Cherokee Phoenix

INDIANS

Published April, 17, 1833

Page 2 Column 4b

INDIANS

Among the most interesting events of this stirring age, are the pardon and release of the two Georgia Missionaries. Gov. Lumpkin has published his manifesto to the world, setting forth that they have thrown themselves upon the magnanimity of the State,-that the State has done enough for glory,-and there in all the dignity of conscious rectitude, and perfumed with the full odor of sanctity, she turns the key of the penitentiary, and with clemency transcending that of Titus himself, she bids them go in peace. In other words the missionaries finding that an unconditional pardon was to be given them, have abandoned the process by which they were endeavoring to obtain their liberty, and are pardoned.

Truly it becomes Georgia to talk about magnanimity, and to instruct her officers to boast of the dignity and honor with which she is clothed. We wish her all possible joy, if she finds anything to gratify her pride in the laurels she has won, and the prizes she has drawn. Her own vain glorious boastings,-and self commendation however, must be more valuable than we think them, if they furnish a fair offset against the unmeasured abhorrence and aversion of the civilized world. She has indeed earned for herself some reputation- a reputation that bids fair to be remembered while that of Algiers is forgotten. At the very moment while by her officials, she is canting about magnanimity and clemency, she is consummating one of the most extensive robberies which the world ever witnessed,-and without a shadow of title, in defiance of the decisions of her own Courts, as well as those of the Union, in utter contempt of public faith and private memory with no motive but sordid and impertinent avarice, she seizes the houses, farms, gold mines and lands of the defenseless Cherokees, and sells them by lottery to her own citizens. The lawful property of these poor wretches she takes by conquest, her citizens attempt to win possession from the desperate owners by force, and can in many instances maintain that possession only by murder.

The magnanimity of Georgia! The Buccaneers of old were equally magnanimous; like Georgia, they seized what they wanted, with strong hands and made good their title by conquest, and where necessary, by extermination. Their motives were not in the least degree more selfish, or less magnanimous than those of Georgia.- They shed more blood than Georgia has yet caused to now,-but they did not in their whole history deviate more widely from the eternal rules of strict justice ' honor,-they did not even perpetuate a more palpable booty, they never gave the world more glaring example of the suppression of law by brute force than Georgia does at the moment.

The magnanimity of Georgia! Without law and against right she seizes upon two individuals, and throws them into her dungeons. They have been solemnly adjudged by the highest tribunal known to the laws to be innocent of any crime whatever,-and now she generously remits the remainder of a sentence, which she had no right to enact in the first place, and which in itself was a crime of the deepest atrocity. At the very moment while she is distributing the spoils of the Cherokees, inflicting an incurable wound on the laws and Constitution of this land,-trespassing upon the national faith,-staining with her ___ iniquities the pure ermine of the national honor,-and placing her self at the same level in civilization and justice with the Barbary powers, she rebukes South Carolina for threatening to nullify the laws. When Georgia lets go her ruffian grasp from the throat of the Cherokees,- when she has made all the reparation she can make to those whom her illegal violence has shut up in jail,- she may begin to talk about justice. Even then, it would be unreasonable and premature to mention of magnanimity.

Lowell. Journal.