by a majority of the nation, or else have considered a majority not necessary for the purpose of making a valid Treaty. Is it to be believed that the President of the United States, Gov. Everett, Gen. Dearborn, Mr. Gillett, and various other public functionaries, who have had an agency in bringing this instrument before the Senate for confirmation, would have said and done all that we find in these documents before us, and which we have in our hands, if they entertained opinions adverse to the fairness and validity of this Treaty?

No, sir, this Treaty would never have reached this Senate if these public functionaries had considered it liable to the formidable objections which we have heard advanced on this floor. Mr. President, much as I have said on this subject, I have greatly abridged what I would have said but for the confidence which I feel in both the ability and disposition of both the Senators from New York to supply all my omissions on this subject.

Allow me, sir, once more, in the conclusion of my remarks, to advert to the bearing of this question pending before the Senate, on the destiny and lasting interest of this remnant of the aboriginal race.

To me, sir, these people are a peculiar, interesting portion of the human family. I consider them human beings; I wish to treat them as such.

I cannot, in my conscience, assign them a place half way between man and beast. I wish to save them from destruction. Hence, I urge their speedy removal from the degrading and demoralizing situation in which we now find them. Their unrestrained intercourse with the licentious portion of the populous cities and villages by which they are surrounded is prejudicial alike to the Indian and white population. Deprived as these people are of the right to acquire and hold property in severalty, they are destitute of those incentives to industry and frugality which animate and reward every white man in our happy country.

Being debarred all political rights, they naturally consider themselves a proscribed and debased race; and the individual exceptions of worth and intelligence amongst them, while it seems to evince their capacity for improvement under more favorable circumstances, and to become a civilized people, will not, however, shield them from becoming a nation of vagabonds and paupers in their present abodes.

During forty years, they have made no perceptible advance in the arts of civilized life, so that it is impossible

longer to resist the conviction that their preservation from increasing misery and ultimate extinction can alone be found in their separation from the white population, and by conferring on them those rights and privileges which in all countries where they are enjoyed, have been gradually found to lead to civilization, and to prepare the way for the introduction of Christianity, with all its happy influences. It is a striking and most important fact, which I have observed amongst various Indian tribes since I have advocated the emigration of the Indians to the West, that the best educated, the most moral and intelligent who are inclined to embrace and have embraced Christianity, the most sober, industrious and thriving, are generally the friends and advocates of emigration; and it is as uniformly resisted by the ambitious and selfish leaders who carry in their train the most ignorant and degraded, and those who are least capable of appreciating the advantages of civilization.

In connection with the best interest of these Indians, Mr. President, let us also bear in mind the important interest which the State of New York has in this question. True, New York is already great and prosperous; the Empire State of the Confederacy; but, sir, may we not all rejoice at her increasing strength and prosperity? Are we not all Americans? Do we not all belong to the same confederacy of sovereign States? Are we not members of the same great family? Shall we, then, in being co-workers together, endeavor to promote the interest of each and all the States? And, still further, sir, shall we forget that the great interest of all the States requires that the country now occupied by these unfortunate Indians should be densely populated by good white citizens?

The geographical situation of the country or territory now in question requires its settlement in aid of the defense and strength of our common country.

But, sir, I will not detain the Senate longer upon the subject of this Treaty. I think that what I have said will induce those who have not already done so to examine and investigate this subject carefully. And, sir, overwhelming as the opposition to this Treaty has appeared to be, yet if it can have a full and fair investigation, by this enlightened Senate, I still indulge the hope that impressions not well based may give way to the force of evidence and reflection, and that this Treaty may yet receive the expression of the Senators' approbation.

I have the satisfaction to state that my labor was not in vain, upon the subject of the Senate's sanction to this New York Treaty. When the final vote was taken in the Senate, by yeas and nays, there was a tie, an equal division of the Senate.

Whereupon Col. Richard M. Johnson, then presiding as Vice President of the United States, gave his vote in favor of reversing the report of the Committee on Indian Affairs, and in favor of confirming the Treaty. Accordingly, the Treaty was agreed to, and sustained, and, with it, my views on the subject, as presented in the foregoing speech.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Before taking my final leave of this Indian subject, I must seek the indulgence of the reader to bear with me patiently while I add one more addendum in the nature of an apology for having said so much on this subject.

I admit that I have already been guilty of seeming tautology, and very frequent repetitions of the same ideas and arguments; but the nature of the subject, from its long continued controversy and my connection with it in so many different and important official stations, produces this seeming redundancy in what I have written.

My correspondence and speeches which I have given plainly show that I met with, and had to encounter, attacks from various quarters when in different official positions, and consequently my policy and measures all tending to support the same principles; my reasoning and arguments wear something of the appearance of sameness.

In a long protracted war, over many fields of battle, in reporting the incidents of each encounter, we are necessarily compelled, in the details, to maintain the verbiage suited to the subject in every report.

My views and plans in connection with Indian affairs were first developed when a member of Congress, in the year 1827, and, for four years in that body, those views were constantly urged and pressed, and, I may add, with great

success.

During this time provision was made for emigrating and colonizing the whole of the remnant tribes of the Indians then remaining in the States to the west of the Mississippi. But notwithstanding the liberal provision made by Congress for the removal and comfortable settlement of the Indians in the West, the Cherokees of Georgia, influenced by John Ross and bad white men, were generally opposed to emigration, when, in 1831, I was called to the Chief Magistracy of Georgia, by the unsolicited voice of the people of the State, with a special view to the then existing Indian relations of the State, and I remained in that office (by a second election) for four years. And during that time my views and policy in relation to the Indian affairs of the State were, in the

main, sustained by a majority of both branches of the Legislature.

And while I solemnly aver, before God and man, that my whole policy in connection with these Indian affairs originated and was prosecuted with a view to the promotion of the best interest and permanent welfare of the Cherokee people, as well as the white population, I admit that I assumed ground and pressed forward in my plans of opposition imperative in their nature towards the Indians. And although violently opposed, at home and abroad, not a month passed which did not carry with it evidence of ultimate success in all my measures.

I admit that it was the policy of my measures to legislate the Cherokees into a peaceful willingness to leave the States, and avoid that gradual destruction which was daily consuming them and their substance, while they remained in the States of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina. And finally they yielded to my views, most of them with great cheerfulness, and strong hopes of an improved condition. And all this was effected without war or bloodshed, but not without much controversy, toil, and labor on my part.

After my executive labors had resulted in the New Echota Treaty of 1835, as Commissioner of the United States in executing that Treaty, I had to encounter the opposition of Ross and his followers and stipendiaries. After which, I was transferred, by the public voice of Georgia from my Commissionership to the Senate of the United States, to meet the efforts of Ross and party politicians who were at Washington, striving to prevent the emigration of the remaining Cherokees under the beneficent and liberal provisions of the New Echota Treaty.

The careful and patient reader will find in what I have recorded for his information and that of posterity, that the foregoing references to the official stations which I occupied for twelve successive years necessarily forced me in different positions to occupy again and again the very same ground, with such variations only as the different positions required.

I first fought the great Indian battle on emigration in the House of Representatives, in Congress, in the years 1827, 1828, 1829 and 1830-31; then in the Executive Office of Georgia, in the years 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834-35; then as United States Commissioner, in 1836 and part of 1837; and then in the Senate of the United States, commencing in 1837, and ending in 1841. I was, throughout these years