The removal of the Indians : an article from the American monthly magazine: an examination of an article in the North American review: and an exhibition of the advancement of the southern tribes, in civilization and Christianity ..

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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

iJarlington JM-einorial i-/ibrary

1 I . / THE

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MI5MOVAI. OF THE INDIANS.

AN ARTICLE

FROM THE AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE

AN EXAMINATION OF AN ARTICLE

IN THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

AND AN EXHIBITION OF THE

A15VAN0SME3ffT OF THE SOUTHERN TRIBES,

OIVIZiIZiHTIOir ikSTD CHRZSTIwaLSTITir.

'•' Of all Injustice, that is the greatest, which goes under the name of Law 3 ami of all
sorts of Tyranny, the forcing of the letter of the Law against the Equity is the most insup-
portable.''

BOSTON : PEIRCE AND WILLIAMS.

1830*

2 Removal of the Indians,

coining to a true and impartial decision by exaniining for thennselves,
and tijus periorining vvdat is a nioral duty, if ever any duty was
moral and binding. On this point, benevolence, reason, justice,
conscience, and the Word of God, speak a voice equally loud and
plain ; — and the voice of |)rudence, liberal, expansive, enlightened,
iar-seeing prudence, the [)rudence of republics and of all human so-
cieties, never did and never can contradict it. The course, which
our country ought to pursue in regard to this question, is so plain,
that he who runs may read. It is written with equal clearness on
the law of nations, — the law which binds society together, and keeps
one half the world from preying like wolves and tigers on the other
— and on the law of individual protection and benevolence. It is
written alike on the law of justice and the law of mercy. It is
written in the constitution of the human mind, and, with an impress
more clear and burning than the sunbeams, by the Holy Spirit in the
Law of God. It is written in die unsophisticated common sense of
the whole world ; and if, contrary to such noon-day ol)ligations, the
government of this country slioidd set a final seal of ap|)robation on
tiie deed of infernal cruelly, vvhicli not a few of those, to whom its
destinies have been committed by the inscrutable wisdom of Jehovah,
seem to be meditating, that common sense will speak out, in a uni-
versal thunder of reproach on the rapacity and perjury of this repub-
lic. The benevolence of all mankind will not be tranipled upon in
silence. We shall hear its indignant voice echoed and reiterated
from the shores of the Atlantic to tlie shores of the Pacific ; and it
will not die to the latest generation of our race. And far more
to be deprecated, the sentence of the Almighty — the judgment of the
Ruler of the universe — will go out against us, and a curse must follow
m its train.

We are astonished to behold, in the North American Review, an ar-
ticle of sixty pages in length, devoted to the sole purpose, not of up-
holding a manly and humane policy, which it might so efFectually
have supported, but of justifying our Government in an act of the
most unparalleled perfidy and bare injustice ; devoted to the purpose
of obviating the powerful objections on the part of reason and human-
ity, of darkening the minds of unprejudiced and sober inquirers, and
of arguing down the lofty obligations of national morality to a place
below the never-to-be-satisfied demands of national selfishness. It
attempts to stifle the voice of nature and justice, to set aside the law
of nations and of God, by an imposing array of legal subtleties, by the
entanglements and intricacies of sophistry, and by a frightful exhibi-
tion of the apparent difliculties, which, to a depraved moral vision,
always stand up in the path of truth and justice. We are astonished,
we say ; for we have always looked upon the character of its present
Editor with sincere esteem for the moral courage and plainness, the

Removal of the Indians. 3

intellectual ability, and the unremitting industry, which mark it; and
we did not expect that he would put even his tacit sanctionon a violation
of morality so manifest as this. The character likewise of the re-
puted author of that article is such as might have secured his suffrage
at least, if not his powerful alliance and defence, for the cause of the
oppressed and the degraded, or, in the abstract, the cause of virtue
and honor and religion. When we look back also to the past numbers
of 'that work, and compare the present article with those eloquent
ones, which at no great distance of time have added to its reputation
both for intellect and moral worth, and have deeply enlisted the
sympathies of all hearts for the wretched and decaying remains of
our once numerous and powerful, and comparatively virtuous and
happy Aborigines, we regard tlie melancholy contrast, which it exhi-
bits in sentiment and doctrine, with feelings both of sorrow and in-
dignation. We mourn that such an index of the perverted state of
moral feeling in our country should go forth through the world, to
which we are so continually boasting of our perfect liberty, equality,
and nobleness of character ; we mourn for the new occasion it will
give to the friends of regal and despotic authority, to ridicule the
gratitude and the honor of republics.

But we cannot express our indignation at the nature of the argument
by which it attempts to establish tlie propriety and even necessity of
so glaring an exception to the obligations of morality and law ; by
which it attempts wholly to undervalue and set aside those obligations,
and to substitute, instead of such as are eternal, indestructible and
self-evident, the narrow, paltry maxims of all-grasping selfishness ; —
the maxims of a state policy, which is criminal, because it does not
recognize at once, and without appeal, the supreme authority of the
Law of God, and short-sighted, because it imagines, with the con-
tractedness of view universally peculiar to what is wicked and selfish
in design, that any true and lastin^; interest of any nation can ever be
subserved by any means, on which are stamped the evident charac-
ters of crime, and to which the Creator of the Universe has affixed
an everlasting curse. No real good, national or individual, can ever
be procured through the instrumentality of motives or exertions which
are selfish, fraudulent, and cruel. It may appear such at the time,
for the moral vision is totally perverted, and reason is darkened by
the ignorance of guilt; but in the light of eternity, and often in the
unerring wisdom of a very short and bitter experience, it w^ill be
looked upon with agonizing remorse of conscience, and avoided with
shudderings of horror. At the last it will bite like a serpent, and
sting like an adder. Turn to the pages of History, and you will
find a thousand records of this trutli, in lt;e dreadfiil tyranny, the
short splendor, and the long and frightfid desolations of misery, which
.have followed each other in the career of guilty nations and individu-

4 Hemoval of the Indians. *

als. Were the prospect ever so dark before us in the path of rec-
titude as to this question, we never would believe that God has made
a world, in which the course of honorable justice leads to delrinnent,
while that of crooked, deceitful, and cruel policy leads on to gain.
We know it is not so. We know there is an eternal, indissoluble con-
nection between national virtue and national prosperity; as there is a
connection, equally indissoluble, and terribly certain, between national
crime and national misery.

But how long shall it be that a Christian people — freer than any
other people, and more favored of God than any other nation on
the earth, in an age too of such genera! civilization and intellectual
refinement, — shall stand balancing the considerations of profit and loss
on a great national question of justice and benevolence? How long
shall it be that when the path of rectitude lies plain before us, we shall
stop to deliberate whether our cursed avarice may not better be grat-
ified by stepping over the stile, and rushing forw^ard in the path
of guilt ? How long shall we remain a spectacle of mortification to
all good beings in the universe of God ? How long before we shall
learn first of all to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with him,
and let the considerations of national selfishness at least come up after-
wards, if we cannot bring ourselves wholly to anniliilate them ?
How long shnll the world wait before it is permitted to behold the
glorious spectacle of a great nation, in a great crisis, trampling under
foot all thought of every thing but duty, and stepping forth, nobly,
decidedly, sternly, in the path faced out by the hand of justice and
the thoughts of mercy ?

It makes us indignant to see how a statesman of no mean powers
of intellect can pervert his ingenuity to make the worse appear the
better reason ; to make it appear that the only course left for us to
pursue is one, which will most inevitably involve us in the crimes of
perjury and cruelty. But let us not be schooled in the way of our
interest by the lessons of the mere politician. Let us be cautious
how we darken the map of our political course by the blots of our
own invention, or refuse to be guided by the great beacon of nation-
al as well as individual prosperity, — by the light of religion. In this
case as in every other, we may rest assured in the confidence that a
nation's duty is its path to glory and happiness ; and the duty of our
whole nation is never doubtful. Here it is so evident that even they
who would violate it, dare not plainly contradict it, but attempt to
escape from it by perplexing the conscience with the intricacies of
apparently clashing and opposing duties, and by deceiving the mind
with the phantoms of general expedience and necessity.

We have no doubt that our remarks upon the article in the North
American Review will appear extremely false and exaggerated to
all who have read only on that side the question which that article

Removal of the Indians. 5

aims to support. They will wonder what there is in that temperate
paper to excite any but an inhabitant of Bedlam to such an outcry
of violated justice and humanity as we have been making. They
will declare that we have written under tlie influence of a distem-
pered imagination ; and that we are mad enthusiasts on a question
which we cannot understand, because we are determined to put the
authority of the Bible above that of Vattel, and to impose silence on
the demands of avarice, while the voice of God is speaking within
us by the dictates of our reason and of conscience. By such per-
sons we are well content to be so esteemed ; knowing diat, from the
days of St. Paul downwards, mankind have been ready to brand all
with the epithet of madmen, who speak forth the words of truth and
soberness to bosoms agitated with passion, and beclouded by the sel-
fishness of a worldly policy.

Such persons will see nothing but benevolence in the spirit, jus-
tice in the principles, and truth in the assertions of that article, and
will probably arise from its perusal with minds deeply convinced of
its reasonableness, and more than ever in the power oY that abomin-
able sophistry of expediency and state necessity, which has some-
times darkened the understandings of the wisest of men. The arti-
cle is indeed most plausible in hs character ; and it is this which
makes us grieve for the influence it will probably exert. It is writ-
tenwith all the beauty of style which characterizes the productions
of its author, and in that spirit of cold and temperate caution, with
which all Machiavellian schemes of policy, from time immemorial,
have been broached. Whatever the writer may think of his own
disposition, and we doubt not he supposes he is at least doing: his
covntry sevv'ice, it is manifest that he does not feel as he ouglu for
the weltare of those, on whose destiny he is exertine; perhaps'a most
powerful influence. His mind gives way, like that of multitudes of
others, to the false faith that the Indians never can be civilized ; and
his habits of weighing too often, and too exclusively, the good and
the happiness which might accrue to the nation, if these stumbling
blocks vyere out of the way, makes him write of them as if they
were neither human, nor endowed with the rights nor the capabilities,
which their more fortunate neighbors possess; to be treated, indeed'
hke so many stubborn animals, and to be sacrificed without scruple^
whenever the interests of the whole United States seem to require it!
Those who difl'er from, him, and strongly tnaintain the part of full
justice, he treats as men indeed of a misguided enthusiastic benevo-
lence, but with little understanding, and no practical experience in
these matters.

If some of the principles developed in this article were exhibi-
ted in their naked and abstract distortion, we hesitate not to sav,
however specious the form, they are here made to assume, that all

6 Removal of the Indians.

honest men would call tliem infernal. Tliey are no other than the
maxim that power makes right, and that we may lawliilly do evil that
good may come.

The maxim that power makes right is the one, on which every
conquering nation has proceeded from the lime of Romulus " before
and after." It is tlie force of this maxim only, which gave to the
Spaniards, who first discovered this country, an exclusive command,
(in the justice of which this writer seems peifectly to agree) over the
territory and even the lives of its native possessors. It is the same
maxim, which kept the English so long in the undisputed eiTJoyment
of an abstract right to enslave and torture the natives of Africa.

The maxim that evident right must yield to expediency is also as
ancient as the combination of human depravil\, with superiority m
one individual or nation over another. " We have long passed the
period of abstract righl," says this writer. " Political questions are
complicated in their relations, involving considerations of expediency
and authority, as well as of natural justice." We object not to what
is contained in these sentences, so far as it relates to those abstract
rights, the permission and prevalence of which would disorganize the
whole constitution of human society, and throw us back into a state of
murderous anarchy, worse than the wildness of the brutes. These
are theoretical rii^hts, such as were contended for in the most
terrible period of the French Revolution, such as God never gave to
men in communities, and such as each man surrenders when he
enters into the social compact. We deny that the rights which
belong to the Indians, and of which wicked men are endeavormg
to defraud them, partake of this character in the slightest degree.
They are not abstract rights; they are stronger and more evident
than any abstract right can be; they are written and acknowledged
in almost every treaty, which our government has been called to
make with these tribek The attempt to reason them awav^by the
complicated "considerations of expediency and audiority" is an
attempt of gross cruelty and injustice. What renders it still worse
is the truth that these considerations are altogetlier imaginary ; and that
the difficulties, which have occasioned such a summary and most
comprehensive definition of impossible abstract rights, as would in-
clude all that is worth possessing by any community of human beings,
are accumulated solely by the spirit of proud and selfish extortion.
They are such, moreover, as would return with a tenfold perplexity
and power at that distant period, with which the writer of this article
most complacently declares we have no business to trouble ourselves
in the present decision of the question. We refer our readers to the
plain statements and reasonings of William Penn, for a most thorough
exposition of the real falsehood and immorality of such arguments and
principles as this article contains. We warn them not to give them-

Removal of the Indians. 7

selves up to the power of its polite and plausible and apparently
humane sophistry, till they have examined this question carefully in
all its possible aspects, and in the clear light of our religious obliga-
tions.

We think we can see, in the agitation of this question, a crisis of
greater importance to this whole country — (not to the Indians
alone ; that, though it be the business of humanity to weigh it even
in the hair's estimaiion, is perhaps the least part of the matter) —
than any other era has presented since the first moment of our na-
tional existence. We will go farther, and affirm without fear of
being contradicted by those who have been accustomed to watch
the progress of the world, and how God administers the affairs of
this portion of his universe, that it is a crisis of greater moment, and
on which hang greater consequences, than any event, which has
transpired since the May Flower landed its first adventurers on the
shores of this continent ; — a continent then occupied through its whole
extent by that numerous people, concerning the fate of whose last re-
maining descendants, we, in our national capacity, are to legislate and
decide. It is so, because it far more deeply involves our moral and reli-
gious character, by bringing us, in that capacity, to the very eve of the
commission of a great and dreadful crime. Perhaps it is one of those
awful occasions, on which Jehovah resolves to try, by a high and
solemn trust, the true character of those kingdoms whom he has
loaded with his benefits ; and from whom he requires an eminence of
goodness, and a readiness of grateful obedience to his commands,
and a jealous acknowledgement and support of the supreme authority
of his laws, in some measure proportionate to the greatness and pecu-
liarity of the blessings he has conferred.

The agitation of this question is not like that of admitting the in-
dependence of the Greeks, in which no decision could affect any
great principle of evangelical morality or national law. It is not like
that of the abolition of the slave-trade, in which the wrong alternative
was that of conUnuing, to a somewhat longer period, the commission
of a crime with which a nation had been stained for centuries. It is
not like that of the declaration of independence, w^here, in any alter-
native, the moral character of the people would have remained spot-
less. It is a question whether we shall noiv contaminate ourselves,
in addition to all our other guilt, with a new and awful crime ; — new,
in proportion to the singularity of the circumstances, (unexampled in
the history of the world) in which Providence has placed us in regard
to the Indians ; — and awful, in proportion to the civil and religious
privileges which we enjoy, and tlie means of knowing our duty in
the light, which the universal spread of the Gospel has poured so
abundantly upon us. Judging from these circumstances, a sin com-
mitted by usj whatever be its nature, must make us incalculably more

8 Removal of the Indians.

guilty, than it could have made almost any other nation, which has ever
existed. And here we are, on the very eve of deciding the question,
whether we shall plunge ourselves into such guilt, and yet we are sit-
ting apparently in the apathy of the sleep of death.

We repeat it. There is an awful, and a deeply criminal apathy,
in which the public mind of our whole country is slumbering on
this momentous subject. The public feeling has never yet been
roused by any of those strong representations and appeals, which the
case would justify, and which the crisis imperiously demands. It is
a proof how callous the heart of our nation has become to everything
but tlie stimulus of vanity, and selfishness, and pride, that even in
New England, whose inhabitants are apt to be foremost on every
occasion, where the interests of religion and of patriotism are at stake,
the indifference of which we speak is profound. We are apparently
at too great a distance from the place where this tragedy threatens
to be acted, to experience a very awakening impulse of excitement
for those who are to be its victims. Distance in space lessens the
power of sympathy, and deadens our sensibilities for the sufferings of
the oppressed. We have heard of thousands murdered, or enslaved
for life, and tortured by task-masters, in a distant land, with far less
emotion than that with which we should witness a single blow, cause-
lessly inflicted on a stranger within our gates. But the danger is none
the less alarming, because it is not at our very doors ; the sufferings of
the Indians will be none the less acute, and the injustice inflicted upon
them none the less atrocious, and the consequences to our country none
the less certain and terrible, because those sufferings may not be wit-
nessed by us, or because we cannot be present on the spot, to have
our souls harrowed with tlie effect of that injustice, or because those
consequences look small and chimerical in the distance.

The Christian public especially have been criminal in their neglect
of this great subject. It belonged to them to have been long since
watching, with a vigilance which could not be lulled into security,
the most distant approach of an event like that, wdiich now threatens
so soon to be accomplished. It belonged to them to detect the pre-
cursors of the storm, and give warning of its progress in the distant
horizon, while yet the sky above was unspotted with a cloud. It was
their part to have calculated and foretold the effect of the passions of
mankind, with whose power they are so well acquainted, and to have
made provision against their terrible results.

But while even distant nations have been investigating this subject
with the most evident interest, we ourselves, on whom its consequen-
ces are to fall, are found sleeping, — even while there may be heard
around us the portentous noise and movement, which precedes the
quick shock of an earthquake.

Removal of the Indians. 9

The letters of Penn, indeed, have issued from nmong us ; and they
are an hononible testimony to the vigilance and ability of that man's
individual mind, to the correctness ol his own moral feelings, and to
the living and energetic piety of the circle in which he moves. But
what else has been done? Has this subject sufficiently arrested the
notice of private Christians; and what report would each man's con-
science command him to make, if he were asked to say how often
its remembrance has gone with him to his closet, and how fervently
his prayers have ascended to tlie God of nations, for that interposition,
without which the most vigorous and timely efforts are of no avail.
We often think, on every occasion like this, of Cowper's most beau-
tiful and affecting description of the man of humble and retired piety.
The truth it contains is as sublime and real, as its poetry is exquisite.

Not slothful he, though seeming unemployed,

And censiiied oft as useless. Stillest streams

Oft water fairest meadows, and the bird.

That flutters least, is longest on the wing.

Ask him, indeed, what trophies he has raised,

Or what achievments of immortal fame

He purposes, and he shall answer, — None.

His warfare is within ; there unfatigued

His fervent spirit labors. There he fights,

And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself,

And never withering wreaths, compared with which,

The laurels, that a Caesar reaps, are weeds.

Perhaps the self-approving haughty World,

That, as she sweeps him with her whistling silks,

Scarce deigns to notice him, or, if she see,

Deems hifu a cipher in the works of God,

Receives advantage from his noiseless hours,

Of which she little dreams. Perhaps she owes

Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring

Jlnd plenteous harvest, to the praijer he makes,

When, Isaac like, the solitary saint

Walks forth to meditate at eventide,

And think on her, who thinks not for herself.

And have the feelings of clergymen been sufficiently awake, or
their conduct sufficiently active, in regard to this subject? Have
they given it its due place in their public devotions ? We should be
the last to put our sanction to that medley of politics and religion,
with which, at no distant interval, the irritable passions of an audi-
ence were regaled and fostered from the pulpit. We would totally
expel from its precincts every thing, to which that title could possi-
bly be annexed ; and no sound should be heard from that sacred
place, but the voice of mercy, and the word of God. But to the
christian mind this subject is not a political one. Its worldly aspect
is lost, its political connexions are annihilated, in the all absorbing
importance of its character in the light of religion, and its influence
on the vital interests of humanity ; in the remembrance too, that its

2

10 Removal of the Indians.

bearings may be traced, ev^en till they are lost in eternity. We
cannot but think, therefore, that it is the duty of every minister of
the gospel, so far as may be in his power, to make known to his peo-
ple the truth of this question, and to enlist their strongest sympaihies
in the cause of justice, and for the sake of the oppressed. What
other resource indeed, remains for us? The time of decision is at
hand. Onr most energetic movements, thus tardily delayed, may
come too late to be of any avail. At any rate, nothing can save us
unless the public mind be universally aroused from its lethargy, and
an appeal made, so loud, simultaneous, and decisive, as shall aston-
ish the world at the power of moral feeling in the heart of this
country, and cause the most inveterate and bold supporters of na-
tional iniquity to tremble.

An unjust decision in regard to the fate of the Indian tribes, who
are so unhappily in our power, to us would almost seem the death-
warrant to the liberties of our republic. We could no longer put
failh in the boasted stability of institutions, excellent though they be,
which depend so eminently upon a holy state of public morality,
should we see so tremendous a proof that the freedom and the reli-
gion of this people is roite.j at its core. We should then no longer
believe, what we cannot bring ourselves, in the cold spirit of political
economists, to regard as the idle dream of poetry, timt this is the
last and the endurable resort of suffering humanity and persecuted
piety. We should look for yet another downfall of the liberties of
the world, and yet another victory of the powers of darkness, be-
fore the glorious predictions, which we hope are fast hastening to
their accomj)lishment, could be finally fulfilled. We should look for
a speedy in diction of the vengeance of Jehovah, as signal upon us,
as it was upon liis ancient covenant and rebellious people. His mer-
cies to us have been incalculably greater, and should we fail to re-
deem the responsibilities which rest upon us, why dare we hope to
be made an exception to the laws of his retributive providence ?
Why should not we also look to become a proverb and a by word
among the nations ?

Let us remember what hopes we are blasting in the bud. Let
us reflect that the first fiiir trial of the possibility of bringing an In-
dian tribe into the full perfection of civilization, and under the full
influence of the redeeming power of Christianity, is here fast and
auspiciously advancing to its completion. It would seem as if Al-
mighty Providence, in scorn of the daring blasphemers, who assert
that any of the human beings he has made, are iiretrievably beyond
the regenerating energy of the Gospel of his Son, and forever out
of the pale of civil and social improvement, has reserved this solita-
ry tribe of the forest, to tell such philosophers {he supreme weakness
of their complacent speculations. To tell the world that there are

Removal of the Indians, 1 1

none, however singJilarly ferocious, whom He cannot reclaim from
their savage bnrbiriiy. That ihe simple religion of the cross of
Jesus, only, can effect that mighty renovation, that new moral crea-
tion, which must be tlie invariable forerunner of social refinement,
but to the accomplisliment of which, all the wisdom and philosophy
of all past ages is otherwise totally inadequate. And shall we now
by our obstinate selfishness, reject this sublime experiment, — and
with such rejection destroy the possibility of ever repeating it?
Shall we now, when a whole people have emerged from their dark-
ness, and are rapidly advancing to the possession of the glorious
li2;ht'^and hopes of Christianity, and to the enjoyment of the blessings
of domestic life, shut them up to all future progress, and return them
to their original barbarity ? We have thorougldy instructed them in
our vices — let us as at least point them to the Balm of Gilead, and
not frown on them, while they seek the Physician there. Let' us
not drive them back into the wilderness, stripped of the compara-
tively innocent simplicity which once belonged to them, and infect-
ed with a moral pestilence, which they ne/er would have felt but
for us, — acquainted with criines, which the ingenuity of refined life
only could suggest, but not acquainted with the power of that salva-
tion to which wp, resort, but which some among us dare to assert
they are absolutely incapable of obtaining. After having made them
drunk with the cup of our abominations, let us not refuse them a par-
ticipation in our blessingis. Neither let us compel them, as the mis-
erable alternative from a removal beyond the Mississippi, to give
themselves to the vulture-like protection of their neighbors — to the
authority of laws, which practically assert that they are not human,
by depriving them of the most precious rights and privileges of
man in a social community. Shall we not rather, as some repara-
tion for the incalculable injury we have done them, now perform the
utmost in our power to promote their speedy acquisition of all the
blessings which we hold dear ; and even err on the side of too hu-
mane a benevolence, too profuse a generosity, too disinterested and
self-denying a kindness.

