, to our extensive republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms embellished with all the improvements which art can devise, or industry execute; occupied by more than twelve millions of happy people, and filled with all the blessings of liberty, civilization, and religion!

The present policy of the Government is but a continuation of the same progressive change, by a milder process. The tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were annihilated, and have melted away, to make room for the whites. The waves of population and civilization are rolling to the Westward; and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West, by a fair exchange, and at the expense of the United States, to send them to a land where their existence may be prolonged. and perhaps made perpetual. Doubtless it will be painful to leave the graves of their fathers; but what do they more than our ancestors did, or than our children are now doing? To better their condition in an unknown land, our forefathers left all that was dear in earthly objects. Our children, by thousands, yearly leave the land of their birth, to seek new homes in distant regions. Does humanity weep at these painful separations from every thing, animate and inanimate, with which the young heart has become entwined? Far from it. It is rather a source of joy that our country affords scope where our voting population may range unconstrained in body or in mind, developing the power and faculties of man in their highest perfection. These remove hundreds, and almost thousands of miles, at their own expense, purchase the lands they occupy, and support themselves at their new home from the moment of their arrival. Can it be cruel in this Government, when, by events which they cannot control, the Indian is made discontented in his ancient home, to purchase his lands, to give him a new and extensive territory, to pay the expense of his removal, and support him a year in his new abode? How many thousands of our own people would gladly embrace the opportunity of removing to the West on such conditions! If the offers made to the Indians were extended to them, they would be hailed with gratitude and joy.

And is it supposed that the wandering savage has a stronger attachment to his home, than the settled civilized Christian? Is it more afflicting to him to leave the graves of his fathers, than it is to our brothers and children? Rightly considered, the policy of the General Government towards the red man is not only liberal but generous. He is unwilling to submit to the laws of the States and mingle with the population. To save him from this alternative, or perhaps utter annihilation, the General Government kindly offers him a new home, and proposes to pay the whole expense of his removal and settlement.

In the consummation of a policy originating at an early period, and steadily pursued by every administration with the present century -- so just to the States, and so generous to the Indians, the Executive feels it has a right to expect the co-operation of Congress, and of all good and disinterested men. The States, moreover, have a right to demand it. It was substantially a part of the compact which made them members of our confederacy. With Georgia, there is an express contract; with the new States, an implied one, of equal obligation. Why, in authorizing Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama, to form constitutions, and become separate States, did Congress include with their limits, extensive tracts of Indians lands, and, in some instances, powerful Indian tribes? Was it not understood by both parties that the power of the States was to be co-extensive with their limits, and that, with all convenient dispatch, the General Government should extinguish the Indian title, and remove every obstruction to the complete jurisdiction of the State Governments over the soil? Probably not one of those States would have accepted a separate existence -- certainly it would never have been granted by Congress -- had it been understood that they were to be confined forever to those small portions of the nominal territory, the Indian title to which had at the time been extinguished.

It is, therefore, a duty which this government owes to the new States, to extinguish, as soon as possible, the Indian title to all lands which Congress themselves have included within their limits. When this is done, the duties of the General Government in relation to the States and Indians within their limits are at an end. The Indians may leave the State or not, as they choose. The purchase of their lands does not alter, in the least their personal relations with the State Government. No act of the General Government has ever been deemed necessary to give the States jurisdiction over the persons of the Indians. That they possess, by virtue of their sovereign power within their own limits, in a full a manner before as after the purchase of the Indians lands; nor can this Government add to diminish it.

May we not hope, therefore, that all good citizens, and none more zealously than those who think the Indians oppressed by subjection to the laws of the States, will unite in attempting to open the eyes of those children of the forest to their true condition, and, by a speedy removal, to relieve them from the evils, real or imaginary, present or prospective with which they may be supposed to be threatened.