We have deferred the consideration of this topic too lons^ ; so
long, indeed, that it argues a carelessness in this country, in regard
to the great interests of morality and religion, which is truly por-
tentous. In England, the approach of a qupstion almost exclusively
mercandle and political in its nature, the question in regard to the
propriety of removing the jurisdiction of the affairs of India from
the hands of the East India Company, is watched by the wdiole
nation, with the utmost anxiety, for years before it can possibly
come into parliament ; and the subject is kept in daily agitation,
with as much vigor as if it were now on the eve of its final settle-
ment. Its connexions and its consequences are examined, not in

12 Removal of the Indians.

ihe hurry of tumultuous anxiety, but with that calmness of delibera-
tion, which is due to so iuiportant a measure ; and when it comes to
be determined, it will be determined by men prepared for their
duty, and under the full and wholesome influence of the decisive
expression of an enlightened public opinion. But with us, a subject
involving the infinitely higher considerations of national faith and
morality, and the interests temporal, and perhaps eternal, of more
than fifty thousand hmnan beings, finds us, as a community, at the
very moment in which it is to be made the subject of debate in our
halls of legislation, in almost total ignorance of its true nature, and
its real importance.

But this is not all. Propositions from our government, if not
bearing on their very front the characters of manifest and reckless
injustice, yet being in their nature such as any community on earth
should blush to have originated within its limits, are listened to by
us, not only with no manifestation of indignation, but not even with
an expression of moderate astonishment at their cold inhumanity ;
we hear them with as much indifference, as if we considered them
matters of course, and unavoidably resulting from the nature of our
free institutions. What is more alarming than this, is the truth, that,
on the part of a great portion of this people, and on the part of
some of the most enlightened, hterary, and influential men in New
England, such propositions are received with manifest approbation;
and with an ailditional sophistry of selfishness in their support,
which might almost put Machiavelli's cool-blooded policy of crafti-
ness and cruelty to sliame. If this does not show, notwithstanding
all our labors for the spread of the 2;ospel, and all our charities at
home and abroad, and all our temperance, and all our wide
phylacteries, and prayers in the corners of the streets, a deep-
rooted moral insensibility, an alarming stupidity of feeling in regard
to the cause of general justice and benevolence, whenever these
duties clash, in the slightest apparent degree, with the motives of
avarice or pride — then no language, and no conduct (which always
speaks with a tenfold energy,) can ever indicate the moral character
of any community in existence.

But this is not the ouly fact that makes us tremble for the cause
of all that is holy in feeling and virtuous in conduct among us.
There are many circumstances, which declare loudly that there is a
sad infection of moral leprosy and plague in our system, and that,
however it may be concealed for a time, and we remain self-
deceived, beneath our external demonstrations of godliness ; or
though it be seen to rage and fester only in secret places, or amidst
the low and the degraded ; it will break out, unless there be an
effectual and timely check put upon it, and sweep over our whole
country with a mournful and desolating power. We do not hold such

Removal of the Indians. 13

language thoughtlessly, nor without restriction ; but we know that
such must be the case in every country, and especially in ours, if
there be not high, energetic, and unremitting exertion, on the part
of all, who favor the cause of a fervent piety and a stern morality.
The nature of our institutions is such, that this country may not
unaptly be called a theatre, in which there is held out a Iree license
for the exhibition of all varieties of wickedness, however radically
destructive in their nature, which do not direcdy touch the worldly
interests of men, or interfere with the ease and comfort of society.
Many among us seem to think, that, in effecting the wholesome
disunion of church and state, v/e have not gone far enough, but
should take atheism into partnership, and for greater security against
the encroachments of ecclesiastical power, base our republic firmly
in the principles of infidelity. It becomes us to be up and doing, to
be vigilant and prayerful. The eneigies of wickedness are of that
irregularity, both in the times of its appearance, and the quantity of
its power, upon which no calculation can be made, to which no limits
can be set. None can deny that we have among us all the elements
at least, of a most destructive moral, if not political commotion. It
only needs an event of sufficient magnitude, and sufficient sharpness
of collision with conflicting interests, to set them all in the most
terrible combination.

Like all other countries, we have among us the infidel and the
atheist; but, unlike almost all others, we give them full toleration
in the enjoyment of their conscientious faith. We have, too, the
sensual and the debauched ; and there are those in whom the light
of Deity and the spark of humanity seems hopelessly quenched,
and its place forever occupied by the savage and lurid fires of the
instinct of the brufe. A woman, whose character is a disgrace to
the name of female, has lectured among us to full meetings of
blasphemers and deniers of their God ; an event which could not
have existed, setting aside all actual prohibition, had the state of
public feeling among us been pure in any eminent degree. We
look only with emotions of vacant curiosity at such beings and their
followers, while they set aside the authority of God's word, and
offer to the passions of mankind a freedom from restraint, which is
too alluring long to be resisted without deep religious principle.
The sabbath continues to be violated ; and though individuals are
still permitted to keep it as holy as they choose, yet any attempt to
enforce its obligations upon us as a nation is met with the outciy of
' priestcraft,' and the obstacle of law. It is said, too, that the
Jesuits are at work with their powerful machinations; and wherever,
and in whatever hopeless circumstances of apparent weakness and
folly, these men begin their operations, let none dare to despise
them. The curse of slavery is still upon us ; and we never can

14 Removal of the Indians.

throw It ofF, till our lethargy and leprosy of moral feeling is wholly
purged away, and its place supplied by the blessed activity and
purity of religious benevolence. Our intemperance, in one of its
forms, has indeed been checked ; but even here we tremble at the
symptoms of a reaction, when many of those, who have acted in
this reformation, become apparently satisfied that enough has been
done, and secure of the result of their labors ; and in other forms
it yet rages frightfully among us. There are contentions, too,
begiiming to spring up, even amidst the religious and the benevo-
lent, (with whom, if ever, we might hope to see peace,) and creating
a fearful sentiment of prejudice and disunion between various por-
tions of our country, and ihreatenina; to paralyze the arm of charity,
while that of avarice and oppression is clothed with power.

This, one would think, is a sufficiently frightful picture, without
having a single feature added to its characters, or a single shade to
the darkness of its coloring. It will be called false and hyperboli-
cal ; — but what one statement does it contain, which is not absolute-
ly true ? Aufl why not group together the dark features of our na-
tional character, as well as be continually dwelling upon those which
are bright. Yet of all fearftd indications of depravity among us,
we look upon the feelings, which prevail in regard to the aj)proaching
destiny of the Indians, as the most alarming.

Should this question be decided according to our fears, it will
read a mournful lesson to the poor, the ignorant, the weak, and the
oppressed, on the insensate folly of throwing themselves for protec-
tion on the mercy of those, who are more powerful than they ; the
folly of trusting to the faith of treaties, however solemn, or the
strensrth of obligations, however binding, if there be the most distant
prospect, that such treaties and such obligations will ever come in
competition with the demands of selfish interest, or the rapacity of
unconquerable avarice. Such treaties will be disregarded like the
idle fictions of idiocy, and sucli obligations will be broken like gos-
samer before the tempest, in the consuming rage of those terribly
remorseless passions. The maxim that might makes right is the
only one which will be held legal, and the only one which will main-
tain a high and despotic authority, through all changes of circum-
ance, and in all fluctuations of opinion. The Indians had better stand
to their arms and be exterminated, than march further onwards to
the Pacific, in the faith that the coming tide of civilized population
will not sweep them forever till they mingle in its depths. Better
thus, than remain to be trampled as the serfs of Georgia — to have
their faces ground by the pride and oppression of their slave hold-
ing neighbors ; — to be exterminated by the more powerful, and not
less sure though slower operation of the vices of the whites.

Removal of the Indians. 15

We write ibis with a dejection of feeling, which nothing can ex-
press. When we look into tlie pages of history, and see what, in
raiihiplied cases, has been the inevitable fate of questions of this
nature, how justice and benevolence have been sacrificed before the
altar of ambitious power, nnd when we look upon some demonstra-
tions of feeling on this subject already exhibited, we are led almost
to despair for the result. The only redeeming feature Is the spirit
of Christianity among us, and the depth and strength of moral and
religious feeling in the hearts of many, who honor the profession of
Christianity, by their active and ceaseless benevolence. It is a spirit
which would make its voice heard and its power felt, could It once
be roused into action. But of what use can It be, If its energies are
consumed In Idle, unavailing sympathy. It is a spurious religion,
which rusts in Inactivity. Let the Christian public rise up quickly, and
act with intensity on this subject, or all action will be utterly In vain.

Though the prospect be perilous, we will not relinquish all hope,
while we remember, that there Is an overi"uling Providence In the
affairs of mortals. Be still., and know that I am God. I ivill
hp. exalted among the heathen; I ivill be exalted in the earth.
We cannot believe that He has preserved this country In so many-
critical and trying conjunctures ; that he has so manifestly made
bare his arm for our deliverance, and led us upward to so exalted
an eminence of civil and religious privilege, and that he will now
leave us to the shamefjl desertion of the j)ath of our duty ; to a
betrayal of the high trust he has committed to our charge ; to
become a black example of national perfidy and injustice ; and, In
consequence, a terrible example of suffering the vengeance of
Heaven. But let It be remembered that it rests with ourselves to
determine this most momentous problem. Let It be remembered
that God has made known to us the path of duty, and has given us
the means of action ; and that we are not permitted to sit still in the
blindness of fatuity, awaiting the determinations of Jehovah, and
exclaiming. In the supine Idleness and hypocritical resignation of
the Turk, ' God Is good ! His will be done !' If we are even
so degraded as to wish it, we can none of us float idly onwards,
like so many chips and straws, on the surface of the tide of
time, which is bearing all things to the bosom of eternity. It Is
ours to shape our course ; to determine whether we will pass to
that ocean in calm, and with light shining around us, or whether
it shall receive us, to be enveloped in everlastlna; darkness, and
tossed upon the surges of Interminable wrath. The poorest and
the lowest among us have our part to act in this great crisis, and
our portion to bear of the responsibility, which rests upon us as a
nation. It is out of our power to tell the mysteries of God's moral
administration of the universe, or to say in what manner, when

16 Removal of the Indians.

he inflicts vengeance upon a guilty people, he will apportion the
punishment of its individuals, according to their share in the crinne.
But we know tliat he will do this, and that we all, as individuals,
m-ike up, by our own character and conduct, the character and
conduct of our country. Let us ask ourselves what each of us
can do, to avert tlie threatening evil, and to add power to the
hands of the benevolent. Let each contribute his exertions, and
utter his voice, till the united appeal of millions shall swell to
such an accumulated energy of remonstrance, as even a despotic
government would not dare to resist.

God forbid that the prayers which have ascended for the Indians,
and the exertions which may be made in their behalf, should fail.
It would be better that half the states in the union were annihilated,
and the remnant left powerful in holiness, strong in the prevalence of
virtue, than that the whole nation should be stained with guilt, and soon-
er or later disorganized, by the self-destroying energies of wickedness.
We would rather have a civil war, were there no other alternative,
than avoid it by taking shelter in crime ; — for besides that, in our
faith, it would be better for the universe to be annihilated, than for
one jot or tittle of the Law of God to be broken, we know that such
a shelter would only prove the prison-house of vengeance and despair.
We would take up arms for the Indians in such a war, with as much
confidence of our duty, as we would stand with our bayonet, on the
sliorejofthe Atlantic, to repel the assaults of the most barbarous invader.
Perhaps we do wrong to make even the supposition ; for it can never
come to this. But let anything come upon us, rather than the stain and
the curse of such perfidy, as has been contemplated. Let the vials of
God's wrath be poured out in plague, and storm, and desolation ; let
our navies be scattered to the four winds of heaven ; let our corn be
blasted in the fields ; let our first born be consumed with the stroke
of the pestilence ; let us be visited with earthquakes, and given as a
prey to the devouring fire ; but let us not be left to commit so great
an outrage on the law of nations and of God ; let us not be abandoned
to the degradation of national perjury, and, as its certain consequence,
to some signal addition of national wo. Let us listen to the warning
voice, which comes to us from the destruction of Israel.

Their glory faded, and their race dispersed,
The last of nations now, though once the first;
They warn and teach the proudest, would they learn,
Keep wisdom, or meet vengeance in your turn ;
l^ IOC escap'd not, if Heaven spared not us,
Peel'd, scatter'd, and exterminated thus;
If vice received her retribution due,
When 7oe were visited, What hopf, for you?
When God arises with an awful frown,
To punish lust, or pluck presumption down :
When gifts perverted, or not duly prized,
Pleasure o'ervalued, and his grace despised,

Removal of the Indians. It

Provoke the vengeance of his righteous hand,
To pour down wrath upon a ihaniiless land ; —
He will be found impartially seveie;
Too just to wijik, or speak the guilty clear.

In making the preceding stntements and appeals, let us not be
accused ol" wantonly ailempling to aggravate the evils which
threaten us. We have no wisli to exaggerate them ; they are
niourntnl enough in reality. Let none dare to sneer at our exliibi-
tion of the fearful importance of this crisis as idle preaching, or to
deride the warmth of our feelings as the I'anatical zeal of a sedenta-
ry enthusiast. We bless the Author of our being that he has not
placed us in a situation to become hardened in soul by the cunning
of political selfishness. We are consoled in our simplicity by the
assurance of one, whose instiuctions we have been taught to vener-
ate, tliat it is good to be ' simple, concerning that which is evil ;^ and
by the declarations of another,^ whose wisdom is only not insj)ired,
that " refined policy ever has been the parent of conlusion, and will
be so as long as the world endures. Plain good intention,'* (he
continues) " which is as easily discovejed at (he first view, as
fraud is surely detected at last, is of no mean force in the govern-
ment of mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and
cementing principle."

This subject is too solemn to be approached with thoughtless
derision, or lightly passed by with a sarcasm. Let those, who are
ignorant of it, be silent ; and let those, who are indifferent, at least
restrain their leviiv,and withhold their miserable ridicule. We have
given it no coloring which the coldest scrutiny of reason will not
justify. Yet even if we had overcharged the picture, we have the
autiiority of one of the wisest statesmen whom our country has ever
produced, f that " before the evil has happened, it is the part of wis-
dom to exhibit its worst aspects." Let us listen to another of his
admirable paragraphs, to be foimd in a " Speech on the British
Treaty," delivered on an occasion singularly similar, in some of its
bearings, to tlie present.

" I see no exception to the respect that is paid among nations to the law of good
faith. If there are cases in tjiis enlightened period when it is violated, there are
none when it is decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the leligion of govern-
ments. It is observed by barbarians ; a whiff of tobacco smoke, or a string of
beads, gives not merely a bindino f irce, but a sanctity to treaties. Even in Algiers^
a truce may be bought for money ; but. when ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or
too just to disown and annul its obligntion. Thus vve see, neitlier the ignorance
of savages, nor the principles of an association I'oi piracy and rapine, permit a na-
tion to despise its eniragements. If, sir, tiiere could be a resurrection frorn the
foot of the gallows, if the victims of Juslice could live again, collect together,
and form a society, they would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to

* Edmund Burke, i Fisher Ame».

3

18 Removal of the Indians.

make j nstice, that justice under which they fell, the fundamental law of their state ,
They would perceive it was their interest to make others respect, and they would
therefore soon pay some respect themselves to the obligations of good faith. It is
painful, I hope it is superfluous, to make even tlie supposition that America should
furnish the occasion of this opprobium. No ! Let me not even imagine, that a re-
publican government, sprung, as our own is, from a people enlightened and un-
corrupted, a sroveinment whose origin is right, and whose daily discipline is duty,
can, upon a s'tlemn debate, )nake its option to be faithless ; can dare to act, what
despots dare not avow^ : what our own example evinces that the states of Barbary
are unsuspected of"

" If, in the nature of things, there could be any experience which would be ex-
tensively instructive but our own," (we quote from another production of the same
writer) " all history lies open for our warning, — open hke a church-yard, all whose
lessons are solemn, and cluseled for eternity in the hard stone — lessons that whis-
per,— O ! that they could thunder to republics, ' your passions and your vices for-
bid you to be free.' — But experience, though she teaches wisdom, teaches it too
late. The most signal events pass away unptofitahiy for the generation in which
they occur, till at length a people, deaf to the Ihings'that belong to its peace, is
destroyed or enslaved, because it v/ill not be instructed."

APPENDIX.

The article in Mr. Willis' Magazine, was written, as itself indi-
cates, from deep feeling, and without any idea of putting it in a sepa-
rate form. Whatever objections may be made to it, because of the
harshness of some of its expressions, especially when applied to so
plausible a production as that in the North American Review, we are
fully convinced that it does not contain one, whose severity is not
really justified by the truth of the case. We hope the vehemence
with which we have freely spoken our sentiments will not prevent any
one from weighing well the importance of this crisis, or from exami-
ning with candour the statements in our appendix. A passionate
zeal, such as we have been wrongly charged with, all might look upon
with just contempt; but stubborn facts are a sort of argument, to
which none can innocently refuse conviction. We disclaim the charge
of passion ; at the same time we know it would be criminal, amidst
the momentous circumstances in which our country is placed by the
agitation of the Indian question, if we should regard its progress with a
calm indifference, which we could scarcely exercise in witnessing an
experiment in Natural Philosophy. When the moral character of our
nation is at stake, no sensibility can be too quick ; when the welfare of
thousands of our fellow creatures is in danger of being sacrificed, no
strength of feeling can be called intemperate. In such a case, if we
act from feeling we act right. The only mistake we can commit,
when we decide under its influence, is that of carrying the principles of
general benevolence too far. And is not this better than that our in-
difference should make us cruel to our brethren, by preventing us from
carrying those principles so far as we ought ?

On this subject there is certainly no danger of too much feeling ;
the highest degree of it is not superfluous ; it is even necessary, if we
would preserve our minds from being paralyzed by the cold and un-
feeling sophistry of intriguing politicans. Besides it is a melancholy
truth, that virtuous men are almost always less energetic in a good
cause, than wicked men in a bad one, *' Good works," it is one of
Burke's finest remarks, " are commonly left in a rude, unfinished
state, through the tame circumspection, with which a timid prudence
so frequently enervates beneficence. In doing good, we are generally
cold, languid, and sluggish ; and of all things afraid of being too much
in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in an-

20 Appendix.

other style. They are finished with a hold masterly hand ; touched
as tb.ey are, with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth
all our energies whenever we oppress and persecute."

The article in tlie North American Review is undouhtedly the most
powerful exhihition that can be presented of all the false reasoning
which an inventive mind could suggest, on the wrong side of this
question. We hardly ever met svith any publication, which contained
wiihin the same number of pages so many assertions which are abso-
lutely false, statements which are incorrect, principles which are im-
moral, and reasonings which are shamefully erroneous. The insinu-
tating sophistry of its paragraphs will be best detected by a constant
comparison, as the reader passes over them, with what William Penn
has exhibited, in a very plain, sincere, and convincing manner, on the
same topics. In pointing out its most important misrepresentations,
we shall adopt a course somewhat different.

It is well known that this article upon the Indians, in the North Ame-
rican Review for Jan. 1830, was written by Gov. Cass, of the Michigan
I'erritory. The same gentleman was also the author of a long article on
the same subject, in the same Review, in the year 182(5. We propose
to make extracts from both these articles and to exhibit our quotations
together in their remarkable contradictiofi, in order that our readers
may know what sort of reliance can be pi iced in the opinion of an
individual, whose ideas are thus blown about by every wind and wave
of doctrine, and whose assertions seem to change with the changing
administrations of his country. That refutation of a man's falsehood
is of all others the most thorough, practical, and convincing, which is
drawn from manifest opposition in different portions of his life or
writings. We can no longer put faith in any of his declarations, if
we find him guilty of self-contradiction in any instance, where the cir-
cumstances of the case forbid us even to hope, that such inconsistency
could have sprung from mere carelessness or mistake. The scrutiny
of motives belong to a higher than any human tribunal, and we shall not
positively assert the causes, which we think may have led Gov. Cass
in 1830 to so bold and manifest a dereliction from his principles in
1826. But we are at perfect liberty to prove to our readers that on
some important points in this question he has belied his old declara-
tions and adopted new ones : and our readers will observe that this in-
consistency is in no case justified by any new occurrences which may
have happened, or by any new aspect which the question may have
put on, in the short period of four years ; but that the very reasons on
which his former opinions were grounded, remain to this day, with
their strength not only in every respect undiminished, but powerfully
increased. They will remember likewise that the broad principles of
morality and justice are indestructible and unalterable in their nature,
and must forever remain so — clear, lofty, and binding — even in the
most terrible confusion, not merely of a single republic but of ten
thousand worlds. We could not wish for any refutation of the insin-
uating sophistry of this gentleman more complete in its kind, than he

Appendix 21

Ims himself given us the opportunity to make. There are some men^
who have to seek fresh principles, with every fresh mail which arrives
from Washincrton. We hope he is not one of these ; otherwise,
while we are laboring to expose his false assertions, and before our
pamphlet can reach him, he may become of the same opinion with
ourselves, and we shall find we have been treading on a shadow.

We shall first exhibit his inconsistencies ; and afterwards mention
and refute some of his false assertions, and display to our readers a
specimen of his immoral principles. They are precisely of the same
nature with those, out of which the famous Georgia committee under-
took not long since to institute a new code of public morality. —

' Af-cipe Danaurn insidias, et crimine ab uno

Disce omues.'

We shall also exhibit his garbled and partial representation of legal
opinions and acknowledged truths.

To show his inconsistency we first quote his latest opinions on the
proposed plan of removal for the Indians.

Gov. Cass in 1S30.

" For many years after the first settlement of the country, the colonists were
engaged in the duty of self-preservation, and they had neither leisure nor inclina-
tion coolly to examine the condition of the Indians, and investigate the causes of
their degradation, and the mode by which they might be counteracted. And when
they began to survey the subject, the facts were not before them, as they are be-
fore us. 'I hat the Indians were borne back by the flowing tide, was evident; but
that this tide would become a deluge, spreading over the whole country, and cov-
ering the summits of the loftiest njountains, could not be foreseen, and was not
anticipated. jXor ivas it known, that tlicse people irerc incapable of per ma nr at im-
provement, upon fired rrscrrations, ^rifhin the litnits of rh.r. ririlizrd covntry.
The duty, therefore, of providing a residence for thern, -uhere they could say to
this ocean, heretofore as irresistible as the great deep itself, ' 'thus far shalt thou
come, but no farther,' neither the government nor the people understood.* 'the
infant conmiunities become powerful colonies ; the colonies, independent states,
and these states a great empire. Their boundaries were established, and their
jurisdiction was granted or assumed. jYew territories, and evrvtwilnj new states,
were formed, each looking to its oicn political advancement, and, to the exten-
sion of population and cuUiration over its domini<m, vith an anxiety as natural
and saJatanj, as that which impels individuals onwards in the strife foi wea'tk
and inflacvce. And now, when we begin to suspect, that the white man and the red
man cannot live together, we find no country where we can plant, and nourish, and
protect those children of misfortune, until we pass the farthest limits of the gov-
ernments formed beyond the Mississippi. There is a region belonging to the United
States, admirably adapted to the situation and habits of the Indians, where no
state authorities have, or can have jurisdiction, and where no attempt will be
made to disturb or molest them. Because no permanent barrier has heretofore
been raised between them and us, let it not be supposed, that a country, occu-
pied by them and guarantied to them, upon the Ked river and the Arkansas,
would not secure them from future demands. There would be neither local gov-

* We know not what this writer can mean by the ' duty' of our infant colonies to ' pro-
vide a residence' for Iiidiaiis, who then possessed almost the whole of North Amorira, and
from whom those colonies, in the atliiufle of dependence and inferiority, were <laily com-
pelled to purchase new territory for their own residence, and with whom ihey were anxiously-
striving to maintain peace. Bui Gov. (^ass speaks as if the colonies were themselves mas-
ters of the whole conlinent, upon which the aboriginal possessors dwell only through their
permission.

22 Examination of Gov. Cass

eminent nor people to urge the extinction of their title. No claim could be inter-
posed to conflict with theirs. Jl7id if, in the course of ages, our population shoidd
press upon that ba/irier, it would be after the Indians had acquired neio habits,
which icould cause our intercourse to be icithout danger to them and loithovt
pain to us, or after they had yielded to their fate and passed the Rocky Moun-
tains, or disappeared. These are events too remote to influence any just view of
this subject." ISorth American Review, No. 66, page 108.

This extract is remarkable, particularly in the sentences which we
have printed in Italics, first, for the manner in which he takes for
granted as a known truth, the fldsehood that these people in their pres-
ent situation are incapable of permanent improvement; second, for
its open declaration of the utter selfishness of those motives which
have made us " begin to suspect that the white and the red men can-
not live together ;^' and third, for the unfeeling indifference with
which such politicians as Gov. Cass can speak of the Indians' ' yielding
to their fate, passing the Rocky Mountains, and disappearing forever
from the notice and the memory of man.' The falsehood of the clos-
ing sentence in this extract we shall presently show.

1Page 112, contains the following declaration : —

"We cannot enter into a full examination of the effect of planting colonies of
Indians in the western regions;. From the retrospective view furnished by their
history, it is evidently the only means in our power or in theirs, which offers any
probability of preserving them from utter extinction. As a dernier resort there-
fore, apart from the intrinsic merits of the scheme itself, it has every claim to a fair
experiment. But when viewed in connection with the peculiar notions and mode
of life of the Indians, the prospect it offers is consolatory to every reflecting per-
son.

Pao-e 119 of the same number contains the following paragraphs on
the same topic. We mark the word some in Italics, to direct the
attention of the reader to the singular difference in the tone of Gov.
Cass's compassion for the Indians in 1830, from that which he mani-
fested in 1826.

♦' But after all, it cannot be denied and ought not to be concealed, that in this
transplantation from the soil of their ancestors to the plains of the Mississippi,
some mental and corporeal sufferings await the emigrants. These are inseparable
from the measure itself. But by an appropriation liberally made, and prudently
applied, the journey may be rendei-ed as easy to them, as for an equal number
of our own peoplfi. By" a continuation of the same liberality, arrangements may
be made for their support, after their an-ival in the land of i-efuge, and until they
accommodate themselves to the circumstances of their situation ; until they can
secure from the earth or the forests, the means of subsistence, as they may devote
themselves to the pursuits of agriculture or of the chase."

He then goes on in strain of classical feeling, which is merely hy-
pocritical, compared with the hard insensibility, which reigns through
the whole article ; and of compliment to the Secretary of War which
is very gentlemanly and polite. He closes with the following para-
graph.

'« This is the course we had a right to expect, and to which there can be no just
objection. Let the whole subject be fully explained to the Indians. Let them know

on the Removal of the Indians, 23

that the establishrr<ent of an independent government is a hopeless project ; which
cannot be permitted, ^nd which ifit could be permitted, would lead to tlieir inevita-
ble ruin. Let the otler of a new country be made to them with ample means to
reach it and to subsist -n it, with ample security for its peaceful and perpetual posses-
sion, and with a pledge, in the words of the Secretary of VVar, 'that the most enlarged
and generous efforts, by the i,overnment, will be made to improve their minds, bet-
ter their condition, and aid then) in their eflcjrts of self-government.' Let them
distinctly understand, that those who are not disposed to remove, but wish to re-
main and submit to our laws, will, as the President has told the Creeks, ' have
land laid off for them and their families, in fee.' When all this is done, no con-
sequences can affect the character of the government, or occasion regret to the
nation. The Indians would go, and go speedily and with satisfaction. A few
perhaps might linger around the site of their council-fires ; but almost as soon
as the patents could be issued to redeetn the pledge made to them, they would
dispose of their possessions and rejoin their countrymen. And even should these
prefer ancient assv ciations to future prospects, and finally melt away before our
people and institutions, the result nmst be attributed to causes, which we can
neither stay nor control. If a paternal authority, is exercised over the aboriginal
colonies, and just principles of communication with them, and of intercommu-
nication among thenj, are established and enforced, we may hope to see that im-
provement in their condition, for which we have so long and so vainly looked.'*

North American Review, No. 66, page 120.

Gov. Cass on the same subject in 182G.

" But we are seriously apprehensive, that in this gigantic plan of public char-
ity, the magnitude of the^outline has withdrawn our attention from the necessary
details, and that, if it be adopted to the extent proposed, it will exasperate the
evils that we are all anxious to allay.

" Migratory, as our Indians are, they all have, with few exceptions, certain
districts which they have occupied for ages ; to which they are attached by all the
ties which bind men, white or red, to their country ; and where their particular
habits, and modes of life, have become accommodated to the nature of the ani-
mals, which furnish their subsistence. * * ^ * * *

" A removal through eight degrees of latitude, and fifteen degrees of longitude,
will bring many of them to a country, of whose animal and vegetable produc-
tions they are ignorant, and will require them to make great changes in their
habits, to accommodate themselves to the new circumstances, in which they may
be placed ; changes, which we, flexible as we are, should make with difficulty,
and with great sacrifices of health and life. It is no slight task for a whole people,
from helpless infancy to the decrepitude of age, lo abandon their native land, and
seek in a distant, and perhaps barren region, new means of support. The public
papers inform us, that an attempt was made this season in Ohio, by the author-
ised agents of the government, to induce the Shawnese to remove to the west,
and that liberal offers were made of money, provisions, and land. But it seems
they declined, alleging that they were happy and contented in their present situ-
ation, and expressing their dissatisfaction with the nature of the country offered
to them.

*' But this is not all. Many of the tribes, as we have already seen, east and
west of the Mississippi, are in a state of active warfare, which has existed for
ages. The Chippewas are hereditary enemies of the Sioux, and the Sacs and
Foxes have recently joined the former in the war ; and most of the Algonquin
tribes, the Delawares, Shawnese, Kickapoos, Miamies, and others, are iu the
same relation to the Osages. How are these tribes to exist together? As well
might the deer associate with the wolf, and expect to escape with impunity. The
weak would fall before the strong. Parcel out the country as we may among
them, they will not be restrained in their movements by imaginary lines, but will

24 ^ Appendix.

Toam where their inclination may dictate. There is a strong tendency to war, in
the whole systetn of [iidi.m educat.on and institutions. How is the young man to
boast of his exploits, at the great war dance and feast of his band, as his father
has done before him, unless lie can find an enemy to encounter ? How can he
wear on his head the envied feathers of the war eagle, and one for each adven-
ture ; or paint upon the body a vermilion mark for each wound, if he must pursue
game only, and never travel the war path ? A cordon of troops, which should
encircle each tribe, might keep them all in peace together. But without such a
display of an overvvhehning military force, we should soon hear, that the war
dance was performed, the war song raised, and that the young men had departed
in pursuit of fan)e, scalps, and death. And this scene would be more tremendous,
as the Indians were more compressed. 'Ihey could then neither conceal them-
selves fronj the pursuit of their enemies, nor flee from their vengeance.
***** * *

" The whole subject, however, is involved in great doubt and difficulty, and
it is better to do nothing, than to hazard the risk of hi creasing their misery. For
ourselves, we think, that the efforts of the government should be limited to cer-
tain general objects and regulations."

He then goes on to specify some of those regulations, and closes
with the proposition, —

*' That ten thousand dollars should be annually added to the appropriation
for civilising then), until a satisfactory judgnient can be formed, of the probable
result of this experinjent. And that, after all this, we should leave their fate to
the common God of the white man and the Indian."

North American Review, Vol. 23. pages 117 to 119.

We are informed, on good authority, that Gov. Cass has repeated
these sentiments in conversation within one year. We leave his in-
consistency, without additional remark, to the reflection of our read-
ers.

Our next extracts are on the efforts of missionaries and the prospect
of civilization and Christianity among the Indians.

Gov. Cass in 1830.

" It is easy, in contemplating the situation of such a people, to perceive the diffi-
culties to be encountered in any effort to produce a radical change in their condi-
tion. The fulcrum is wanting, upon which the lever must be placed. '1 hey are
contented as they are ; not contented merely, but clinging with a death-grasp to
their own institutions. This feeling, inculcated in youth, strengthened in manhood,
and nourishhd in age, renders them inaccessible to argument or remonstrance. To
roam the forests at will, to pursue their game, to attack their enemies, to spend the
rest of their lives in listless indolence, to eat mordinately when they have food
to butier patiently when Uiey liave none, and to be ready at all times to die ;
these are the principal occupations of an Indian. Rut little knovvledg-e of hu-
man nature is necessary, to be sensible how unwilling- a savage would be to
exchange such a life for the stationary and laborious duties of civilized society.

♦' Experience has shown, that the Indian^ are steadily and ratjidly diminish-
ing-. And cauhes of this tliminution, which we have endeavored to investigate,
ai-e ) et in constant and active operation. It has also been shown, that our eiforts
to stand between ti)e living and the dead, to stay this tide which is spreading
ai-ound them and over them, have long been fruitless, and are now hopeless.
And equally fruitless and hopeless are the attempts to impart to them, in their

on the Removal of the Indians. 25

present situation, the blessing-s of religion, the benefits of ^science and the arts,
and the advantages of an efficient and stable government. The time seems to
have arrived, when a change in our principles and practice is necessary ; when
some new effort must be made to meliorate the condition of the Indians, if we
would not be left without a living monument of their misfortunes, or a Uving
evidence of our desire to repair them."

We postpone for a moment, our exhibition of the falsehood contain-
ed in this extract ; it being our immediate object to show his own in-
consistency. Our readers have seen that he here omits to mention the
rising generation of Indians.

Gov. Cass on the same topic in 1826.

" The efforts, which benevolent individuals and associations are now making
through the United States, in co-operation with the government, are founded
upon more y)ractical principles, and promise more stable and useful results. We
consider any attempt utterly hopeless, to change the habits or opinions of those
Indians, who have arrived at years of maturity, and all we can do for them is to
add to the comforts of their physical existence. Our hopes must rest upon the
rising generation. And, certainly, many of our missionary schools exhibit
striking examples of the docility and capacity of their Indian pupils, and offer
cheering prospects for the philanthropist. The union of mental and physical
discipline, which is enforced at these establishments, is best adapted to the situ-
ation of the Indians, and evinces a sound knowledge of those principles of hu-
man nature, which must be here called into active exertion. A few years will
settle this important question : and we have no ^oubt, that on small reserva-
tions, and among reduced bands, where a spirit of improvement has already
commenced, its effects will be salutary and permanent.

" But tee confess that, under other circumstances, our fears are stronger than
our hopes. Inhere th^ tribes are iii their original state, toiih land enough to roam
over, and game enough to pursue, they do not feel the value of our institutionsj
hut are utterly opposed to them."

We print the closing sentences in italics because they are so remark-
ably inconsistent with the late expression of his opinion that the In-
dians will more easily be civilized, the farther they are driven from the
last glimmerings of a Christian settlement, and (in reality) the nearer
they are reduced to " their original state."

We next quote his opinions on the causes of their decay.
Gov. Cass in 1830.

" But a still more powerful cause has operated to produce this diminution
in the number of the Indians. Ardent spirits have been the bane of their im-
provement ; one of the principal agents in their declension and degradation.
In this proposition we include only those tribes in immediate contact with our
frontier settlements, or who have remained upon reservations guarantied to
them. It has been found impracticable to prevent the sale of spirituous liquors
to tliose who are thus situated. The most judicious laws are eluded or openly
violated. The love of spirits, and the love of gain, conspire to bring together
the buyer and the seller. As the penalties become heaviei-, and the proba-
bility of detection and punishment stronger, the prohibited article becomes
dearer, and the sacrifice to obtain it greater. *****
4

26 Examination of Gov. Cass

" Our object, as will be seen in the sequel, is not to trace the operation of all
the causes which have contributed to the diminution of the population of the
Indians. We confine ourselves to those vvhich may be fairly attributed to the
coming- of the Europeans among- them, and which are yet exerting- their influ-
ence, wherever the two races are placed in contact. As we shall attempt
eventually to prove, that the only means of preserving- the Indians from that
utter extinction which threatens them, is to remove them from the sphere of
this Influence, we are desirous of showing-, that no chang-e has occurred, or
probably can occur, in the principles or practice of our intercourse with them,
by which the progress of their declension can be arrested, so long- as they
occupy their present situation.

" The consequences of their own wars, therefore, do not fall v/ithin this in-
quiry. These were in active operation long- before our flithers landed upon the
continent, and their extent and effects have been g-radually circumscr'.bed by our
interposition, until the war-hatchet has been buried by many of the tribes which
are near us ; and if not buried, will, we trust, ere long be taken from those
which are remote."

Our readers will remark in this extract the policy of the Governor
in dwelling on those causes of decay which have operated in the
neighborhood of the whites, and his caution in avoiding as much as
possible the troublesome consideration of those which will be most
powerful in the contemplated region of removal.

Gov, Cass on the same topic in 1826.

On page 94, Vol. 13, (New Series) he speaks of " the introduction
of whiskey" as being " among the least of the evils to which the
calamities of the Indians are attributable."

"Among the remote tribes, spirits are scarcely ever seen, and they do not
constitute an article of general use, even among those, who are much nearer to us.
The regulations of the government are such, and they are so rigidly enforced,
that the general introduction of spirits into the Indian country is too hazardous
for profitable s])eculatlon. Nor could it bear the expense of very distant trans-
portation ; for if sold and consumed, a corresponding reduction must be made
in clothing, guns, powder, and lead, articles essential to the successful prose-
cution of their hunting expeditions, and without which the trader would soon
find his credits unpaid, and his adventure equally ruinous to the Indians and
himself

*' But their own ceaseless hostilities, as indefinite in their objects, as in their
duration, have, more than any other cause, led to the melancholy depopulation,
traces of whlcli are everywhere visible through the unsettled country ; less,
perhaps, by the direct slaughter, which these hostilities have occasioned, than
by the change of habits incident to their prosecution, and by the scarcity of
the means of subsistence, which have attended the interruption of the ordinary
employments of the Indians. There is reason to believe, that firearms, by
equalizing the physical power of the combatants, have among these people, as
in Europe, lessened the horrors of war.

" The Indians, in that extensive region, are to this day far beyond the operation
of any causes, primary or secondary, which can be traced to civilized man, and
which hava had a tendency to accelerate their progressive depopulation. And yet
their numbers have decreased with appalling rapidity. They are in a state of perpet-
ual hostilit)', and it is believed there is not a tribe between the Mississippi and the
Pacihc, which has uot some eaemy to flee from or to pursue. The war flag is

on the Removal of the Indians. 27

never struck upon their thousand hills, nor the war song unsung through their
boundless plains.

" We have only stated a few prominent facts ; but, were it necessary, many
others might be adduced to prove, that the decrease in the number of the Indians,
whatever it may be, has been owing more to themselves, than to the whites. To
humanity it is indeed consolatory to ascertain, that the early estimates of aborig-
inal population were made in a spirit of exaggeration ; and that, although it has
greatly declined, still its declension may be traced to causes, which were oper-
ating before the arrival of the Europeans, or which may be truly assigned, without
any imputation upon the motives of the first adventurers or their descendants."

We perfectly agree with the writer in his remarks on the extermin-
ating hostilities of the Indians tribes, and we only desire our readers
to reflect on the probable operation of this cause of decay, should
these tribes be removed, in one congregated community, to the distant
regions of the west.

- The next topic on which we intended to exhibit the inconsistency
with which Gov. Cass is chargeable, is the general character of the
Indians. We shall only make one extract from each of his articles.
Our first is from that in 1830.

" Reckless of consequences, he is the child of impulse. Unrestrained by moral
considerations, whatever his passions prompt he does. Believing all the wild
and debasing superstitions which have come down to him, he has no practical
views of a moral superintendence to protect or to punish him. Government is
unknown among them ; certainly, that government which prescribes general rules
and enforces or vindicates them. The utter nakedness of their society can be
known only by personal observation. I'he tribes seem to be held tog'ether by
a kind of family lig-ament ; by the ties of blood, which, in the infancy of soci-
ety are strong-er as other associations are weaker. They have no criminal code,
no courts, no officers, no punishments. They have no relative duties to en-
force, no debts to collect, no property to restore. They are in a state of na-
ture, as much so as it is possible for any people to be. Injuries are redressed
by reveng-e, and strength is the security for right."

Our next is from the article in 1826.

*' The constitution of their society, and the ties, by which they are kept to-
gether, furnish a paradox, which has never received the explanation it requires.
We say they have no g-overnment. And they have none, whose operation is
felt either in rewards or punishments. And yet their lives and property are
protected, and their political relations among themselves, and with other tribes,
are duly preserved. Have they then no passions to excite them to deeds of vi-
olence, or have they discovered, and reduced to practice, some unknown prin-
ciple of action in human nature, equall}^ efficacious with the two great motives
of hope and fear, upon which all other governments have heretofore rested ?
Why does the Indian, who has been guilty of murder, tranquilly fold his blan-
ket about his head, and, seating himself upon the ground, await the retributive
stroke from the relation of the deceased ? A white man, under similar cir-
cumstances, would flee, or resist, and we can conceive of no motive, which
would induce him to submit to such a sacrifice. Those Indians, who have
murdered our citizens, have generally surrendered themselves for trial."

We finish our extracts with the following melancholy picture^
drawn by this writer in 1826, and exhibiting a sympathy of feeling
for the distresses and degradation of the Indians, which we wish
might have dictated his pen at the present interesting moment.

28 Examination of Gov. Cass

" But after all, neither the government nor people of the United States, have
any wish to conceal from themselves, nor from the world, that there is upon their
frontiers a wretched, forlorn people, looking to them for support and protection,
and possessing strong claims upon their justice and humanitj. These people re-
ceived our forefathers in a spirit of friendship, aided them to endure privations and
sufferings, and taught them how to provide for many of the wants, with which they
were surrounded. The Indians were then strong, and we were weak ; and,
without looking at the change which has occurred, in any spirit of morbid afi'ec-
tation, but with the feelings of an age accustomed to observe great mutations in
the fortunes of nations and of individuals, we may express our regret, that they
have lost so much of what we have gained. The prominent points of their his-
tory are before the world, and will go down unchanged to posterity. In the rev-
olution of a few ages, this fair portion of the continent, which was theirs, has
passed into our possession. The forests, which aflbrded food and security, where
were their cradles, their home, and their graves, have disappeared, or are dis-
appearing, before the progress of civilization.

" We have extinguished their council fires, and ploughed up the bones of their
fathers. Their population has diminished with lamentable rapidity. Those tribes
that remain, like the lone columns of a fallen temple, exhibit but the sad relics of
their former strength ; and many others live only in the names, which have
reached us through the earlier accounts of travellers and historians."

Before we proceed to correct his mistatements and refute some of
his unfounded assertions, we wish to remark on two peculiar points
of sophistry in the whole of what he has written on the character of
the Indians in the late number of the North American Review. It is
evidently his object to exhibit that character in the most gross and de-
graded colors in which it can possibly be drawn ; and even to make
it appear that such " wandering hordes of barbarians" can be entitled
to no rights, which would resist the universal progress of white and civ-
ilized population for any period of time, or over any, the smallest ex-
tent of territory. He gradually endeavors to prove, by the darkest
display of their savage wretchedness and inferiority, that there is
something in their very nature which renders them absolutely incapa-
ble of even approximating to the condition of the whites. This in-
capability, lest his readers should forget it, he is ever and anon assert-
ing as he finds opportunity. Their nature is such that they really
cannot be improved by civilization or meliorated by Christianity. For
this purpose, and as if most of the tribes of Indians now in the Uni-
ted States were not widely different in their circumstances and char-
acter from the race of Aborigines vi^hich inhabited this continent on its
first discovery, he goes back to the elaborate description of Dr. Rob-
ertson, and devotes page after page to the delineation of the " life and
conversation" of the savage ; taking for granted tliat not a single
tribe has improved a whit from the earliest period at which they be-
came the subject of observation to the present day. He then goes on
to reason about the obligation of * reclaiming and cultivating the soil'
imposed by Nature on all men, and the necessity of coercing those
savage communities who will not obey this obligation. From all this
reasoning he conceives it to be a very obvious conclusion that the
United States have a perfect right at any time to dispossess a savage
community and occupy their soil for the general benefit of society.

on the Removal of the Indians. 29

and the accomplishment of the designs of nature. There is another
conclusion to which he brings himself from his picture of the barbar-
ity and imbecility of tlie Indians, which is, that not being able to take
care of themselves, it becomes the right and duty of individual states
to oversee and legislate for all those tribes within their respective lira-
its.

Reasoning, as he professes to do, concerning the present genera-
tion of Indians, the effect of this sophistry is, to make his readers con-
ceive of those now in the United States, Cherokees, Choctaws, and
all other tribes, under the general character of stubborn and ferocious
savages; to whom his principles, however unjust in thcjnselves, might
seem to be more applicable, and less evidcntlij unjust, than if he had
attempted to apply them directly to tribes so peaceable in their con-
duct, and so far advanced in civilization and Christianity, as that of the
Cherokees. He knew that such an attempt, with the admission of what
is really true in regard to the state of those tribes, would have been re-
volting to the moral sense of the whole community ; and he therefore
artfully here leaves them out of view, and reasons generally upon his
description of fierce and murderous and imbecile savages. He like-
wise assumes the right to oversee and legislate for the Indians, en-
deavoring to make his readers forget that all the right of this kind,
which we do or can possess, is founded on their own voluntary per-
mission and agreement, in the stipulations of inviolable treaties.

Another filiacy which he uses in endeavoring to prove the impos-
sibility of civilizing the Indians, and one by which the mind might
easily be blinded, is this : He reasons altogether from the character
of those who have arrived at manhood ; who have grown up and been
moulded by the customs of savage life ; who are satisfied with their
own habits, and " clinging with a death-grasp to their own institu-
tions." " But little knowledge of human nature is necessary, to be
sensible how unwilling a savage would be to exchange such a life for
the stationary and laborious duties of civilized society." As if this
exchange could only be made at once, and from the full barbarity of
the one condition into the full refinement of the other. As if there
were no process by which the pliant mind of the young and coming
generation may be gradually formed to better habits, and introduced
to a more elevated existence. As if the efforts of our missionaries
were to be all wasted on the hardened and the aged, instead of being
chiefly directed to the Christian education of the tender and the young.
It is evidently his object to make his readers forget that such a possi-
bility of their youthful education exists. In speaking of the mission-
ary exertions among the Cherokees he observes, (and we shall pres-
ently extract the whole paragraph,) that " to form just conceptions of
the spirit and object of these efforts, we must look at their practical
operation upon the conmmnity. It is here, if the facts winch have
been stated to us are correct, and of which ive have no cloubt, that they
will be found wanting." But what are the facts on the strength of
which he dares to make this absolutely false assertion ; an assertion

30 Examinaiion of Gov. Cass

repeated and insinuated in some form or other, time after time
throughout the course of his article. He has not stated one; but after
making this declaration, for the truth of which he leaves his readers
to trust to his own honesty, he proceeds to draw that broad and dark
picture of the savage life and character, of which we have spoken.
This picture, drau'n from accounts nearly a hundred years old, stands
in the place of " facts," and we doubt not it was his intention that it
should appear in the view of his readers as the hopeless result of all
the efforts which have been or can be made, to improve and Christian-
ize our unhappy brethren of the wilderness. He wished it might pass
for an exhibition of "the practical operation of those efforts on the
community."

We shall now proceed to point out and to prove the falsehood in
some of the assertions of Gov. Cass, commencing with those which
occur in the extracts already made. The first is found at the close of
our first extract, in regard to certain events which are declared to be
" too remote to influence any just view of this subject." With this
declaration we may compare the following moral propabilities of the
case exhibited by William Penn, fairly and without exaggeration.

** Twenty years lience, Texas whether it shall belong- to the United States or
not, will have been settled by the descendants of the Anglo-Americans. The
State of Missouri will then be populous. There will be g-reat roads througli the
new Indian country, and caravans will be passing" and repassing" in many direc-
tions. The eniig-rant Indians will be denationalized, and will have no common
bond of union. * * * Aiiother removal will soon be necessary.

*'If the emigrants become poor, and are transformed into vagabonds, it will
be evidence encmgh, that no benevolent treatment can save them, and it will be
said they may as well be driven beyond the Rocky Mountains at once. If they
live comfortably, it will prove, tiiat five times as many white people might live
comfortably in their places. Twenty five years hence, there will probably be
4,000,000 of our population west of the Mississippi, and fifty years hence not
less tlian 15,000,000. By that time, the pressure upon the Indians will be much
g-reater from the bovuidless prairies, which must ultimately be subdued and in-
habited, than it would ever have been from the borders of the present Cherokee
country."

Our readers have seen an extract from Gov. Cass' opinion of the
character of the Indians, in which he makes the following assertions.
"Government is unknown among them," " They have no criminal
code, no courts, no officers, no punishments. They have no relative
duties to enforce, no debts to collect, no property to restore. They
are in a state of nature, as much so as it is possible for any people to
be." These remarks are found on page 74 of the article. On page
93 he remarks, " But there are barbarous tribes in the world, who
do not feel the force of these restraints, who have neither religion nor
morality, neither public opinion or public law, to check their propen-
sity for war ; whose code requires them to murder, and not to subdue ;
to plunder and devastate, and not to secure. Are such tribes to be
admitted into the comnmnity of nations, ignorant of every thing but
their own barbarous practices, and utterly regardless of their own

on the Removal of the Indians. SI

l^romises, and of any higher obligations V He applies such a descrip-
tion and such questions, without any exception, to all tribes through-
out the United States, Cherokees, Choctaws, and all others, and in-
tends that they shall be so applied in the minds of his readers. If
OMr readers doubt what may seem to be incredible for the wickedness
of the sophistry, they can satisfy themselves that such is his object by
turning to pages 93 and 94, among other places in the article, and ob-
serving how he draws his conclusions in regard to our right of juris-
diction over them. We shall contradict his assertions first from his
own words. Page 101 he declares respecting the Indian tribes,
*' Heretofore, no one among them has denied the obligation of any
law passed to protect or restrain them." " A government de facto
has been organized within the limits of the State of Georgia, claim-
ing legislative, executive, and judicial powers, and all the essential at-
tributes of sovereignty, independent of that State." On page 111 he
declares " The Cherokee government is acquiring the sanction of
time.'' ' On page 117 he remarks, " In the civil polity of the Chero-
kees, and we believe of the Creeks as now established, there seems to be
a severalty of property among themselves, regulated we know not
how, and a community of property with respect to the federal and
state governments. Cessions can only be made in a pre-established
manner ; and the principles of Draco are revived in these little com-
munities, by the terrible punishments annexed to a violation of this
regulation, which will no doubt be enforced with as little compunction
as it has been prescribed."

This writer saves us the trouble of refuting him, by his own sum-
mary contradictions. Without remarkmg on his deliberate and shame-
ful injustice in his application of the first part of these quotations, we
only wish our readers to observe how his statements alter with the dif-
ferent purposes which he has in view ; how he can at one moment
represent the same tribes, as being destitute of a criminal code, pun-
ishments, officers, &c, as having no relative duties or property, as
under no restraints of religion, morality, public opinion, or public law,
and as being utterly regardless of all obligations ; and at another mo-
ment, as never denying the obligation of law, as having an established
government, a civil polity, a severalty of property, strict regulations,
and severe punishments annexed to the violation of those regulations.

In one of our former extracts, Gov. Cass asserts, as we have seen,
that " the attempt to impart to the Indians, in their present situation,
the blessings of relio-ion, the benefits of science and the arts, and the
advantages of an fjjicienf and stable government is fruitless and hope-
less." According to his custom, he brings forward not a solitary fact or
statement to support, in any part of it, this general, gratuitous, and ut-
terly unfounded assertion ; and that part which relates to government
he has just contradicted in his own words. For the rest, all who are
in any degree acquainted with the present condition of the Southern
tribes, know its falsehood ; which we shall presently exhibit more
strongly by a considerably detailed account of their religious and do-
mestic improvement.

S2 Examination of Gov. Cass

Gov. Cass asserts that " there is no just reason to believe, that any
one of the tribes, within the whole extent of our boundary, has been
increasing in numbers at any period since they have been known to
us." We may compare tliis with the following assertion in the Cher-
okee Phoenix. " The Cherokees have been increasing within the last
20 or 30 years ; and of late in a common ratio of increase among the
whites. Among the Choctaws and Chickasaws the increase is proba-
bly nearly as rapid." This may be a large estimate, }'et we cannot
doubt they are on the increase.

We are confirmed in this opinion by the testimony of Col. McKen-
ney, who says in his " Report and proceedings," submitted to Con-
gress in lb'28, " The population of the Chickasaw nation may be
put down at four thousand ; they having increased about four hundred
within the last .five or six years." It is rendered still more certain in
regard to the Cherokees by the statement of David Brown, which Col.
Mc Kenney accepts as correct. He gives the census of that tribe in
the years 1819 and 1825 and concludes, " If this summary of Chero-
kee population from the census is correct, to say nothing of those of
foreign extract, we find that in six years the increase has been
3,568 souls. If we judge the future by the past, to what number will
the Cherokee population swell in 1856 ? The calculation of William
Penn, therefore, is less than the truth, that " when Georgia shall have
a hundred souls to the square mile, (and her soil is capable of sus-
taining a larger number than that,) the Cherokees may have four times
as many to the square mile as Georgia now contains. "

Gov. Cass asks, as if there were not a doubt of the truth of his implied
assertion, " Where is the tribe of Indians, who have changed their
manners, or who have exhibited any just estimate of the improve-
ments around them, or any wish to participate in them ?" He repeats
this sentiment, which he cannot but know to be false, in a variety of
forms throughout the article, and each time with additional confi-
dence, as if it added another to his irrefutable arguments, and as if
there were no such nations as the Cherokees or Choctaws in existence.
On page 72 this assertion comes up in the following shape. " And
in the whole circle of their existence it would be difiicult to point to a
single advantage which they have derived from their acquaintance
with the Europeans." Thus it is reiterated from page to page with so
much pertinacity of falsehood, that we are inclined to believe he is
merely trying as an amusing experiment the practical truth of his the-
ory in regard to the Indians, i/iat ivrong, long persisted in, at length
becomes right.

It is worthy of remark that Gov. Cass declares with much candor
that his knowledge of the Indians is confined principally to the North-
ern tribes, and that he has the least acquaintance with the Cherokees,
Chickasaws, Choctaws and Creeks, — the very tribes whose inter-
ests are most deeply involved in the question on which he has writ-
ten, and against some of whom he has uttered, as we have seen, the
most prompt and sweeping slanders. We give him full credit in the

on the Removal of the Indians. 8S

confession of his ignorance, for on no other supposition, except the
hypothesis that his moral sense is annihilated, can we account for his
obstinate repetition of falsehoods. That our readers may know what
reliance can be placed upon his speculations, we quote his enumeration
of the tribes to whom he says his personal intercourse " has been al-
most wholly confined." The Iroquois, the Wyandots, the Delawares, the
Shawnese, the Miamies, the Kickapoos, the Sacs, the Foxes, the Pota-
watamies,theOttawas, the Chippewas,the Ioways,the Menomonies, th^
Winebagoes, and the Sioux. 8ome of these are so disgustingly degrad-
ed, as to have become a proverb of misery and wretchedness, even among
the Indians themselves. Yet this writer sets out with the declaration
that his " general facts and deductions will be principally founded upon
what he has seen and heard among these tribes." How then can he
expect to be trusted when he classes the Cherokees with these " bar-
barous communities," and so draus his conclusions and institutes his
reasonings in regard to this tribe ? Why, merely by a flourish with
the wand of his sophistry, thus, " Limited as our intercourse with
those Indians has been, we must necessarily draw our conclusions
respecting them from facts which have been stated to us, and from
the general resemblance tJicy bear to the other cognate branches of the
great aboriginal stock. It is clue to truth that this admission should
be ?nade.'' After this we do not Vv'onder to hear him declare that " he
doubts whether there is upon the face of the globe a more wretched
race, than the Cherokees as ivdl as the other Southern tribes present."
It is due to truth, we suppose, that this admission also should be made ;
and that their civilization and Christianity should be left totally out
of view.

There are two features which reign very remarkably throughout the
whole article of this writer ; they are his extreme paucity in facts, and
his prolific fertility in conclusions. Of the " facts which have been stated
to him," in regard to the Cherokees, he gives not a solitary example.
We need not observe that his opinion (we should say his assertion)
in regard to them differs totally from that of those who have had per-
sonal and intimate acquaintance v/ith their condition. Taking for
the basis and ground work of his whole speculations, degrading views
of the Indian character, founded on materials collected almost a cen-
tury ago, and depicted by an Historian who never in his life looked
upon a red man, together with a similar view of his own, drawn from
an acquaintance with the most miserable tribes in the North-Western
portion of the United States territory, he goes on making assertion after
assertion, and piling contradiction upon contradiction ; and applying
his reasonings and conclusions in regard to " savage and barbarous
communities," with the same happy fcicility with which he makes them,
to the condition of the Cheiokees and other Southern tribes, directly in
the face of statements concerning their ad\ancement in civilization
and Christianity, which are tested by such strong confirmation that
they cannot be doubted.

In order to give a fallacious strength to his assertions in regard to
the fruitlessness of efforts to improve the Indians, he calls in the aid of
5

34 Examination of Gov. Cass

the Rev. Isaac McCoy, a Baptist Missionary among the Northern
tribes ; and at the commencement of the article quotes from the " Re-
marks upon Indian Reform" by that gentleman. These remarks, like
Gov. Cass's knowledge, are confined almost wholly to the Northern
tribes. Towards the close of the article Gov. Cass has occasion again
to call in the aid of Mr. McCoy's opinion on the Removal of the In-
dians ; and it is an amusing instance of the reckless confidence with
which he gives the lie to all who differ from him, that when this
gentleman names the Cherokees and other Southern tribes as particu-
lar exceptions to the truth of his remarks. Gov. Cass flatly contradicts
his own witness, and accuses him, in a note, of being " ignorant of the
actual state of things among the Cherokees, and of the utter poverty
and misery, and we may add oppression, of the great body of these
people !" — these very people, in regard to whom Gov. Cass himself
had previously confessed his own ignorance !

On page 71 he makes the following assertions in regard to this
tribe.

** That individuals among the Cherokees have acquired property, and with
it more enlarg-ed views and juster notions of the value of our institutions, and
the unprofitableness of their own, we have little doubt. And we have as little
doubt, that this change of opinion and condition is confined, in a great measure,
to some of the haJf-h re eds audtheh' immediate connections. These are not suffi.-
ciently numerous to aflect our general proposition ; and the causes which have
led to this state of things, are too ])eculiar ever to produce an extensive result,
^ra analysis of these causes is not within the task we have assigned to ourselves J'

Had Gov. Cass attempted an analysis of these causes he would not
have found them " too peculiar ever to produce an extensive result."
The progress of Christianity, which is the great and predominating
cause, will continue to operate as long as the Indians exist, and to
produce its result as extensively as the limits of the tribe will permit,
and until not an individual shall be left beyond its power. Our rea-
ders may judge of the truth of his assertion in regard to the half-
hreech, from the following facts. At one of the eight missionary
stations among the Cherokees there were in the schools, in the month
of August last, 25 Cherokee boys and 27 Cherokee girls, besides the
children of the mission families. One of the churches in the same
tribe contained, in the month of July last, 38 members, exclusive of
the mission family, of whom 36 were Indians. From the Choctaw
tribe we have more full and minute information in regard to this
particular, but we have no reason to suppose that the improvement in
this tribe is more extensive among full blooded Indians than in the
tribe of the Cherokees ; indeed we may infer that it is less so from the
general inferiority of the former tribe, compared with the latter, in Chris-
tian and civil improvement. In the Choctaw tribe, in seven of the
schools the proportion in September last was 97 full Choctaws to 131
mixed or lialf-hrecd. In one of the schools the proportion was 30 full
Choctaws to 6 mixed. In another it was 17 full Choctaws to 3 mixed.
These facts are sufficient for our present purpose.

on the Removal of the Indians. 35

After making this assertion he goes on in a climax of misrepresen-
tation, till at length he comes absolutely to the conclusion that not a
more wretched race exists on the face of the whole globe than the
Cherokees ! He ends the paragraph by saying that " only three years
since an appropriation was made by Congress, upon the representa-
tions of the authorities of Florida, to relieve the Indians there from
actual starvation." This has nothing to do with the condition of the
Cherokees, of whom he is particularly speaking, nor with that of the
other Southern tribes, Chickasaws, Choctaws, or Creeks, of whom
he seems desirous to make the Seminoles in Florida serve as an
example. The instance besides is direct and forcible against his own
final argument ; for these Indians were actually reduced to their state
of starvation by having been compelled to a removal of much of the
same nature, as that which Gov. Cass contemplates for all the In-
dian communities together. The same consequences we doubt not
would follow such a measure in regard to these communities ; and
Congress would soon be called upon to appropriate the very necessities
of life to the sixty thousand children, whom their Great Father is
seeking to drive out to " actual starvation" on the prairies beyond the
Mississippi.

The following paragraph is to be noticed only for its slanderous
insinuation, for the hypocrisy of its '" melancholy forebodings," and the
reckless nature of its assertions.

'' We are as unwilling" to underrate, as we should be to overrate, the progress
made by these Indians in civilization and improvement. We are well aware,
that the constitution of the Cherokees, their press, and newspaper, and alphabet,
their schools and police, have sent through all our borders the glad tidings, that
the long night of aboriginal ignorance was ended, and that the day of knowl-
edge had dawned. Would that it were so. None would rejoice more sincerely
than we should. But this great cause can derive no aid from exaggerated rep-
resentations 5 from promises never to be kept, and from expectations never to
be reahzed. The truth must finally come, and it will come with a powerful
reaction. We hope tliat our opinion upon this subject may be erroneous. But
we have melancholy forebodings. That a few principal men, who can secure
favorable cotton lands, and cultivate them with slaves, will be comfortable and
satisfied, we may well believe. And so long as the large annuities received
from the United States, are applied to the support of a newspaper and to other
objects, more important to the rich than the poor, erroneous impressions upon
these subjects may prevail. But to form just conceptions of the spirit and ob-
jects of these efibrts, we must L)ok at their practical operation upon the commu-
nity. It is here, if the facts which have been stated to us are correct, and of
which we have no doubt, that they will be found v; anting."

The error of the closing sentence in this paragraph we have al-
ready mentioned, as well as that degrading picture of abstract savage-
ness which Gov. Cass meant should stand in the place of facts, and ex-
hibit itself as the "practical operation" of all effort for the improve-
ment of the Indians. It cannot be expected that we should go into a
particular examination of every assertion, which a writer so loose and
unprincipled may choose to make. Neither our time, nor our limits,

36 Examination of Gov. Cass

nor the patience of our readers, would suffer it. We shall therefore
content ourselves in this case with merely answering assertion by
assertion ; with declaring that the objects to which the " annuities,"
are devoted, are of more real importance to the poor than to the rich ;
and that, till we see some cause for remodelling our belief, we shall
continue to trust to the declarations of missionaries, to the accounts in
the Cherokee Phoenix, to the statements of the principal chiefs of that
tribe, who were the authorized agents to our government, and to the
reports of our own official authorities, rather than put faith in Gov.
Cass's whining insinuations and " melancholly forebodings," fortified
though they be with the candid confession that he knows less of the
Southern Indians than of any other tribes, and must necessarily draw
his conclusions respecting the Cherokees, from what he does know of the
wretched tribes a thousand miles distant. We have besides had inter-
course with those who have been among the Cherokees, and who de-
clare that the impressions, which they received from personal observa-
tion in the regard to the advancing civilization and Christianity of that
tribe, were stronger than any which had been previously produced in
their minds by the statements of missionaries. But we are not dispos-
ed, like Gov. Cass, to leave our readers to trust merely to our own
dictum ; we shall Gx\\\h\i facts ; and our statements v/ill be so confirm-
ed by the testimonies of public individuals, that no unprejudiced mind
can avoid a willing assent to their truth.

V/e acknov.iedge we are already tired with hunting this writer
through tlie windings of his sophistry, and pointing out his misrepre-
sentations ; but our fear that many will be persuaded by his plausibility,
who do not detect his errors, induces us to proceed in our task.

His next false assertion which we shall notice is this : He maintains
that the jurisdiction, which tlie United States possess over the Indians,
is founded on maxims of right and expediency ; whereas it is an incon-
trovertible truth that all the power, which our Government can lawfully
exert over them, has been given to the United States in solemn treaties,
by themselves — wisely and deliberately given, and for their own bene-
fit. But this Vi-riter sometimes talks as if he were absolutely uncon-
scious that such treaties ever did or ever could have an existence.
Finding that the jurisdiction v^'hich we are permitted to exercise is
partial, and looking upon it as a singular '' anomaly," he sets himself
to discover its origin. On page T9 he asserts that " our system of
intercourse has resulted from our superiority in physical and moral
power." (Our readers may here inquire which party was strongest,
when intercourse first commenced between the Indians and the
whites.) He goes on to speak of their being *' as wild, and fierce
and irreclaimable as the animals," &c. &c., and concludes, "The
result of all this was necessarily to compel the latter (their civilized
neiglibors) to prescribe, from time to time, the principles which should
regulate the intercourse between the parties," &,c. Again, on pnge
98, he enumerates some of the " municip^il regulations" of the Uiiited
States in regard to the Indians, enacted by virtue of permission granted

on the Removal of the Indians. 37

from tliose Indians. He quotes them, however, just as if they were the
result of unlimited authority on the part of the general government.
There is no Vv-ay to detect tliis writer's reiterated misrepresentations, but
by constantly remembering that the United States can exercise no power
over the Indians, which has not been voluntarily granted in treaties by
the Indians themselves.

" Who doubts," says Gov. Cass, '' that the authority which could
enact the following clause, could embrace within its operation the
whole 'life and conversation' of the Indians, did policy or necessity
require it?" He makes a short extract from a law, enacted in 1817,
which declares that crimes committed by white men in Indian territory
or by Indians against white men, within tlie same territory, shall be
punishable by the laws of the United States, in the same manner as if
the same crimes had been committed in places, over which the United
States have "sole and exclusive jurisdiction," He cites, also, the sub-
stance of a proviso, which declares, that the law shall not affect, (as
most obviously it could not,) any stipulations of treaties in force ; nor
shall it extend to offences " committed by one Indian against another
within the Indian boundary."

Here is a law, made for the protection of Indians against lawless
whites, who may commit crimes in the Indian country ; and for the
protection of honest white travellers and hunters, who may be exposed
to ill treatment from barbarous tribes, in the North-Western wilder-
ness ; expressly excepting cases vv'here treaties apply, as they do in
all the South- Western tribes, and expressly disclaiming the intention to
bring our criminal code to bear upon the Indians, in regard to offences
committed by them against each other. And yet this profound rea-
soner sagaciously infers, that because we have assumed the right of
punishing a Pawnee, who should kill a white hunter on the banks of
the La Platte, we may therefore undertake to direct the whole " life and
conversation" of the Cherokees, whose territory we have guarantied ;
whose separate government we have a hundred times acknowledged,
by treaties, by laws, by agencies, by letters of advice, and by a series
of labors for their civilization ; and whose case falls within the excep-
tion of this very statute.

It seems, however, that even in tlie opinion of Gov. Cass, we are
not thus to usurp dominion, unless *' policy and necessity'' require it.
'Necessity,' is always called the tyrant's plea; and ' policy' is, if
possible, still more infamous, as having sanctioned every foul deed of
fraud, rapine, and cruelty, which can be named. Unless we are mis-
taken, Mr. Secretary Barbour once disclaimed " policy and necessity,"
as guides in our intercourse with the Indians; and argued, that we
sliould now proceed with them, whatever might have been the case
heretofore, upon principles of justice and benevolence.

But there is no policy or necessity, in the proposed usurpation. A
pretence of necessity would be the grossest imprudence imaginable.
It v/ould be the necessity of the full gorged wolf, who sliould plead, in
the midst of carcasses strewn around him, the urgency of the case
impelled him to kill a few remaining lambs, lest he should Gome time
or other be brought to the horrors of starvation.

38 Examination cf Gov. Cass.

There is no more necessity, at this moment, that our government
should deprive tlie Cherokees and Choctaws of their independence
and country, than that we should seize the Canadas, or Cuha, or
Hayti. To talk of such a necessity is an insult to any man of ordinary
intellio-ence ; and even a moderate share of honesty would prevent its
beino- mentioned. There is indeed the necessity which avaricious
selfisliness always brings with it, and pleads to justify the most atro-
cious acts of cruelty. It is the moral compulsion of depravity, — a com-
pulsion which supersedes all other obligations, however strong, — a
compulsion, whose influence its subject imagines he conceals, when
he alleges the " considerations of expediency and necessity," to excuse
the guilt of his usurpation or extortion.

Without stopping to remark any farther on the moral character of
his reasonings, we shall here simply quote the article of treaty by
which "authority" was ceded to the United States from the Indians.
The same reasoning and doctrine which he has here used, is expanded
throucrh almost every one of the pages which we are now about to ex-
amine, and which contain the most involved and perplexing portions
of his sophistry.

Article 9ih in the treaty with the Cherokees, concluded at Hope-
well, 1785. " For the benefit and comfort of the Indians, and for
the prevention of injuries and oppressions on the part of the citizens
or Indians, the United States in Congress assembled shall have the
sole and exclusive right of regulating the trade with the Indians, and
managing all their affairs in such manner as they think proper." Lest
our readers should imagine that the indefiniteness of the latter phrase
renders the power of the United States general and unlimited, we
must remind them that the guaranty of the sovereign possession of the
Cherokee territory and the limitations, stipulations, and explanations in
other treaties, and in this treaty, render such a construction impossible.

Gov. Cass takes great pains to bring forward a decision of the Su-
preme Court of New York, which rested upon the ground that the
small tribes of Indians, remaining in that state, are not now inde-
pendent sovereignties. What then? If the Oneidas, reduced to a small
number, residing on a reservation of a few square miles, surrounded by
a dense population, exposed to the corrupting example of numberless
vicious white men, and having held intercourse with the Dutch colony ;
then with the English colony, then with the United States, and with New
York, during a period of nearly two hundred years; if such a remnant
had, to use the words of the judge, ' lost its independence,' what would
this prove about the Cherokees and Choctaws ? Would it prove, that
the Cherokees, residing much secluded from the whites, surrounded
by a comparatively sparse population, on a tract of country, among
the mountains, more than 150 miles long and 70 or 80 miles broad ;
that such a people, fortified by numerous treaties, and assured, in dif-
ferent ways, by the functionaries of the United States, more than fifty
times a year for fifty years in succession, that their country should
never be taken from them without their consent ; that the govern-
ment of the United States wished them to become civilized, and re

on the Removal of the Indians. 39

main permanently, as a distinct people, under their own improved and
improving laws ; and that they might always expect from us the most
exact fulfilment of all our stipulations ; — does the case of the Oneidas,
whatever it may be, prove that the Cherokees are not an independ-
ent community ? The Oneidas were pronounced by the jndge to
have lost their independence; of course they once had it. But the
Cherokees have not lost theirs ; nor will they lose it, unless by one
of the most flagitious acts of perfidy, which the annals of the world
can furnish.

We have not done with this matter, touching the Indians in the
state of New York. Tt would seem that the Supreme Court of that
state was mistaken, as to the condition of the remnants of tribes, re-
maining there. Though we entertain a sincere respect for the Chief
Justice, and consider him a very able and a very upright judge, yet it
is due to truth, and to the present issue, to say, that tlie decision,
which he announced, was overruled by a higher tribunal ; viz. the
Court for the Correction of Errors. But does Gov. Cass tell his read-
ers of this? Does he let them know, that the decision, to which he
refers no less than six times, was overruled, and therefore is not law?
Does he mention the fact, that Chancellor Kent, after a most elaborate
examination of the matter, came to the conclusion that Indians in
New York are iwt under the laws of that state, but are distinct com-
munities, and, in a certain and very important sense, independent
sovereignties ? and that, in a numerous court of thirty members, the
decision of the court below was overruled, and the reasoning of the
Chancellor sustained, with but one dissenting vote ? Does Gov. Cass
announce these facts ? No such thing. It would not answer to let
the readers of the North American know them. What ! spoil an
argument by telling the truth !

But our readers will ask. Is it possible, that such barefaced decep-
tion can have been wilfully practised ? It is impossible that it should
have been otherwise ; for Gov. Cass actually quotes part of a sen-
tence and repeats his quotation, from the very argument of Chancellor
Kent, to which he was referred by the report of the decision in the
court below; both decisions being in the same volume. He takes
care, however, not to give any indication of Chancellor Kent's opin-
ion, on the very point at issue.

We do therefore impeach Lewis Cass, Governor of the Michigan
Territory, and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, having a double sal-
ary, with many emoluments of office, the continuance of which un-
doubtedly depends upon the favor of the powers that be ; — we do
impeach this celebrated Reviewer in the North American, of an act
of flagrant and palpable dishonesty as a disputant, in concealing from
his'readers the true state of this case. Why did he not, like a man,
tell his readers, that the decision, on which he had been building, was
overruled? Why did he not give at least one page, in connection,
from Chancellor Kent's reasoning ; — a page, which would be worth
more to mankind, than any fifty, that he himself ever wrote ? There is
a Latin maxim, which we will translate thus; — and a legal maxim it is,
as well as an honest one ; — to conceal the truth is Just as criminal

40 Examination of Gov. Cass

as to tell a doicuriglit lie. The lawyer, who should perform a trick of
this kind, by quoting as law a decision, wiiich he knew to have been
set aside by a higher court, would deserve to be thrown over the bar.

We have charged the Reviewer with dishonesty as a disputant.
We should not have done tiiis, if it had been a question of politics
merely, or of science, or of Indian philology; on which latter subject
the Reviewer his acquired some little fame, solely because his read-
ers were totally ignorant of the subject, and were therefore unable to
detect his ignorance.* But the discussion of the rights of the In-
dians is a graver subject. No course can possibly be so injurious to
them as that of concealing the truth, overwhelmiiig their character
with obloquy, and disguising the real state of the case by sophistry,
while pretending withal to a large share of philanthropy and a great
deal of wisdom. There are ^qvj moral offences so atrocious, as first
to deprive a v/eak and defenceless people of their public and private
character, and then assign their destitution of character as a reason
why they should be deprived of their country, their freedom, and, (as
the event will prove to many of them,) of their lives.

Pages 80 — 1G;> of Gov. Cass's article contain on the whole the most
remarkable exhibition of immoral reasoning, false assertion, and garb-
led quotation, whicii has ever fallen under our notice ; and it is put
together with a confusion and perplexity, which must have resulted
from a very perverse ingenuity, or a very blind entanglement ii; the
author's mind. We shall follow his windings as particularly as cir-
cumstances will permit.

He sets out with a certain lawyer's description of the Indian title, in
an argument in the case of Fletcher and Peck, as " mere occupancy
for the purpose of hunting." It happens that the Supreme Court iii
this case referred to this title of " mere occupancy" thus ; *' the Indi-
an title is certainly to be respected by all courts, until it be legitimately
extinguished," that is, until the Indians, shall have freely ceded or
sold it to the United States.

This case was decided in 1810. Again, in the case of Johnson and
Mcintosh, decided in 1823, the Supreme CoLirt declared of the '' or-
iginal inhabitants," Vv'ithout restriction, of this continent, that " they
were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil, with alegcd as
well as just elaim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to
their own discretion."

" This is said, be it remembered, (we quote the remarks of William Penn)
respecting- Indians generally, found in their native condition, and undefended

* Havin-^picked up a fow Indian plirasps, and loarncd their meaninjr throus;h ignorant
interpreters, Gov. Cass sot up for a sroat Indian critic, and, in this capacity, dog-matically
set aside the opinions, and the direct testimony, of the venerable HecUevveldcr, who had
lived with the Indians as a laborious missionary for thirty or forty years, and of the
intellig-ent Zeisberger, who made l:)olh a grammar and a dictionary of an Indian lan-
guage. It has been slated by more ilian one person, who has lived near Gov. Cass, and is
intimately acquainted wiih him, that he has no practical acquaintance with any aboriginal
dialect 5 and yet he makes assertions at variance with the declarations of the apostle Eliot,
who translated the Bible into Indian, and of the second President Edwards, who spoke an
Indian language from his early childhood. The investigations of Mr. Pickering-, and of Mr,
Duponceau have sufficiently exposed the presumption of this adventurous writer.

on the Removal of the Indians, A I

by any g-uaranty of territory, or any express stipulation in their favor. The
Indians, then, have the right of occupying their country, of retaining possession
■of it, of using it according to their discretion ; and thus far they have a Legal as well
^s just claim. But they cannot sell, except to the g-overnment.

'* Here we have a clear distinction between the rig-hts of the Indians and the
rig-hts of Europeans, as fixed by Europeans themselves, and a thousand tinies
admitted by different tribes of Indians. The original inhabitants have the right
of occupying- their country, and using- it, as long- as they please, according- to
their discretion; the descendants of Eui-opeans have confided to their government
the exclusive power of extinguishing- the Indian title."

After the above named description of the Indian title, Gov. Cass
proceeds to the practice of the European powers, especially French and
Spanish, in arrogating possession and jurisdiction of Indian soil, and
gives it as his '' deliberate conviction," that it would have been far
better if the United States, like those powers in their intercourse with
the aborigines, expelling the Indians utterly from the consultation, had
always decided by themselves, '' the consideration which should be
allowed for each proposed purchase, and the various stipulations for
the protection and permanent advantage of the Indians." " Who
doubts," asks he, " that such a process would be more just and hu-
mane than the practice now pursued !" — Let the attempts now making
to drive them from their rightful inheritance, or enslave them on their
own soil, answer. Let the late enactments of the Georgia legislature
answer. Let the writer's own '' considerations of expediency and
necessity," answer.

He then asserts, what our readers will find to be absolutely false on
turning to the early history of the State of Georgia itself, that the Indians
never made formal treaties of cessions to " the colonial authorities,"
but that these *' seem to have been introduced into the United States
alone." Here, in this unfortunate introduction, is to be found the
origin of all the evils in regard to this subject ! Here it is, that '' the
ardor of a mistaken benevolence," by treating the Indians like human
and intelligent beings, has '* relaxed the principles of intercourse which
many other nations had adopted with them," and " introduced a system
difficult to reconcile with our preconceived notions." He then enumer-
ates some of the powers which we grant them, and some of the powers
which we withhold from them. (Such is this writer's habitual phraseol-
ogy and that of many others ; it should be, poioersfor the continued pos-
session of which they stipulated in their own favor by treaties, and
powers ichich they granted us hy treaties ; we never could grant what we
never possessed, nor could they receive from us what they had posses-
sed from time immemorial.)

If asked "to reconcile these apparent inconsistencies with what
may be termed the natural rights of ihe parties," he answers that
*' such a reconcilement is unnecessary, because the Indians themselves
are an anomaly on the face of the earth." Now we say that such a
reconcilement is not only necessary, but is found in the very treaties by
which the Indians themselves relinquished, for their own and our
benefit, a certain portion of those rights, reserving the rest unimpaired ;

6

42 Examination of Gov, Cass

and that it cannot be found in any " assumed right to restrain the
Indians," however often this writer may assert the existence of such
a right. We have no power whatever over them, but that which they
have voluntarily given to us by express stipulations, and for their own
protection and defence.

After this he goes on, from page 83, through two pages more of
false assumptions, which we proceed to lay before our readers. 1st, he
declares, that in the various treaties negotiated with the Indians, such
terms as ' lands,' territory,' ' hunting grounds,' &c. could not have
been intended ; indeed, " no terms in these compacts could have been
intended to convey the sovereignty of the territory, or the absolute
dominion of the soil ; for such improvident concessions would be
equally inconsistent with all the legislation over them, recorded in our
statute-books," (our readers will remember, that the only power of
legislation possessed by the United States was granted from the In-
dians by treaty) "and all the transactions with them recorded in our
history," &c. We fully agree with Gov. Cass, that no terms in those
compacts could have been intended to convey such sovereignty ; for
it would be manifestly impossible for our government or any govern-
ment to 'convey' by any language or ceremonies, a power which it
does not and cannot itself possess. We however assert that they were
intended to achiowledgc that sovereignty as a condition which already
exisied, which could not be disputed, and which the treaties themselves,
in their very nature, and apart from all mention of it, irresistibly im-
plied. We moreover assert on the strength of those treaties, and of
opinions expressed in regard to them (which we shall presently ex-
hibit) by the highest court of New York, by Chancellor Kent, and
by other eminent civilians, that the sovereignty and dominion of the
Indians over their country was considered in such compacts as '* abso-
lute ;" and that the only and " ultimate title" of the United States is
the acknowledged power of being, to the exclusion of all other nations
or individuals, the sole purchasers or receivers of the soil of the In-
dians, whenever they may be disposed to sell or cede it. This we
never can legally compel them to do, and in no other way, unless they
make war upon us or become extinct, can we ever come into pos-
session.

2nd. He asserts that " because we have resorted to this method,
(the method by treaties) of adjusting someof the questions arising out
of our intercourse with them, a speculative politician has no right to
deduce from thence their claim to the attributes of sovereignty, with
all its powers and duties;" &c. We declare again that they possess all
the attributes of sovereignty which they have not yielded up, by posi-
tive treaty, to the United States. We shall confirm this truth also,
by extracts from the opinions of Chancellor Kent, whom we suppose
Gov. Cass will hardly denominate a " speculative politician."

3d. He asserts that it is only out of humanity, and commiseration
for "their inferiority in knowledge and in all the elements of prosper-
ity," and not because they are independent nations, that we recognize

on the Removal oj the Indians. 43

a right in them to take up arms against our government. This asser-
tion follows of course from the denial of their sovereignty. It is so
plainly contradictory with the whole meaning of multiplied treaties
ratified with the Indians, and sometimes being treaties of peace, and
arranging among their very preliminaries, the exchange of prisoners
of war on both sides, that we shall not dwell upon it ; and only request
our readers to ask what sort of humanity and commiseration it is to
grant savages a right to make icar. One would think in such a case
the part of benevolence would be that of restraint.

The falsehood of this assertion will likewise appear from the extracts
of legal opinions which w^e shall now make ; to which sort of evidence
Gov. Cass is so fond of appealing, and to which he appeals, as we have
seen, with such wilful incorrectness. These extracts contain Chan-
cellor Kent's opinion in regard to the sovereignty of the Indian tribes
in the State of New York ; an opinion which was sustained by the
decision of the highest court in that State. It was this decision that
overruled the opinion of Justice Spencer, to which Gov. Cass has re-
ferred in support of his sophistry ; dishonestly endeavoring to make
his readers receive for law what he must have known had been set
aside by the determination of a higher court.

Extracts from the opinion of Chancellor Kent, in the case of Goodell
vs. Jackson. — Johnson's Reports^ vol. xx. pp. 709 — 715.

*' The Oneidas, and the other tribes composing the six nations of Indians, were
originally, free and independent nations. It is for the counsel, who contend that
they have now ceased to be a distinct people, and become completely incorporated
with us, and clothed with all the rights, and bound to all the duties of citizens, to
point out the precise time when that event took place. I have not been able to
designate the per.od, or to discover the requisite evidence of such an entire and
total revolution.

•' Through the whole series of our colonial history, these Indians were considered
as dependent allies, who advanced for themselves the proud claim of free nations,
but who had voluntarily, and upon honorable terms, placed themselves and their
land:! under the protection of the Fritish government. The colonial authorities
uniformly negotiated with them, and made and observed treaties with them, as
sovereign communities, exercising the right of free deliberation and action ; but in
consideration of protection, owing a qualified subjection, in a national, but not in
any individual capacity, to the British crown.

" No argument can be drawn against the sovereignty of these Indian nations,
from the fact of their having put themselves and their lands under British protec-
tion. Such a fact is of frequent occurrence in the transactions between independ-
ent nations.

" The American Congress held a treaty with the six nations, in August, 1775, in
the name, and on behalf of the United Colonies, and a convention of neutrality was
made between them, ' This is a family quarrel between us and old England,' sa d
the agents, in the name of the colonies ; ' you Indians are not concerned in it.
We desire you to remain at home, and not join either side.' Again, in 1776,
Congress tendered protection and friendship to the Indians, and resolved, that no

44 Fixamination of Gov. Cass

Indian should be employed as soldiers in the armies of the United States, before'
the tribe, to which they belonged, should, in a national council, have consented
thereunto, nor then, without the express approbation of Congress. What acts of
government could more clearly and strongly designate these Indians as totally
detached from our bodies politic, and as separate and independent communities ?

*' There was nothing, then, in any act or proceeding, on the part of the United*
States, during the revolutionary war, which went to impair, and much less to ex-
tinguish the national character of the six nations, and consolidate them with our
own people. Every public document speaks a different language, and admits
their distinct existence and competence as nations, but placed in the same state of
dependence, and calling for the same protectioji which existed before the war.
* * *** **

"In 1794, there was another treaty made between the United States and the
six nations, in which perpetual peace and friendship were declared between the
contracting parties, and the United States acknowledged the lands reserved to the
Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga nations, in and by their treaties with this State, ta
be their property ; and the treaty contains this provision, which has a very im-
portant and very decisive bearing upon the point under discussion : The United
States and the six nations agree, that for injuries done by individuals, on either
side, no private retaliation shall take place, but complaint shall be made by the
injured party to the other ; that is, by the six nations, or any of them, to the
President of the United States, and by or on behalf of the President, to the princi-
pal Chiefs of the six nations, or of the nation to which the offender be'ongs. What
more demonstrable proof can we require, of ex-sting and acknowledged sovereignty
residing in those Indians. We have here the forms and requisitions peculiar to th&
intercourse between friendly and independent States, and they are comformable
to the received institutes of the law of nations. The United States have never
dealt with those people, within our national limits, as if they were extinguished
sovereignties. They have constantly treated with them as dependent nations,
governed by their own usages, and possessing governments competent to make
and to maintain treaties. They have considered them as public enemies in war,
and allied friends in peace.""'

After mentioning certain provisions n>ade in treaties with several
Indians tribes, among whom were the Cherokees, the Chancellor re-
marks,

<• It would seem to me to be almost idle to contend, in the face of such pro^-.
visions, that these Indians were citizens or subjects of the United States, and not
alien and sovereign tribes.

"In the ordinance of Congress, in 1787, passed for the g-overnment of the
territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio, it was declared, that the
Indians within that territory should never be invaded or disturbed in their prop-
erty, rights, orlibei-ties, urdess in just and lawful war. By a just and lawful war,
is here meant, a controversy according" to the public law of nations, beticcen in-
dependent Stales^ and not an insurrection and rebellion. The United States have
never undertaken to negotiate with the Indian tribes, except in their national
character. They have always asserted tlieir claims against them in the only two
ways known to nations, upon the ground of stipulation by treaty, or by force of
arms. Tlie ordinance further provided, that laws should be made to prevent
wrong's done to the Indians ; and this implies a state of dependence and imbeci-
lity on the part of the Indians, and that correspondent claim upon us for pro-
tection, arising- out of the superiority of our condition, which afford the true
solution to most of our regulations concerning- them.'''

In 1811, Jnstice Johnson observed, *' innumerable treaties formed
with them acknowledi;^e them to be an independent people : and the>

on the Removal of the Indians, 45

uniform practice of acknowledging their right of soil, and restraining
all persons from encroaching upon their territory, makes it unneces-
sary to insist upon their right of soil."

On page 87 Gov. Cass declares,

" If the peculiar relations subsisting between us and the Indians are not to con-
trol and regulate the construction of our compacts with them, every Indian treaty
is a virtual acknowledgement of their independence, and its conclusion with them
a practical recognition of their right to all the attributes of sovereignty. If their
claims to establish and maintain a government, and to possess the absolute title of
the land, are deducible from the course of these negotiations, or from the general
jaature of the instruments themselves, we have in fact abandoned all just right to
restrain or to coerce them. They are as independent as we are, and can come
forward and take their station among the nations of the earth."

He Utters this last sentence just as if the idea contained in it were
some new thing ; just as if, indeed, it was a perfect absurdity,*" cujus
mentio est rcfutatio, — an absurdity so great, that the bare perusal of
it would be sufficient to refute it in the mind of the reader. And yet
they are as independent as we, except that they are mider our protcc'
tinn just so far as they themselves have been pleased to stipulate. This
very idea that they are alien and sovereign tribes, which Gov. Cass
here sets forth as new and absurd, with such deliberate io-norance or
depravity, (we sometimes scarcely know which) has been (with the
proviso in regard to their voluntary dependence, so far as they have
placed themselves under our protection) expressly declared and main-
tained, as well as implied, in every treaty between the United States
and the Indian tribes, ever since the first moment of their mutual in-
tercourse ; has been asserted by Chancellor Kent ; has been adopted
as law, in the highest court of New York ; and constitutes the very
point for which we do most strongly contend : which we think indeed
is too manifest to admit a doubt ; founded, as it is, on the inalienable
rights of those who were once the undisputed possessors of this whole
continent, and who have only relinquished so much of their sovereign-
ty, as might entitle them to, and place them under, the protection of
a more powerful nation, in whose justice and generosity they have con-
fidently trusted ; and settled, as it has been, by " innumerable treaties "
by the whole practice of the United States, by multiplied lecral author-
ities, and by the extrajudicial opinions of wise and venerable poli-
ticians.

Jn regard to ''the peculiar relations," of which Gov. Cass speaks, a
reader anxious to knov/ the whole truth might very naturally ask what

* " No argument can be drawn against the sovereig-iity of these Indian nations, from the
fact of iheir haviuu- put themselves and their lands under I3riiish protection. Hwh a fact is
of frequent occurrence in the transactions between independent nations." Chancellor Kent
tU supra.

The protection which is here spoken of is the same which the Indians receive from the
United States. But the Secretary of War and Gov. Cass contend that Geor^-Ia received
from Great Britain such unlimited'authority over the Cherokees as would totally annihilate
the sovereignty of that tribe. Our readers will naturally ask how Great Britain could graul
what she did not herself even pretend to possess.

46 Examination of Gov. Cass

they are ; supposing that all our peculiar relations with the Indians had
been specified and disposed of in multiplied stipulations. We will tell
him. The Indians are less civilized than we. The State of Geor-
gia wants the Indian Territory. The Indians are less powerful than
we, and have committed themselves, trusting in the faith of treaties,
to the United States for protection. Therefore, we must so '' regulate
the construction" of those treaties as to "coerce" the Indians out of
their present inheritance, or under the laws of the Georgians. Such
are the peculiar relations which, according to this nnprincipled politi-
cian, are to " regulate the construction" of our compacts with the In-
dian tribes. These are peculiar relations indeed ; the relations of
weakness on one side, and strength on the other ; the relations of an
inferior and peaceful tribe, looking to us for protection from the op-
pressive avarice of a more powerful neigliboring state ; appealing to
the very treaties, by which, for the sake and with the promise of that
protection, they have placed themselves in the attitude of a dependent
nation. They are relations which should make us peculiarly disinter-
ested and benevolent in our conduct, jealous of all usurped and inter-
meddling jurisdiction, and scrupulously careful to preserve, unimpair-
ed in the slightest degree, every jot of those rights, which the Indians
have, as it were, committed to us for safekeeping. It is not only op-
pression, but inexpressible meanness, and shows in Gov. Cass a selfish
and degraded mind, when he can allege such relations — the very ones
which call for generosity and kindness, — as affording his country an
opportunity for successful fraud.

On page 88 he asserts, that " Our right of jurisdiction over them,
founded upon the principles we have already discussed, and supported
by our own practice, and by that of every notion luhich has eitenchdits
sway over them., is perfect. But in the exercise of this jurisdiction, a
just regard is due to the relative situation of the parties, and unneces-
sary restraints should not be imposed upon the Indians. Of the ex-
tent and necessity, however, of these restraints, we must, from the na-
ture of the case, be the judges." Gov. Cass seems determined reso-
lutely to forget that all our power of restraint over the Indians is fixed
by tlie stipulations of " innumerable treaties." He goes on to declare
that " all other nations have adopted the 'Sic volo' in their communi-
cations with the aboriginal tribes," and so must we ! "The time is
probably not far distant, when our practice must change, and when
the legislatures must speak to them as they speak to our own citizens,
in terms of authority." !

Our readers may thus see that according to Gov. Cass' theory, the
example of other nations may justify us in acts of usurpation ; and
that, although in times past the United States have been obliged to re-
sort to treaties for any new arrangements with the Indians, or any new
regulations affecting their property or territory, yet now a new era has
commenced ; there is no longer any such unhappy necessity ; those
treaties having been founded on the mistaken conceptions of benevo-
lence ; it having now become necessary to speak to them in the Ian-

on the Removal oj the Indians. 47

guage of authority ; and in fine to strip them of every shadow of na-
tional and perhaps individual independence. One would think, from
his manner of speaking, that the solemn obligation of treaties is an
idea which has never crossed his mind ; but how, in the name of our
national honor, (we ask it in astonishment at either his moral or his
intellectual insensibility) how does he imagine the sixteen treaties with
the Cherokees, and our repeated treaties with the other tribes, are to
be disposed of?

Pages 85 to 92 are merely an examination of the President's talk, and
the Secretary's letter, with a declaration, as fiist as he goes on, that he
agrees with every word of it, and with several ingenious compliments
to the President, on his acquaintance with the principles, and skill in
the practice of Indian eloquence.

From page 92 to 94 he returns to his old description of the savage
character, and argues that barbarous tribes, full of v/ar, murder, plun-
der, and devastation, can never be admitted into the community of na-
tions, inferring of course that the Indians are all, without exception,
in this predicament. He uses again the same fallacy as formerly, of
applying a picture of barbarians nearly a century ago, and considera-
tions drawn from circumstances tlien existing, to the state of things
at the present moment. In this view he makes the truly ridiculous
remark, " that it is evident that two such races (as the Indians and
the whites) cannot exist in contact, independent of each other. Their
wars would soon come to be wars of extermination," &c. &c. Is it
possible that Gov. Cass supposes he can make any man in his senses
believe that the people of the United States are at this day in danger
from the aggressions of any Indian tribe within the limits of our ter-
ritory ? That the Cherokees, for instance, and the United States, who
have lived in mutual peace and independence for forty years, have now
at last arrived to such a pitch of barbarity on one side, that they can
no longer remain in contact with each other without fierce wars of ex-
termination ? We wonder that he had not displayed the terrors of the
war whoop, and the tomahawk, and the scalping knife, and addressed
a thrilling appeal to the hearts of mothers and fathers from Maine to
Georgia. Yet it is in sober truth from such considerations, that this
sagacious politician concludes that an entire resignation of independ-
ence from all the Indian tribes in the United States "is essential to
the safety of both." ! !

He again, (as if determined to leave no doubt of his own destitution
of principle) argues, from the practice of European powers, our own
right to " assume complete authority" over the Indians, not only
*' without their consent, but even against it." He even goes so far as
to appeal to the " moral sense of mankind," and impudently insinuates
that this assumption of authority is not only a right, but a duty — a du-
ty of self-preservation ! And just as if we were the aggrieved and in-
jured party in this case, instead of having ourselves trampled the In-
dians in the dust, he quotes from Vattel on the law of nations, that
^' a nation may even, if necessary, put the aggressor out of the condi-

48 Examination of Gov. Cass

tion to injure him," He then makes the following remarkably unprin*
cipled declaration. *'No candid man can look back upon the history
of the Indians, or survey their habits, character, and institutions, with^
out being sensible that they are *a nation of a restless and mischiev-
ous disposition,' and that ' all have a right to join, in order to repress^
chastise, and put it ever after out of its potcer to injure themJ " When
we remember that such la^nguage as this is intended to refer to tribes
so peaceable in their character, and so indisputably advanced in civili-
zation and Christianity as the Cherokees, we think our readers will be-
gin to suspect us of insensibility for the coolness we have exhibited.
Let no one henceforward speak to us of Gov. Cass' humanity.

Now let our readers turn to the remarks we have quoted from Gov.
Cass in 1826, on the fidelity and friendship of the Indians towards our
government, and on the readiness with which they yield themselves up
for punishment whenever they have committed a crime; let them re-
member our extract from his late article, in which he accuses them of
being regardless of their promises and faithless to all obligations; let
them reflect upon his own inconsistency with himself, and then witness
his violation of the truth; made strikingly evident by the following
testimonial of Chancellor Kent, to the kindness and unshaken fidelity
of the Indians.

*'The friendsliip of the six nations towards the colony g-overnment, and the
protection of tlie g-overnment to them, continued unshaken for upwards of a
century, and tills nuitual g-ood faith lias received tlie most honorable, and the
most undoubted attestations. Gov. Golden, in his history of the six nations,
states, that the Dutch entered into an alliance with them, which continued witli-
out any breach on cither side, until the English conquered the colony in 1664.
Friendship and protection were then renewed, and the Indians, he says, observ-
ed the alliance on their part strictly to his day ; and we know that their fidelity
continued unshaken down to tlie period of our revolution. On one occasion,
the colonial assembly, in their address lo the governor, expressed their abhor-
rence of the project of reducing- the Indians by force, and possessing themselves
of their lands ; for, to the steadiness of these Indians to the interest of Great
Britain, they said, they owed, in a g-reat measure, their internal security. The
•colony g-overnors constantly acknowledg-ed their friendship and services.
* * *'* * * * * »

" The six nations were a g-reat and powerful confederacy, and our ancestors,
a feeble colony, settled near the coasts of the ocean, and along- the shores of the
Hudson and the Mohawk, wlien these Indians first placed themselves, and their
lands, under our protection, and formed a covenant chain of friendship that was
to endure for ages. And when we consider the long- and distressing wars in
which the Indians were involved on our account with the Canadian French, and
the artful means which were used, from time to time, to detach them from our
alliance, it must be gi-anted that fidelity has been no where better observed, or
maintained with a more intrepid spirit, than by these generous barbarians."

Yet Gov. Cass, not satisfied with the unprincipled misrepresentations
which he has already exhibited of the Indian character, from which,
as we have seen, he infers the right to ^^ repress, chastise and disable
them,^^ again repeats his worn out and reiterated assertion, in direct
contrariety to truth, — " Nor can it be objected to the practical applica-

on the Removal of the Indians. 49

• tion of this doctrine, that the Indians have improved in their manners
and morals, and are now less disposed than formerly to molest our
frontiers. Some of the most un[;rovoked aggressions and atrocious
barbarities have been committed vvithin a few years ; and nothing but
the absence of foreign aid, and the impression of our strength, pre-
vents the renewal of the scenes at Fort Mimms, at the Maumee, and
at the River Raisin." Does he expect to be believed in such indis-
criminate slander, and that too, without bringing forward a single fact
to support it ?

If Gov. Cass feels no shame at this exhibition of his own inconsist-
ency, let him blush when he is reminded, that the Cherokees have
been forty years in friendly alliance with this country, and that they
never have committed a single act of aggression ; that the Choctaws
have been still longer in such alliance, and never have committed a
single act of aggression; and that the Choctaws make it their boast
that they never shed the blood of a single citizen of the United States !

But these are truths, which he must have known long and familiar-
ly ; and their repetition will therefore excite no remorse in his bosom ;
he is proof against such considerations. A man's conscience, we
should think, would ask for a strong opiate, before he could bring
himself, like Gov. Cass, to utter such unprovoked and deliberate
slander against a whole people ; and then display their character,
caricatured and blackened with malignant calumny, to justify the
most wanton usurpation of their sovereign rights and privileges. This
he has done ; — and in what light ought we to view his conduct? How
must we regard the argument j by which he would insinuate the al-
leged degradation of the Indians — the very fcict which would call the
loudest for our mercy — as a reason why vve should cast them out, like
a pestilential mass of corruption, from our midst ! The idea — so nat-
ural to a man of any feeling — that the falsely asserted wildness and
ferocity of their character, did it really exist, would demand our ten-
derest treatment, seems never to have entered into his imagination ;
and he argues that it calls on us to banish them, like the excrescences
of human existence, from the farthest limits of civilized society ! I'o
whom now does the imputation of savage inhumanity belong — to the
Indian, or the white man ?

Pages 95 to 98 are devoted to a " cursory" examination of what the
elementary writers of Europe have said on the relative rights and du-
ties of civilized and savage nations, what the countries of Europe
have practised in regard to the same, and what course the United
States have pursued in regard to them. Here he again takes for granted
that the course which Christian communities in past ages have adopt-
ed in their intercourse with uncivilized ones ?ni(st be right ; or that if it
was not right at first, " considerations of general expediency and au-
thority" have since come in and changed its character. Fortunately
for Christian as well as savage communities this writer's belief cannot
change the nature of crime ; nor can his considerations of expediency
make it less certain that iniquity can never become just, even though
7

5# Examination of Gov, Cass

it should point back to a prescription of ages. It is curious to observe
liini on page 96 and 97 declaring the folly of doubts in regard to the
unlifuited extent of our jurisdiction over the Indians. France never
had any doubts. Spain, " as it is well known," never had any doubts.
Great Britain had very few, and what she had were a trouble to her.
How foolish to vex our consciences with doubts, in a case where noth-
ing but Indians are concerned !

From page 99 to 101 he labors to prove that each individual State
has the right of jurisdiction over all the Indians within its chartered
limits. Here it is remarkable that his own sophistry, and his selfish
eagerness to prove the point at which he is aiming, leads him into the
most palpable contradiction. Our readers have seen how he has all
along been asserting and attempting to prove, that the United States
possess unlimited jurisdiction and perfect, over all Indian tribes. We
have also seen that he has all along deduced the right of that jurisdiction
from the general practice of civilized powers, and from his favorite
" general considerations of expediency and authority." Now he not
only denies that the United States possess any but a limited degree of
jurisdiction over the Indians, but finds that even that small degree of
it is possessed only by virtue of a grant in the constitution !

He says, " And the only provision we there find relating to the In-
dians, is the third clause of the eighth section, which grants to Congress
the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the
several States, and with the Indian tribes. Certainly this is too narrow
a foundation upon which to erect so broad a superstructure, as that
which would include within it the lahole concerns of the Indians The
regulation of commerce can by no fair interpretation include within the
sphere of its operation all the acts and duties of life, and thus confer
the power of exclusive legislation." We make this quotation that we
may set it in its fiill contrariety to an opinion expressed but two pages
before on the unlimited extent of the United States' jurisdiction over
the Indians. We have already quoted this opinion once, and our
readers will remember it. It is in the form of a question, and precedes
a specified power in the United States over the Indian tribes,

" Who doubts that the authority which could enact the following
clause could embrace within its operation the whole ' life and conver-
sation^ of the Indians, did policy or necessity require it?"

Besides the contradiction of which he is here guilty, he overlooks
the fact that this clause and all other clauses of this nature are found-
ed on express stipulations in treaties with the Indians ; that they can
give no authority by way of precedent, in cases not so stipulated ; that
they have passed from such treaties into the Constitution ; and that the
Constitution can give no power to the general government for the
enactment of laws over the Indians, unless they themselves have grant-
ed and specified such authority, and provided for its exercise, in for-
mal treaties.

But this is not the only one of the absurdities he fiills into in regard
to this part of his subject. We shall not attempt to enumerate all; a
careful reader will easily detect them. On page 100 he makes a la-

on the Removal of the Indians. 51

mention that " it is now too late to call in question the obligation to
treaties with the Indians, or the power of the government to conclude
them ; although it is dificult to point to any provision of the Consti-
tution which expressly or necessarily grants this powers (We are
glad the obligation of "treaties has come to his remembrance, though it
be attended in his own bosom with so much regret and dissatisfac-
tion.) We see him again recurring to the Constitution, for the source
of that power in the United States which he has all along been at-
tempting to prove is supreme, from the expediency- and necessity of
the case. We ask our readers to reflect on the jumble of contradic-
tions contained in his argument. He asserts on page 101 that " the
jurisdiction over the territory may be in the States, and the power
to dispose of it in the United States ;" and proves this by reference
to the fact that white citizens on the territory of the general govern-
ment, are subject to the laws of the States within whose limits they
reside. Here he is guilty of an absolute petitio principii, by assum-
ing that the Indians have no existence or property as communities, but
are, in fact, like all individual white citizens. Besides this, he here
contradicts the very doctrine of the Georgians, that " soil and juris-
diction are inseparable."

If, according to the doctrine he now holds, the United States pos-
sess no power over the Indians which is not granted them by express
provision in the constitution, how did the individual States acquire
the unlimited jurisdiction for which he contends, and which the Uni-
ted States cannot give because it does not belong to them 1

We suppose that he grounds this right on the principle that the
States received from great Britain all her power of jurisdiction over
the Indian tribes ;* and that Great Britain possessed that power by the
right of discovery. Such in its first clause is the proposition of the
Secretary of War, and Gov. Cass unhesitatingly accedes to all his
propositions. Now though nothing can be more unjust than the idea
that mere discovery of the continent could give to any nation the
power to legislate over the natives, against their consent, or to drive
them from their own territory ; yet admitting for a moment that Great
Britian possessed such a power, and that after our independence it
passed to the individual States ; still it is certain that Georgia herself,
since her independence, has repeatedly waived that power and practi-
cally denied its existence, by treaties negociated with Indian tribes
and acknowledging those tribes as nations, with sovereign territorial
rights. Can any man show why Georgia is not bound to respect her own
treaties as well as the United States, or France, or England, or any
nation in the world ? The claim of jurisdiction by right of discove-
ry is an unjust claim, which neither Great Britain nor Georgia can be

* We have seen that according to Chancellor Kent. >^hose opinion we ^hink is endlled^o
quite as much respect as that ol" Secretary Eaton or Gov Cass, Great Bna^^^^
Indian tribes as "sovereign communilies,exerc,s.ng the nght of free '^"^^^^^l^'^l^^^^^
but, in consideration of frotedion, owuig a qualified subJecUon,^« a nati07ial, but not many
individual capacity, to the British Crown."

5^ Examinaiion of Gov. Cass

excused for advancing. But, if it were not so, and if the latter State
had not relinquished that claim by formal treaties, the repeated trea-
ties between the United States and the Indian tribes would stdl be
binding, and must exclude Georgia from all the jurisdiction for which
she contends, unless our nation chooses to nicur the guilt of violating
its most solemn engagensents.

Page 101 he says, speaking of treaties with the Indians, " And if,
m these compacts any pledge has been given, that the Indians shall be
exempt from the legislative authority of the States within which they
live, we have only to submit to an improvident stipulation, and leave
them free, whatever be the consequences. But su.ch an assurance
cannot be found." We merely ask our readers to compare with this
assertion the following " improvident stipulation," in the treaty of
Holston, together with a plain commentary thereon, to be found in the
7th number of tha Essays of William Penn.

"AttT. IT. If any cilizeii or inhabitant of the United States, or of either of
the territorial districts of the United States, shall g-o to any town, settlement, or
territory belong-ing- to the Cherokees, and shall there commit any crime upon,
or trespass against the person or property of any peaceful and friendly Indian
or Indians, which, if committed icithin the jurisdiction of any State, or tcithin the
jurisdiction of either of the said districts, ag'ainst a citizen or any white
inhabitant thereof, woidd be punishable by the laws of such state or district,
such offender or offenders shall be subject to the same punishment, and shall be
proceeded against in the same manner as if the offence had been conunitted
icithin tlie jurisdiction of the State or district to which he or they may belong"
ag-ainst a citizen or white inliabitant thereof."

* If there is any meaning- in language, it is here irresistibly implied, that the
Cherokee country, or " territory" is not *' within the jurisdiction of any State,
or within the jurisdiction of either of the territorial Districts of the United
States." Within what jurisdiction is it, then ? Doubtless within Cherokee ju-
risdiction ; for this territory is described as '^ belonging to the Cherokees,''' —
one of the most forcible idiomatic expressions of our language to designate ab-
solute properly. What then becomes of the assumption of jurisdiction over the
Cherokees by the State of Georgia ? This question will be easily decided by
the man who can tell which is the strongest, a treaty of the Un.ted States, or
an act of the legislature of a State. The treaty says, that the Cherokee terri-
tory is inviolable ; and that even white renegadoes cannot be pursued thither.
A recent law of Georgia declares the greater part of the Cherokee country to
be under the jurisdiction of that State ; and that the laws of Georgia shall take
full effect opon the Cherokees within less than a year from the present time.
The Constitution of the United States (Art. YI.) has these words : "All trea-
ties made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme laic of
the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the
laws or Constitution of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." The ques-
tion of jurisdiction is, therefore, easily settled.'

Page 102 he asks, '^ What has a Cherokee to fear from the opera-
tion of the laws of Georgia ?" We answer by simply exhibiting the
following enactments, passed, not long since, in the Georgia legisla-
ture ; with another commentary by William Penn.

*' Sect. 8. * That all laws, usages, and customs, made, established, and in
force, in the said territory, by the said Cherokee Indians, be, and the same are
hereby, on and after the first day of June, 1830, declared null and void.

on the Re?noDal of the Indians, S3

** Sect. 9. * That no Indian, or descendant of Indian, residing within the
Creek or Cherokee nation of Indians, shall be deemed a comi^etent witness, or
a party to any suit, in any court created by the constitution or laws of this State,
to which a white man may be a party.'

♦ Under the administration of this law, a white man mig-ht rob or murder a
Cherokee, in the presence of many Indians, and descendants of Indians ; and
yet the offence could not be proved. I'hat crimes of this malignant character
would be committed is by no means improbable ; but assavdts, abuses, and
vexations, of a far inferior stamp, would render the servitude of the Cherokees
intolerable. The plan of Georgia is, as explained by her Senate, to seize five
sixths of the territory in question, and distribute it among her citizens. If a
Cherokee head of a family chooses to remain, he may possibly have his house
and a little farm assigned to hini. This is the most favorable supposition. But
his rights are not acknowledged. He does not keep the land because it is
his own ; but receives it as a boon from Georgia. He will be surrounded by
five white neighbors. These settlers will not be from the more sober, temper-
ate, and orderly citizens of Georg-ia, but from the idle, tlie dissolute, the quar-
relsome. Many of them will liate Indians, and take every opportunity of in-
sulting and abusing them. If the cattle of a Cherokee are driven away in his
presence , if his fences are thrown down and his crops destro} ed 5 if his chil-
dren are beaten, and his domestic sanctuary invaded ; — whatever outrage and
whatever injury he may experience, he cannot even seek a legal remedy. He
can neither be a party, nor a witness. He has no friend, who can be heard in
his behalf Not an individual can be found, who has any interest in seeing jus-
tice done him, and who, at the same time has any power to serve him. Even
the slaves of his nevv neiglibors are defended by the self-interest of their mas-
ters. But he has not even this consolation. He is exposed to the greatest
evils of slavery, without any of its alleviations. F.very body is let loose upon
him ; and it is neither the interest, nor the inclination, nor the official duty, of
the white settlers to defend him. Every body may destroy his property ; but
nobody is bound to keep him from starving, when his pi-operty is gone. How
long could a Cherokee live under such treatment as this ?"

On pages 107 and lOS, this master spirit of expediency, necessity,
selfish policy, and intrigue, proposes that we get rid of the odium
of sending off the Cherokees in a body, by cutting their territorial
community to pieces, giving each individual his separate share, and
then persuading them separately to sell their interest " for a valuable
consideration," and as soon as the bargain shall be concluded, to
start off for the Pacific. The portions of land thus successively yield-
ed up by the Indians are to be assigned ' to the State or to the United
States,' and according to Gov. Cass' reasoning, must fall within the
laws of Georgia. Thus the Cherokee tribe will soon be annihilated
as a nation, and that in a very quiet, innocent manner, without any
of the disturbance and difficulty, of the possibility of which even this
sturdy disciple of *' expediency and necessity" seems to have some
indistinct idea.

He thinks it would be quite idle to meet this proposition by the as-
sertion that the Cherokees have prohibited such a course ; because,
in the first place, according to his theory they have no right to make
such a prohibition ; and in the next place, it would not be favorable
*' to their future prosperity." We ought therefore to interfere and
teach them better, to ' abolish their own institutions,' these not being

64 Examination of Gov. Cass

adapted to subserve their highest interests, and out of pure, disinter-
ested compassion for their ignorance, to draw up and establish among
them a new code of law — a code which may enable us to divide and
denationalize them just as we please. There is one other obstacle
to his plan of division, but which he probably considered so slight as
not to be worth mentioning ; and that is — the sixteen treaties by which
the United States have solemnly guarantied to the Cherokees as a na-
tion, and not as individuals, the undisturbed possession of their ter-
ritory.

But in our age, treaties and all other obligations must give way to
the " considerations of expediency and necessity." This writer ac-
tually makes the following profligate assertion. '' The mode of acquir-
ing the possessory right of the Indians is a question of eipedieuci/^
and not of principle !^^ We have before impeached him for dis-
honesty as a disputant ; we may now accuse him of flagrant immor-
ality as a writer. We charge him with upholding a doctrine which,
if it were universally practised, would overturn society from its foun-
dations, would make us a conununity of demons, and would sweep
away every vestige of morality and religion from among us. He de-
clares that in our conduct with one another we are no longer to regard
moral principle, no longer to be guided by what our consciences tell
us is right and just, but by what we ourselves jndge to be expedient !
Even Bonaparte's principles of conquest were better than this; for he
always declared that his battles and his usurpations would be for the
world's benefit. But Gov. Cass acknowledges no law save that of
his own convenience. " Expediency" is his motto, in all cases where
* principle' and selfishness happen not to coincide.

There are very many points of error and sophistry in this article on
which our limits would not permit us to remark. One of them, es-
pecially, is of such a nature that we cannot now but notice it. Chan-
cellor Kent observes that the Indians in New York are * placed under
our protection, and subject to our coercion, so far as the public safety
requires it, and no farther." Now our profound commentator on na-
tional law gravely tells the ' learned Chancellor,' that he could never
have meant to restrict the extent of the terms, ' public safety,' to cases
involvinor actual danger, but that he must have intended to define it, as
according to the political system of this professor of * expediency and
necessity' it oug;ht to be defined, " the permanent interest of both
2)arties ! .'" We imagine the * learned Chancellor' must be highly
gratified with the compliment Gov. Cass pays to his integrity, in thus
bestowing upon his terms such a Machiavellian construction. From
Nimrod down to Napoleon no usurper or conqueror has ever existed,
who did not pretend to fight and usurp for the ' permanent interest
of both parties.'

It may be thought improper to have mentioned Gov. Cass, as the
author of the article in the North American. We certainly should
not, in ordinary cases, disclose the name of a reviewer, who had chosen
to write anonymously. But, in this case, the Reviewer is the last
man in the country, who would wish his authorship to remain alto-

on the Removal of the Indians. 65

gether unknown. It is very important to him, as he may naturally
think, that his merits should be appreciated in certain quarters. His
friends, throughout the country, know very well his agency in this
matter ; and it is altogether desirable that the public at large should
know it.

We may seem also to have been too severe in our censures, and
too personal in our remarks ; but we appeal to every reader who may
peruse these pages in a spirit of impartiality, and with correct moral
feelings, to say whether the principles developed in the late produc-
tion of Gov. Cass do not deserve a severity of reprobation far more
stern and unmitigated, than that with which we have treated them.
We are acquainted only with his public character ; towards him as an
individual we should be very guilty if we entertained any feelings but
those of undissembled kindness. The best wish we can form for his
true and lasting prosperity is, that he may sincerely and bitterly re-
pent of his conduct towards that unhappy people, over whose destiny
he has endeavored to exert no trifling influence.

Were it possible to imagine that in writing on the character and
condition of the Indians, he has labored under the power of some
unfortunate mistake ; or that he did not see in its true colors the crim-
inality of the course he has urged his country to adopt, the case would
be somewhat different. But we cannot believe that such a man could
be ignorant of the real nature of the principles he has advocated, or
that, with so many opportunities for knowing the truth, and with so
much parade of repeated assertion, he could be unacquainted with
the actual condition of the tribes whose character he has grossly
misrepresented. He has even put himself to considerable labor of
research for the darkest materials with which he might fill up the
picture. And if, as he has declared, he knew less of the Cherokees,
than of the more degraded and uncivilized tribes, what a perversion
of moral feeling, what utter carelessness of truth, what inhumanity of
heart does it show, to apply such a picture to the character of such a
tribe ; — and not merely this — but to allege it as a reason for depriving
them of their most valuable rights !

It is a dark crime to slander the reputation of a single individual.
But it is one of uncommon malignity to calumniate the character of a
whole people — a people absent, unfortunate, and defenceless, — pecu-
liarly unprotected from such charges, and without a voice to refute
the reproach ; — a people always cruelly degraded beneath the rank of
their proper humanity, but now more than ever entitled to the com-
miseration and assistance of their white brethren, through their own
noble exertions to rise up and come forward to the light of Chris-
tianity.

When therefore we behold a public writer totally regardless of
such claims, and even declaring the people who make them incapable
of permanent social improvement ; — when we behold him openly de-
claring that this Christian nation ought not to regard the rights of
that people, that indeed they have no rights, or if they have, that our
' mode of acquiring their possessory right is a question of expediency

06 Eitamination of Gov. Cass

and not of principle ;' — when we behold him making light of the sol-
emn obligation of treaties, regretting their introduction, laughing at
the ' mistaken benevolence' of those revolutionary patriots and excel-
lent men, (among whom was Washington,) who presumed to elevate
'these little Indian communities' to the rank of an equal party in
such treaties ; — when we behold him alleging past usurpation in other
nations to justify present usurpation in our own, and meanly endeav-
oring to deceive his readers, and give strength to his reasoning, by
garbled extracts from the law, and by quotations of overruled opin-
ions ; — when we behold him ungratefully accusing the Indian tribes
without any exception, of ' unprovoked aggressions and atrocious bar-
barities,' and of being * restless and mischievous' and savage in their
disposition, and totally regardless of their promises ; and when we
see him asserting, without scruple, that " all have a right to join in
order to repress, chastise' and disable those tribes; — and to crown
all, when we hear hun proposing a most detestable plan of cruel and
perfidious cunning, by which we might succeed in overreaching
them, and cajoling them out of their inheritance — when we behold
all this and then turn our eyes to their true condition, and imploring
posture, we hesitate not to declare that a production which, like that
of Gov. Cass, discloses such principles and such propositions, ought,
in the mind of a Christian republic, to awaken a general senti-
ment of indignation against its author, and to cover his name with dis-
grace.

By the power of his sophistry he would hurry his country to the
violation of treaties more solemn, of obligations more binding and
repeated, than any people, in their natural capacity, ever yet swore to
preserve. They are the more solemn, and the more binding, because
they are made with a people defenceless and forsaken — a people
weaker than we — and who in their simplicity have imploringly appeal-
ed to us for protection from the evils which threaten them. If ever
pity had claims upon any nation, it has them upon ours. If ever any
tie can bind us to compassionate the wi etched, it is that of helpless-
ness. If ever we are called to unlock all our sympathies, to exercise
a generous forbearance, and to be kind even to the extremity of kind-
ness, it is to those, who are wholly in our power — it is when the cry
comes before us of the last remnant of that oppressed people, upon
whose very ashes our republic has flourished.

What is the plea that 2ve use, when we implore His mercy, the very
slightest of whose innumerable favors we have all alike forfeited? Is-
it not our own weakness, our own helplessness, our own utter unvvor-^
thiness 1 But with what face can we make this plea, if we deny its
efficacy to others? Have we no feelings of humanity ? Are they
not men — are they notour brethren? Shall benevolence be left utterly
out of the question ? Shall we forget that if mercy is a blessed attri-
bute and a binding duty in the catalogue of personal virtues and indi-
vidual oblio-ations, it is still more blessed and still more binding, when
it shines in the character, and holds up its obligations in the path of
a great nation ? Shall we, can we be so selfish, with a territorial do-

on the Removal of the Indians. 67

Ininion almost coequal with that of all Europe,Cto break up the homes
and sacrifice the dearest interests of sixty thousand helpless beings,
for the possession of one poor additional bit of land ! Beings who do
bear, like us, the image of their Creator; who do feel, like us, the ties
and the sympathies of common humanity; whose existence, like ours,
can never cease; who are, like us, invited to one common Saviour, but
of whose salvation, both for time and eternity we may well despair, if
our remorseless cruelty should enslave them on their own soil, or ban-
ish them to the boundless and almost uninhabitable prairies of the
west.

As long as life remains to them — in whatever circumstances of
slavery, and in whatever abandoned degradation — they never can be
totalis/ alienated from the power of the Gospel, But let us beware how
we incur the incalculable guilt of having thrust them beyond the
cheerful use, and the favorable operation of those means of grace, by
which only, so far as God's providence is made known to us, he has
determined to reclaim and save a world of lost but immortal beings.

Opinion of Mr. Jefferson on the Sovereignty of the Indian tribes.

From a Letter to General Kno^, dated Aug. 10, 1791.

*• I am of opinion that Government should firmly maintain this ground ; that
the Indians have a rig-ht to the occupation of their lands independent of the
States within whose chartered fines they happen to be ; that until they cede
them by treaty or other transaction equivalent to a treaty, no act of a State can
give a right to such lands ; that neither gunder the present constitution, nor
the ancient confederation, had any Slate, or persons, a right to treat with the
Indians, without the consent of the General Government ; that that consent has
never been given to any treaty for the cession of the lands in question ; that
the government is determined to exert all its energy for the patronage and pro-
tection of the rights of the Indians, and the preservation of peace between the
United States and them ; and that if any settlements ai-e made on lands not ce-
ded by them, without the previous consent of the United States, the govern-
ment will think itself bound, not only to declare to the Indians that such settle-
ments are icithout the authority or protection of the United States, but to remove
them also by the public force.''

Opinion of Hon. Henry Clay on the same subject. From an Ad-
dress lately delivered before the Kentucky Colonization Society.

«*The United States stand charged with the fate of these poor children of the
woods, in the face of their common Maker, and in presence of the world. And,
as certain as the guardian is answerable for the education of his infant ward, and
the management of his estate, will they be responsible, here and hereafter, for
the manner in which they shall perform the duties of the high trust which is
committed to their hands by the force of circumstances. Hitherto, since the
United States became an independent power among the nations of the earth,
they have generally treated the Indians with justice, and performed toward,
them all the offices of humanity."

"Under that system, the Indians residing within the United States are so far
independent, that they live under their oicn customs and not under the laws, of th^;

8

58 Civilization and Christianity of the Indians.

United States ; that tbeir rig-hts upon the lands where they hihabit or hunt, are
secured to them by boundaries defined in cuidcable trcatifs between the United
States and themselves ? and that whenever those boundaries are varied, it is al-
so by amicable and volanUrnj ireai/ps, by which they receive from the United
States ample compensation for every rig^-lit they have to Uie land ceded by them.
They are so far dejicndent as not to have tlie rig"ht to dispose of their lands to
any private person, nor lo any powder other than tlie United States, and to be
under their protecaou alone, and not under that of any other power. Whether
called subjectb, or by whatever name designated, aach is the relation between
them and the United Slates. That rehition is neither asserted now for the first
time, nor did it originate with the treaty of Greenville. These principles have
been tinifo, iiil ij recognized by the Indians themselves, not only by that treaty,
but in all the other prrviovs as loell as the suuseqacnt treaties between them and
the United States."

PRESENT STATE OF CIVILIZATION AND CHRISTIANITY AMONG
THE INDIANS.

At a future day, when we look upon this subject in the light of
experience, it will appear not the letist astonisliing and mournful part
of it that such opinions should have been uttered in regard to the
incurableness of vvhcit is wild and disorderly in the Indian character.
Nothing ought more sensibly to awaken our indignation, than the
hypocritical whining of some statesmen over what they are pleased
to term the melancholy result of past efforts, and the hopeless-
ness of all future ones, to christianize these people. As if God's plan
of redemption were not suited to the character of all mankind!
As if He, whose essence is mercy, had created a race of human, in-
telligent, and accountable beings, with such peculiarities in their
moral constitution as to render it impossible that they can ever be
brought into obedience to his laws or under the influence of his
Spirit I Such peculiarities as pass upon them an irreversible sentence
of endless opposition to his nature and banishuient from his presence!
The proposition is not merely absurd — it is awfully blasphemous. And
yet, strange as it may seem, it is undoubtedly the truth, that the minds
even of Christians have in some cases been so blinded as to incline
to this belief. And with the great mass of the community it has
long been an established tenet that the Indians cannot be civilized,
and of coarse that they cannot be christianized ; for light and heat do
not so certainly accompany the progress of the sun, as civilization
waits upon the march of Christianity. Are the solemn declarations
of God's word to be disbelieved, and is the testimony of all past ex-
perience to be blotted out? Have they never heard of the Sandwich
Islanders, or compared their dreadful wickedness and degradation
twenty years ago, with the piety, the decorum, the morality, the social
and civil order, and the domestic refinement and happiness, which are
found among them at this day ? And are they prepared to assert that
the aborigines of North America are less likely to be subjected to the
operation of Christianity than a people who have been, from the time

Civilization and Chrisfianity of the Indians, 59

of their discovery till the Bible went among them, an astonishment
and a proverb in the whole world, for their extreme licentiousness of
inhuman cruelty and lust? Yet we are not lelt to resort merely to the
testimony of the experience of other nations ; we shall prove from
indisputable facts, not only that they can be christianized, but that
some tribes are now fast advancing to the state of a religious and civ-
ilized community.

On this subject we are willing to make all the allowance for high
coloring, and misguided benevolence, and too enthusiystic hope, which
the coldest speculator could ask ; and still tiiere will remain amply
sufficient to prove that some tribes have rapidly improved in their con-
dition, and hold out a most rational probability, that, if left to the
natural and undisturbed progress of improvement, they wijl soon be-
come as truly Christian and as civilized as the people in any part of
our country. We shall make extracts from statements whose correct-
ness cannot be contradicted, and shall exhibit testimonies from men
who will not be suspected of partiality or enthusiasm on this subject,
in confirmation of this truth.

But before we proceed to such an exhibition, we wish to make one
remark on the conduct of those who are perpetually asserting the
moral incapabilities of the Indian character, and pointing to experi-
ence for a melancholy proof of tlie total failure (as they assert) of all
past efforts to redeem them. Were it even true that there had been
such a failure, we wish to remind them that they have never yet given
the time, the opportunities, the circumstances, the scope, which are
absolutely necessary for the fair and thorough trial of so mighty an
experiment. Do they look upon the moral constitution of the human
mind as if it were a machine, coarse in its texture, mechanical in its
operation, in which they can calculate uith mathematical precision,
the effect of a given quantity of power and circumstance and motive,
that they determine, when the result does not exactly coincide with
their previous calculation, that there is something wrong in its con-
struction and imperfect iil its nature ? We wish to remind them that
their "failure" and mistake should make them humble in the view
of their own ignorance, and sensible of their entire dependence on
the power of a superior agent, instead of rendering them impatient
of effort, and angry at an obstinate depravity, which is only the un-
erring mirror of their own. In view of their criminal impatience at
what they call the melancholy result of all past efforts, we wish them
to reflect how different is their conduct from that course which relio--
ion dictates, and which the framer of the human mind and the Author
of our religion has himself pursued. What would have been their
own condition and ours, had our moral Governor acted towards us on
the same principles and with the same conduct, which they exhibit
towards others. We forget, and refuse to imitate, the patience which
has so long borne with our own depravity, both as a nation and a^
individuals — which has so often stayed the arm of justice, and said in
the councils^ of Heaven, ^' let it alone this 1/ ear also ;" — let the dews

%0

Civilization and Christianity of the Indians.

of grace fall yet longer upon it, let the opportunities of mercy be still
held out.

We shall confine our extracts and remarks principally to the Chero-
kees, Chickasavvs, and Ghoctavvs. These are the tribes which would
be most deeply affected by a removal ; and the progress of civdization
and Christianity is most remarkable and most encouraging among them;
although missions and schools have been established in many other
Indian communities.

CHEROKEES.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions com-
menced their operations among the Cherokees in 1817. About two
years afterwards Mr. Hodgson, the English traveller, visited the Cher-
okee tribe, and bore testimony to the judicious arrangement of the
mission, the sincerity and benevolence of the missionaries, and the
encouraging prospect of success. There are now 8 missionary stations,
a church and a school being established at each. In 1828 the churches
contained 159 members, and the schools 174. The next year there
were 182 members in the former, and 180 in the latter.

The Methodist Episcopal Society have 4 stations in the same tribe ;
at each of which there is a school. In all the four schools are con-
tained about 100 scholars. The Baptists have likewise two stations
among the Cherokees, and the United Brethren, or Moravians, two.

Outlines of the Constitution adopted bf/ the Cherokees ; as abstracted
for the Missionary Herald in 1828.

This instrument was fi-amed and adopted at New Echota, the seat of g-ov-
ernment, in July, 1827, by deleg-ates from the eig-ht districts, into which the
territory of the Cherokees has, for some time been divided.

The provisions of the Constitution are classed under six general heads, and
are ag-ain subdivided accoi-ding- to the number of topics.

The first Article regards the boundaries of their territory, and their rights of
sovereignty within those boundaries.

The second divides the power of the government into three departments,
legislative, executive, and judicial.

The third^ consisting of twenty-six sections, describes the nature and powers
of the Legislature. This is to consist of a Committee and a Council, each hav-
ing a negative on the other, and both to be styled the General Council of the
Cherokee nation. The Committee is to consist of two members from each of
the eight districts, and the Council of three, to be chosen by the qualified electors
in their respective districts, for the term of two years All free male citizens,
except persons of African origin, who have attained the age of eighteen years,
are equally entitled to vote at public elections, and are to vote viva voce. The
other provisions of this Article need not be specified : they are, we believe,
similar to those which govern the legislative proceedings in the States of the
Union.

The fourth^ containing twenty -five sections, relates to the executive power.
This is vested in a Principal Chief, to be chosen by the General Council, and to
hold his oflSce four years. An Assistant Principal Chief is to be chosen at the
same time ; and every year three men are to be appointed by the General
Council to be associated with the Assistant Principal Chief as advisers of the
Principal Chief. The powers of the executive are ample, yet well guarded.

Civilization and Christianity of the Indians, 6 1

The fifth defines the nature and powers of the judiciary. The judicial
powers are vested in a supreme court, and in such circuit and inferior courts as
the General Council may, from time to time, establish. Three judg-es constitute
the supreme court, who hold their commissions for four years ; but any of them
may be removed from office on the address of two tliirds of both houses of the
General Council to the Principal Chief for that purpose. Tlie judg-es are sup-
ported by a fixed and reg-ular salary, and are not allowed to receive fees or
perquisites of office, nor to hold any other office of profit or trust whatever.
They are appointed by a joint vote of both houses of tlie General Council, and
are eligible only within the ag-es of thirty and seventy years. The rights
of the citizens are secured in the manner following-.

** Sec. 14. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have the right of
being heard, of demanding the nature and cause of the accusation against him,
of meeting the witnesses face to face, of having compulsory process for obtaining
witnesses in his favor ; and, in prosecutions by indictment or information, a
speedy public trial by an impartial jury of the vicinage ; nor shall he be com-
pelled to give evidence against himself.

" Sec. 15. The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and
possessions from unreasonable seizures and searches, and no warrant to search
any place or seize any person or things, shall issue without describing them as
nearly as may be, nor without good cause, supported by oath or affirmation.
All prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient securities, unless for capital oflences,
where the proof is evident, or presumption great."

The sixth Article is of a miscellaneous character. A few only of the provi-
sions will be noticed.

"Sec 1. Whereas the ministers of the Gospel are, by their professions, dedi-
cated to the service of God, and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted
from the great duties of their function ; therefore, no minister of the Gospel, or
public teacher, of any religious persuasion, whilst he continues in the exercises
of his pastoral functions, shall be eligible to the office of Principal Chief, or a
seat in either house of the General Council.

"Sec. 2. No person who denies the being of a God, or a future state of rewards
and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this nation.

" Sec. 3. The free exercise of religious worsinp, and serving God without dis-
tinction, shall forever be allowed within this nation : Provided, That ihis liberty
of conscience shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justi-
fy practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of this nation."

" Sec. 9. The right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.

" Sec. 10. Religion, uiorality and knowledge being necessary to good govern-
ment, the preservation of liberty, and the happiness of mankind, schools and the
means of education shall forever be encouraged in this nation.

It will readily be perceived, that the foregoing is but an outline of the Consti-
tution adopted by the Cherokees. Enough is stated, however, to show that
they have a regularly organized government, on the most approved model among
civilized nations.

From the general view of the operations of the American Board in
1828 we make the following extracts, which our readers will compare
with rhose for the year 1829. They will notice particularly what is
said in regard to the ease with which Cherokees read their own lan-
guage. A very interesting account of the process, by which the in-
ventor of the Cherokee alphabet was led to his invention, may be found
in Knapp's Lectures on American Literature.

" At most of the stations there has been the last year, an unusual attention to
religion, and considerable accessions to the churches. A desire to hear preach-
ing- is becoming more general.

^^ Civilization and Christianity of the Indians.

*' Educalio7i. — IV) ore than 100 of the scholars reside in the mission families,
perform various kinds of labor, and are trained up like the children of Christian
parents. — About 250 have left the school at Brainerd alone, most of them hav-
ing- made considerable advances in knowledg-e. Parents manifest an increasing
desire to have their children instructed, and the number of boarding- scholars
mig^ht be enlarg-ed to almost any extent.

•* The press is owned by the Cherokee g'overnment, and is superintended
and worked by men of t heir appointment. It however facilitates the labors of
the missionaries and the diffusion of knowledge.

** The following g-?nevcd remarks, taken from the 19;h Eepoit of the Ameri-
can Board of Foreign Missions, are woi-thy of notice.

** * It is an unexampled fact, that in some places nearly all the adult popub-
lion, and in the tribe at large, more than one lialf, are actually capable of read-
ing their own lang-uage, in their own peculiar chaiacier, having- learned from
small manuscripts, and without ever having become acquainted with any other
alphabet, or possessed a single page of a printed book in any language.

" ' There is a great improvement in many families with respect to industry,
neatness, and manner of living. A large proportion of the people dress much
better than formerly. Many of the women spin and weave cotton, and thus
furnish cloth for vei-y decent ga'-ments of (heir own manufacture.'

** At each of the stations, except two, there is a farm of considerable extent,
under ihe direction of the mission family ; on which the boys a.e taught to la-
bor. The girls peiform various kinds of domestic work. At Bra-nerd the'-e is
a grist-mill, a saw-mill, a blacksmith's shop, under the care of the Boavd.
These are of very great use to the people."

From the general view of operations of the same Board in ]S29 we
extract the following information.

*' The members of the churches generally are very attent've to preaching,
and use diligently all the means of grace. They are exemplary in their con-
duct, and many of them make great exertions to suppress vice, disseminate re-
ligious knowledge, and manifest mo!-e matuiity of Ci)rislian character. Public
worship, conducted by native members of the church, is held in three or four
places remote from the stations.

" Schools. — At the schools generally, the pupils have attended more regularly
than hei-etofore and made better progi-ess. Parents set a higher value on the
schools, and exert themselves more to educate their children. Some of the
schools have, howevei-, been affected I>y the agitation occasioned by the appre-
hension of being removed west of the Mississippi. — More than 100 of the schol-
ars board in the mission families, and are trained to various kinds of labor. Many
leave the schools annually with an education sufiicient for the common business
of life.

" Improvrvicnt among the PeopJe. — They sre becoming more industrious, a;
large portion have good farms and comfoitable houses, rai.^e an abundance of the
necessaries of life, and manufacture their own clothing. — During the year socie-
ties have been formed, in various parts of the nation, for the promotion of tem-
perance, on the pi-inciple of entire abstinence, and large numbers have joined
them. A National Society for this object was formed at New Echofa during the
last session of the legislature. The civil ofhcers enforce the laws against the
introduction of ardent spirits, and impose fines on ti-ansgressors. A great ref-
ormation has been the consequence. The system of government adopted in
1827, has gone into steady operation, and the people are contented and order-
ly,— Most of the adults caii read their own language.

■' The Pi ess. — The Gospel of Matthew and a collection of hymns tran-slated
by Mr. Worcester, have been printed in the Cherokee character, in an edition
of 1000 copies each. The people every where manifest ^a, strong desire to

Civilization and Christianity of the Indians. 63

obtain (oem. and most of tljem have been distribuled. Societies have been
formed to aid in .he gratuitous distiibutioa of tliem aud of other tracts which, it
is hoped, will soon be prjnted."

The following is extracted from a report by the missionaries in

18-25^.

*' That the Cherokees are rapidly advancing- in cHilizaUon is acknowledged
by eveiy one. Six years ag'o, a la/ge proportion of ihe parents of our children
came to the annual examination ofthe i^ciiools, poorly clad, aiul generaUycliriy ;
but at an examination in 1826, when neur 200 people attendc^d, all without ex-
cepl'On, were well clothed and appinently clean. Many ol the Cherokees
around us, may be said to be g-ood farmers. One man, the last year, tilled
about 100 acres. Some have been successful in raising- tolerable crops of
wheat.

In August 1829 the teacher of the school at the Brainerd Station
writes thus.

"During- the last year, I think the children have made g-reater proficiency
than during- any year previous. The examination of the schools was attended
on the 5th inst. by upwards of 100 persons, many of whom were from among
the most respectable in the nation, and were able to judge of the attainments
of the scholars. All were gratified so far as I can learn ; and theie is no doubt
but the schools are regarded with much more interest by the people now, than
formei'ly. We hope that the instruction given to the young, vvill, in many instan-
ces have a huppy influence on the mmds of the parents. The school also
brings the people more within the sound of the Gospel, and gives us more
influence.

" State of Morals. — The moral condition of the Cherokees is certainly im-
proving. Temperance Societies are forming, and men of influence and author-
ity are using the power vested in them to promote morality. A case occurred
last spring, where one of the judges of the circuit court, on finding the air in
the court house strongly impregnated with whiskey, directed his sheriflT to fol-
low certain suspected persons to their haunt in the woods, and destroy the whis-
key. He succeeded, and was in the act of pouring it off on the ground, as the
men appeared. By the same judge six men were fined Fifty Dollars each for
gambling, and one was fined for profaneness."

From reports at the same period it appears that on the first of July
1828 there were at the same station 19 members of the church in-
cluding the mission family. On the first of July 1829 there were '34;
of whom 19 were native members.

Books in the Cherokee Language.

"One thousand copies of the Gospel of Matthew in the Cherokee language,
and in the new character of Guess, have been pi-lnted at the Cherokee national
press, at New Echota. The translation was made by the Rev. S. A. Worcester
the missionary of the American Board stationed at" that place, assisted by Mr.
Boudinot, the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix. A very large portion of the
members of the mission churches, and of the adults generally, in the nation
are now able to read this portion of the Holy Scriptures. *

"A small collection of hymns, consisting' of thirty-three, designed to aid in
religious worship, have been prepared by the same persons, and printed in the
same language and character."

In Sept. 1829, a missionary writes, " So much desire to obtain the
Scriptures has been manifested by the Cherokees in the vicinity of the

64 Civilization and Christianity of the Indians.

Baptist mission (at the Valley Towns) that Mr. Jones, (the missiona-
ry,) has purchased already 200 copies of Matthew's Gospel."

To these statements we may add the testimony of Col. McKenney,
in his " lleports and proceedings," submitted to Congress.

" Of the Cherokees it is due that I should speak from my knowledg-e, ob-
tained, however, otherwise than by personal observation, in terms of high com-
mendation. They have done much for themselves. It has been their good for-
tune to have had born among- them some great men. Of these, the late Charles
Hicks stood pre-eminent. Under his wisdom, which was guided by virtues of
a rare quality, these People have been elevated, in privileges of every local
description, high above their neighbors. Thet skek to be a People ; and
to maintain, by law and good government, those principles which maintain the
security of persons, defend the rights of property, &c."

In another official document from which we shall have occasion to
quote a more general testimonial, the same gentleman observes, *' The
Cherokees on this side the Mississippi are in advance of all other tribes.
They may be considered as a civilized people. Their march has been
rapid." He quotes the letter of David Brown, a converted Cherokee, in
regard to which he remarks that ^^ Theory and all previously conceived
opinions J lohich are averse to Indian capacity and Indian improvement^
must give ivay to the stubborn demonstrations of such facts as David
Broivn discloses, even if there ivere no others ; but there are many
such.''

The following are extracts from this letter.

" The natives carry on considerable trade with the adjoining States ; and some
of them export cotton in boats, down the Tennessee, to the Mississippi, and down
that river to New-Orleans. Apple and peach orchards are quite common, and
gardens are cultivated and much attention paid to them. Butter and cheese are
seen on Cherokee tables. There are many public roads in the nation, and houses
of entertainment kept by natives. Numerous and flourishing villages are seen in
every section of the counry. Cotton and woollen cloths are manufactured here.
Blankets, of various dimensions, manufactured by Cherokee hands, are very com-
mon. Almost every family in the nation grows cotton for its own consumption.
Industry and commercial enterprize are extending themselves in every part.
Nearly all the merchants in the nation are native Cherokee. Agricultural pur-
suits, (the most solid foundation of our national prosperity,) engage the chief at-
tention of the people."

**********

" Schools are increasing every year ; learning is encouraged and rewarded. —
The young class acquire the English, and those of mature age the Cherokee sys-
tem of learning. The female character is elevated and duly respected. Indolence
is discountenanced. Our native language, in its philosophy, genius, and sympho-
ny, is inferior to few, if any, in the world. Our relations with all nations, savage
or civilized, are of the most friendly character. We are out of debt, and our public
revenue is in a flourishing condition. Our system of government, founded upon
republican principles, by which justice is equally distributed, secures the respect
of the people."

Mr. McCoy devotes several pages to an exhibition of the improve-
ment among the Cherokees, and declares, ''In view of the preceding
fact it is presumed that none will hesitate to admit that the Cherokees
are a civilized people."

Civilization and Christianity of the Indians. 65

In regard to the present critical state of the Cherokees one of the
Missionaries remarks,

" Critical state of the Cherokees. — The civil and religious institutions, which now
exist among this people have been a work of much time, patience, and prudence.
Some men in the nation seem to have been raised up for thn very purpose of bring-
ing the Cherokees to the state which they are now in. Tliese men have been for
y«ars holding the reins with a firm but careful hand until they have brought tiie
nation up a dangerous precipice and fixed it on a firm civil basis, where, it let alone,
it will doubtless prosper ; but if the nation is interfered with, it will be easy to
plunge it into the abyss where it was thirty years ago ; to break up all the reli-
gious institutions, to scatter the churcheo, and to cause the people, freed from civil
and religious restraints, to abandon themselves to intoxication, lewdness, and al-
most every other vice, by which they will be wasted away until they become ut-
terly extinct. I think now is the time when every Christian, every philanthropist,
and every patriot in the United States ought to be exerting themselves to save a
persecuted and defenceless people from ruin."

CIIOCTAVVS.

The missions among the Choctaws were commenced in 181S.
There are now 8 missionary stations. Within two years there has
been a very remarkable attention to religion in this tribe. We make
the following extracts from the general view of the operations of the
Board in 1829.

" Progress of Religion. — More than a year ago a prevailing attention became ap-
parent in the northeast district of the Choctaw nation ; which, in the course of
the last year, spread into all parts of the nation, the excitement becoming more
strong, and continued without abf tement, till the date of the latest intelligenco.
The people had before manifested the utmost indifference to the preachino of the
Gospel, and seldom could 15 or 2-') be collected ;it a meeting ; and those would hear
without appearing to be interested or to understand. Now 400 or 500 often as-
semble, and appear to understand the Gospel, to be convinced of sin, and intent on
securing their salvation.

" Education.— Sch kU are taught at each of the eight stations, and at various
other villages. The foil )wing is a summary view of them Sept. 1. The desire to
learn to read and sing in thsi. own laiiguige is a most v.njversdl.

Native pupils in the English s-chools, 172

Pupils learning English in Choctaw schools, 24

Pupils learning Choctaw only, 100

296

White children in all the schools, 23

Total, 319
Of the pupils studying English, 67 read well in any book — 64 others in the New-
Testament — and 20 in easy reading lessons — 108 wrote — 37 composed in Eng-lish
— 42 were in aritlimetick — and 59 in geography In the Sabbath school nearly
20,000 verses of Scripture have been recited, besides hymns and answers in cate-
chisms.

"Many Choctaw schools in the southern part of the nation are not included in
the statement given above. A native, formerly a member of the school of Emma-
us, taught four in rotation, embracing 90 scholars. Near Goshen, 20 captains have
requested that each might have a Chrctaw school in his neighborhood.

" Preparation of Boohs — Three bcoks in the Choctaw language were published
two yeras ago — one an introductory spelling-liook, of 15 pages, another spelling-
book of 160 pages, and the third a spelling-bt ok oi' 144 pages, consisting of Scripture
extracts and other useful matter ; designed principally for the adult Choctaws

9

66 Chilization and Christianity of the Indians.

Since the attention to religion commenced, the desire to learn to read has be-
come very strong- and oene1;il. A book of 59 hymns is printed in an edition of
2,000, which it is^expected will be demandad immediately. The first of the former
books is to be reprinted in an edition of 3,500 or 4000 copies.

In a report compiled by Mr. Kingsbury, (from the reports received
from the several stations,) and forwarded to the War department, he re-
marks in regard to the state of the mission during the past year, thus:

" We have also been permitted to witness a greater improvement in the schools
and among the people, than in any former year. What was aniicipaied in the last
report, is now in a great measure realized. The Gospel has had a commanding
influence in different parts or the nation. By means of this influence, and so far
as it extends, a foundation has been laid for an entire change in the feelings and
habits of a considerable number of Choctaws. They have not o nly laid aside their
vices, but their amusements. Instead of assembling for ball-plays and dances, as
formerly, they now assemble for prayer and praise, and to converse on subjects
which tend to their moral and religious improvement. Parental influence is now
exerted, to a considerable extent, to encourage and sustain those principles and
habits which are inculcated on the children while at school. A powerful impulse
has been given to industry. Hundreds of Choctaws can now be hired to do many
kinds of farming work on reasonable terms. A system of means is now operating,
for the civil, moral, and intellectual improvement of the Choctaws; which, if not
interrupted, cannot fail, with the blessing of God, to produce important and happy
results. But should the present order of things be broken up, there is reason to
apprehend that all the ground that has been gained would be lost, and that the na-
tion would sink to rise no more. I regret the necessity I am under of differingr
from the government in any of their views relative to the Indians. But candor
and a regard to what I apprehend to be the best interests, both of the red and
white man, constrain me to say, that, should the Choctaws be brought into such
circumstances, as to feel themselves compelled, contrary to the wishes of the best
part of the nation, to leave the country they now inhabit, I cannot but anticipate
consequences highly disastrous to themselves, and eventually injurious to our own
country. And my prayer is, that God in his holy and wise providence, would
avert such a calamity."

Mr. Wright, another of the missionaries remarks,

" Their former amusements are abandoned, the Sabbath is observed, many at-
tend to the duty of family prayer, and an almost universal desire to hear the Gos-
pel prevails. There is also a general desire awakened among the people to read
their own language ; the Choctaw books are sought for, with an eagerness that is
truly wonderful. Such has been the call for books not only here, but in the other
discricts that the whole of the edition of the little Choctaw spelling book is entire-
ly expended, and another edition is called for immediately. It is thought that the
edition now to be printed, should consist of 3,500 or 4,000."

The following are extracts from a letter of Mr. Kingsbury in Jan.

<* To form a correct estimate of what the Gospel, with its meliorating and
civilizing- attendants, has accomplished for the Indians, we must compare the
present state of those who have in some des^ree been brought under its influ-
ence with their former condition. Judging by this standard, it may be fairly
doubted whether the past eight years have witnessed, in any portion of the civ-
ilizetl world, a greater improvement than has been realized in the civil, moral,
and religious state of the Choctaws."

Advance in the Arts of Civilization.

*< Other evidences of improvement we have in the increase of industry, and
a consequent advance in dress, furniture, and all the comforts and conveniences
of civilized life.

Civilization and Christianity of the Indians, 67

"It has been remarked by many, that the fields of the Indians have never
been kept in so g-ood order, and manag-ed witli so much industry, as the past
year. At councils and other large meetings, the Indians, especially in the
northern and western districts, appear comfortably and decently and some of
them richly clad. A great desire is manifested to obtain furniture for their
houses, and some are already supplied in a manner not inferior to that of new
settlers in our own country.

** The result of a census taken last year in the northeast district was as
follows, viz. population, 5,627; neat cattle, J 1,661; horses, 3,974, oxen,
112 ; hogs, 22,047 ; sheep, 136 ; spinning wheels, 530 ; looms, 124; ))loughs,
360 ; waggons, 32 ; blacksmith's sliops, 7 ; cooper's shops, 2 ; carpenter's
shops, 2 ; white men with Choctaw families, 22 ; schools, 5 ; scholars in a
course of instruction, about 10. In one clan, with a population of 313, who
a year ago were almost entirely destitute of property, grossly intemperate, and
roaming from place to place, there are now 188 horses, 511 cattle, 853 hogs,
7 looms, 68 spinning wheels, 35 ploughs, 6 oxen, 1 school, 20 or 25 scholars.

*• The nortJieast district last year appropriated $1,500 of their annuity for
the establishment and support of bhicksm.ith's shops. The present year they
have appropriated their whole annuity to similar objects.

** As an evidence of industry and public spirit, I would mention, that in one
neighborhood the natives have built a shop, chopped wood for a large coal-pit,
and carried it on their backs to the place of sitting; have built a house for
their blacksmith, and cleared for him a field of 12 acres, all with their own
hands ; they have puichased with their annuity a set of tools and iron and steel
to the amount of two hundred dollars, and have engaged to pay their smith
$300 more annually, for three years. Similar provision is making for smith's
shops in other places.

The following is from a letter of Mr. Byington, in August 1829.

** A great change has taken place within a few years, in the moral condition
of the natives. They are quite temperate compared with their previous habits, or
with those of white men. Probably there are not 20,000 white men to be found
residing together in any part of the United States, who have not used twice
the quantity of ardent spirits which the Choctaws have used during the year
past. Several very good laws have been passed in Council to regulate property
and the conduct of individuals. The people attach more importance to a good
government, to schools, to the Gospel, to industry and its fruits, than they have
done. In this part of the nation we do indeed feel that we live in the enjoyments
of Christianity and civilization. Often have the men whom we employ, after
making a visit into the white settlements, come home to us, bearing abundant
testimony in favor of a residence here, compared with one in the settle-
ments."

It would be easy to multiply extracts containing the most minute and
interesting information in regard to the moral improvement in this tribe,
the prosperous state of their schools, their abandonment of tlie wicked
practices and rites of Indian superstition, and their increasing acquaint-
ance with the arts of civilized life ; but our limits will not permit us to
be more particular.

CHICKASAWS.

The mission among these Indians was commenced in 1821 by the
Missionary Society of the synod of South Carolina and Georgia ; and
was transferred to the American Board in 1827. There are now four

68 Civilization and Christianity of the Indians.

missionary stations. The schools contain about one hundred Members.
During the two past years there has been a prevailing attention to
religious instruction. In October 1828, one of the missionaries
writes,

•* The nation has recently formed some wliolesome laws, and to our astonish-
ment they are all strictly enforced. Whiskey is banished from the country. A
thief is punished with thirty-nine lashes, without reg-ard to color, ag-e or sex,
and is compelled to return the stolen property or an equivalent. One hundred
men (twenty-five out of each district) are to carry the laws into execution,
and are paid by the nation.

*' These thing's are encourag-ing-, and I see notliing- in the way, if these people
are unmolested, of their becoming- civilized, enlightened, and happy.

*' The work of reformation is already commenced ; and if they co\ild but
enjoy tranquillity of mind, 1 have no doubt but that it would rapidly advance.*'

From the reports of missionaries in July 1828, it appears that a re-
markable change had taken place among the Chickasavvs with respect
to temperance. " I am informed," says Mr. Holmes, " that it is very
common for the full Indians to purchase coffee, sugar, and flour, in
the stores on the borders of the nation, but no ivhiskey. This last ar-
ticle appears by common consent to have been banished from the na-
tion. We have not seen an intoxicated native during the past yearP
There was also at this period an uncommonly general attention to
religion. Of late the agitation produced by the fears of a removal
seems to have drawn their minds from this subject, and disheartened
the chiefs in their exertions to enforce the salutary laws which had
been enacted. In the latest view of the operation of the Board it is
remarked as follows.

''The condition of the Chickasaws is obviously improvinor. The chiefs are moro
decided in favor of the schools and tlie preaching of the Gospel. Laws enacted
ao-ainst the introduction of whiskey were very strictly enforced, and a great re-
formation occasioned for a while ; but of late, some change of rulers, with anxiety
respecting removal, have made the laws to be less regarded."

Our readers will be interested in the perusal of the following extracts
from the answers of the Chickasaws at three different intervals in
1826, to the propositions made by the treaty commissioners on the part
of the United States. We quote from the official account of their
proceedings, published by Congress.

«* We have to look to our Father to still extend his strong- arm of protection
to us, until we are more enligh'ened and advanced in civilization. We know
that this is a very important subject before the nation. We, the commissioners,
on the part of tlie nation, have to act agTce;tbly to t!ie voice of the People. We
are, desirous of promoting our rising generation into a state of respectability. We
cannot act contrary to the loill of ike nation. They are determined on staying in
their native country; under these circumstances we can only say to our brothers,
the Commissioners, that they are still opposed to selling- any more of their lands,
consequently we can do no more."

«* You say that the country we have is g-reatly too larg-e for us ; we havealways
taken the talks of our father, the President, heretofoie, and reduced our lands to
very small bounds ; not more than what will support us comfortably : We, as
welt as our white brothers, have a rising generation to provide for. We have

Civilizaiion and Christianity of the Indians. 69

abandoned the idea of hunting- for a support, finding- the game will not do for a
support. Our father, the President, introduced Missionaries to come amongst us,
to advance us to a state of civilization ; tee accepted them, and are makino- all the
progress that people can; ice have also been pi oviding means for the support of
missionaries to enahle us to go on ivilh the education of our children, and to have
them enlightened. Industry is spreading amongst us ; papulation is i?icreasinir ;
we hope soon to arrive at that state of improvement that is so much desired by our
fathei, the President ; ice consider ourselves as the tree of the forest, but not of the
useless kind. We are a fruitful tree, and have provided means, by the assistance of
our father thePresident, to cultivate and improve it, in order that we may bring forth
good fruit. You say it is riglit that we should be attached to the land of our
forefathers, but " how seldom do we see our wliite brotliers leave their bones in
the land of tiieir forefathers ?" We can only account for that in this way ; that
our white brothers appear always to be desirous of cliang-liig their condition. It
is not the case with your red children ; they have no desire for chaiig-ing- an old
friend lor a new one ; we are satisfied to remain here for the support of our chil-
dren. We know that the United States have always protected us, and that the
strong-arm of your Government has extended its pi-oiection West of the Missis-
sippi, fui- the peace and happiness of our red brethren ; we have also every reason
to expect that the Government of the United States feel themselves bound, by every
tie of gratitude, to defend and protect their brothers, the Chickasaws, as we have
never shed the blood of any of our white brotliers. Therefore, ice feel ourselves
freed from any danger of our red enemies where we are, and wish not to incur any
expense to our father, the President..'"

*' We find it is the wish of our father to exchang-e lands with us, lying- on the
West side of the ^Mississippi river, which we are very sorry to hear, as we never
had a thoug-ht of excliai.gmg- our land for any olhei-, as we think that we would
not find a country that would suit us as well as tliis we now occupy ^ it being- the
land of our forefathers, if we should exchange our lands for any other, fearing the
consequences may be similar to transplanting- an old tree, which would wither-
and die away, and we are fearful we would come to the same ; we want you,
our brethren, to take our talk ; we have no lands to exchang-e for any other ; we
wish our father to extend his protection to us here as he proposes to do on the
West of the Mississippi, as we apprehend we would, in a few years, experience
the same difficulties in any other section of the country that iriig-ht be suitable to
us West of the Mississippi."

" AVe further consider that there is a number of nations West of the Mississippi,
that have been enemies to us, as well as to our white brotliers. It would be as
much impossible for to unite us with them as it would to unite oil and water, and
we have every reason to believe that those tribes that have left their country are
not well satisfied ; and, if that should be the case, we are fearful that those tribes
will take satisfaction of" us for injuries done by us, as well as our white brothers ;
we are a small tribe, and unable to defend our rig-hts in any country."

In regard to the general improvement among the Indians, and the
injustice of the course pursued in regard to them, the following is a
remarkable testimony from Hon. James Barbour, extracted from his
letter in 1826 to the Chairman of the committee on Indian affairs.

" Missi(maries are sent among them to enlig-hten their minds, by imbuing- them
with relij^ious impressions. Schools have been established by the aid of private
as well as public donations, for the instruction of their youths. They have been
persuaded to abandon the chase — to locate themselves, and become cultivators
of the soil —implements of husbandry, and domestic animals, have been present-
ed them, and all these things have been done, accompanied with professions of a
disinterested solicitude for their happiness. Yielding- to these temptations, some
of them have reclaimed the forest, planted their orchards, and erected houses.

70 Civilization and Christianity of the Indians.

not only for their abode, but for the administration of justice, and for relig-ious
worship. And when they have so done, yov send your Ag-ent, to tell them they
must surrender their country to the white man, and re-commit themselves to some
new desert, and substitute as the means of their subsistence the precarious chase
for the certainty of cultivation. The love of our native land is implanted in every
human bosom, whether he roams the wilderness, or is found in the highest state
of civilization. This attachment increases with the comforts of our country, and
is strong-est when these comforts are the fruits of our own exertions. We have
imparted this feeling- to many of the tribes by our own measures. Can it be
matter of surprise, tliat they hear, with unmixed indig-nation, of what seems to
them our ruthless purpose of expelling- them from their country thus endeared ?
They see that our professions are insincere — that our promises have been broken ;
that the happiness of the Indian is a cheap sacrifice to the acquisition of new
lands ; and when attempted to be soothed by an assurance that the country to
which we propose to send them is desirable, they emphatically ask us, what new
pledg-es can you g-ive us that we shall not ag-ain be exiled when itis your wish to
possess those lands ? It is easier to state than to answer this question."

The following is a testimony to the same purpose from Mr. Calhoun.

"Almost all of the t! ibes proposed to be effected by the arrangement, are more
or less advanced in the arts of civilized life, and there is scarcely one of them,
which have not the establishment of schools in the nation, affording at once the
means of moral, religious, and intellectual improvement. These schools have
been established for the most part by religious societies, with the countenance
and aid of the government, and on every piinciple of humanity the continuance
of similar advantages of education ougiit to be extended to them in their new-
residence. There is another point wliich appears to be indispensable to be
guarded, in order to render the condition of this race less afflicting. One of the
greatest evils to which they are subject, is that incessant pressure of our popula-
tion, whicii forces them from seat to seat, without allowing time for that moral
and intellectual improvement, for which they appear to be naturally eminently
susceptible. To guard against this evil, so fatal to the race, there ought to be
the strongest and the most solemn assurance, that the country given them
■should be theirs, as a permanent home for themselves and their posterity, with-
out being disturbed by the encroachments of our citizens."*

The following is another testimony from Col. McKenney in regard
to the increasing civilization and Christianity of the Southern tribes.

" The present system, whilst it maintains the dignity and purity of moral and re-
ligious instruction,keeps also m constant operation the means which are now lead-
ing so many Indians to an acquamtance with the domestic arts, with mechanics, and
with agriculture. It has been by the union of these, aided, it is true, by the ab-
sence of game, that the present system for civilizing the Indians has, in the course
of a very few year?, produced such a striking change in the habits and practices
of several of the tribes, among whom it has been put in operation. Upwards of
eleven hundred children, as has been shewn in my report of the 30th ultimo,
are now having imparted to them, and successf idly too, the blessings of civilized
and Christian life, whilst the older Indians, struck with its transforming effects,
are themselves practising, to a very great extent, the lessons which they receive
from their more fortunate offspring ; and, in proof of their admiration of it, have

* We need scarcely remind our readers that " the stron^-est and the most solemn assurance"
of this nature has already been repeatedly g-Iven to tiie Cherokecs and other Southern tribes
in regard to their present home 3 and how could it be made stronger or more solemn in re-
gcU?d to another residence.

Civilization and Christianity of the Indians. 71

in many instances, contributed from their own scanty resources to its support.
Several tribes have placed, at the disposal of the superintendents of the schools,
under the direction of the General (iovernment, large annuities. The Choctavvs
have allotted twelve thousand dollars of their mearis, pei- annum, for nearly twen-
ty years, towaids the support of this system ; and the Chxkasaws have g-iven
one year's annuity, amounting to uj)wards of thirty thousand dollars, as a fund
for the same object.

The Cherokees on this side the Mississippi are in advance of all other tribes.
They may be considered as a civilized people. Their march has been rapid."

At the commencement of th(; same document from which we have-
exlracted the above, Col. McKenney remarks ; '^the effects of the present
si/stem for civilizing the Indians are, every where, irithin the limits of
its operation, salutary. The reports from the schools all testify to its
excellence."

From several pages which Mr. McCoy devotes to an exhibition of
the improvements among the Southern tribes we select the following,
passage.

•* It is certain that the attachment of the Indians tp a hunter's life is not so ob-
stinate but that they will vohuUarily exchange it for a better, whenever they
become situated where the love of life, and the hope of enjoyment, can be cher-
ished in their bosoms. This has been tl)e case with the Cherokees, and some
others of the south who have adopted habits of civilized life.

**ltwas not merely the diminution of the wild game which induced those
southern Indians to abandon the chase, for hundreds of them are now decently
farming on the west side of the Mississippi, contiguous to good hunting grounds.
They have adopted civilized habits because of their superior advantages to the
hunter state. These people have readily enough relinquished attachments to In-
dian habits, not because their pi-ejudices were originally less obstinate than those
of other tribes, but because they happened to be situated where their hopes of
enjoying the fruits of their labors were more encouraging than those of their
more unfortunate northern brethren.

*' To the concuirent testimony of all who are engaged in the labor of Indian re-
form, 1 add my own unqualified assertion, resulting from an experience of more
than nine years actual residence in the Indian country, that there exists among
our Indians no attachment to any pernicious manners or customs, that will not
yield to sound argument, righ'eous e\ample,and the offer of abetter condition."

In regard to this subject the Editors of the Missionary Herald re-
mark very justly,

"Much of the influence of the schools, it should also be remembered, is prospec-
tive. It is not yet seen ; and will not he, until those, who during the last ten years
have been children in the schools, become old enough to be the active men and
women in the nation. Probnbhj ten times as many of the generation, who xcill he
engaged in the active business of life ten years hence, %cUi be able to rend, and be
influenced by a knowledge of the Gosj'el, as were possessed of this ability and this
knoxoledge in the generation engaged in active business ten years ago. All this
influence is progressive. Every enlightened, industrious, and enterprising In-
dian, becomes, as a matter of course, an example, to all his brethren around him,
of the practicability of improving their condition ; and, to a greater or less de-
gree, an active promoter of their improvement. Much iiifluence of this kind has
been exerted by Indians on one another."

We wish our readers to reflect candidly on the consequences of the
probability, which we have marked in Italics. Let them remember

73 Civilization and Christianiiy of the Indians,

the influence, which the comparatively feio, who have hitherto been
educated, have exerted already on the character of the nation, especially
that of the Cherokees. Let them remember that this influence v*'ill
still continue to spread, while there will be added to it the influence of
a much larger number of educated Indians, (a number increasing each
year) who will leave the schools annually for ten years to come. Let
it be remembered that in the mean time a large proportion of those,
whose attachment to old habits of life is most inveterate, will have pass-
ed away, while their places are filled by those whose habits have been
formed in a greater degree under the influence of civilization and
Christianity ; that the number of schools and missionary stations will
also be increased, while the obstacles which have impeded their suc-
cess are daily diminishing; — let all these circumstances be considered
without prejudice, and none can help acknowledging that there is the
fairest prospect of the full and perfect civilization of the nation of the
Cherokees, and that too at no distant period of time. Provided that
they be left to the undisturbed power of the causes now in operation —
that they be not broken up and driven off" to the wilds beyond the Mis-
sissippi, nor left to suffer from the oppression of the State of Georgia
— we think there exists the most rational ground for such a conclusion,
not merely in regard to this tribe, but, at a somewhat more distant in-
terval, in regard to their neighbors, the Choctaws, Chickasaws and
Creeks.

The statements we have exhibited will probably be met with incred-
ulity in the minds of not a few, and with absolute contradiction on the
part of others. There seems to be a deep rooted superstition (we
know not what else to call it) in many minds, that the Indians are
really destined, as if there were some fatality in the case, never to be
christianized, but gradually to decay till they become totally extinct.
This superstitious idea is equally irrational and unchristian ; and it is
every man's duty to examine facts with an unprejudiced mind, and to
give accredited statements their true weight.

As to the proceedings of Congress on this subject, it is most evidently
the duty of that body to learn the truth, from eye witnesses who are
competent to decide, who have had intimate and personal acquaint-
ance with the character of those tribes, whose welfare would be so
deeply affected by the measures which have been proposed in regard
to them. Those who hold the destiny of these tribes in their ])ower
cannot be too humane, too deliberate, nor too cautious in their deci-
sions. They should never rest satisfied with second-hand information,
nor with the declarations of interested men.

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