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H. OF R.]

Removal of the Indians.

[MAY 19, 1830. point put forward as its recommendation, the permanency become degenerate and wretched, they will form an er of the new abode. There is no well grounded hope of perception, not merely to all their brethren, with a single er manency in it, and our experience shows it is delusive. ception, who have preceded them in this course, but to The Cherokees of Arkansas remained unmolested ten the laws of nature. The earnest volition to go, is the years. If the lands to which you remove them are what great spring of the emigrant's success. He summons up you describe them to be, you may as well push back the his soul, and strains his nerves, to execute his own pu tide in the Bay of Fundy, as keep out the white population. pose; but drive a heart-sick family, against their will, from Its progress onward is sure, and as surely will it push the their native land, put them down in a distant wilderness, Indian before it. This new wilderness which you parcel and bid them get their living, and there is not one chance out to them, is not a permanent home. It is a mere halting in fifty that they would live two years, While you feed place-a half way house on the road to the desert. them they will subsist, and no longer. General Clark tells you that those who were in comfort twenty years ago, must now be fed. Sir, they cannot live in these dis mal steppes. They must starve; we know they must General Clark tells us they do starve; and when the me ther starves to death, they put the living child into the grave with her. To palliate this terrific occurrence, we are told it is common, it is incident to Indian life. But not surely among the southern Indians. And if it is meant only that it is common beyond the Mississippi, then what an image does it not give us of the country into which we are driving these victims! If it were not as steriles the desert of Arabia, it would yield enough to prevent the recurrence of such horrors.

We talk of pledges, guaranties, and patents. Now, sir, I have not the least doubt of the good faith of the President, of his cabinet, of every gentleman in this House friendly to the bill, and of every honest man in the community who supports it. They all honestly mean that the Indians should be safe in their new residence; and if they are not safe, it will not be the fault of the friends of the bill. Having said this, I must be permitted to add, that I would not give one farthing for the best patent that could be is sued to this new country, with the seal of every member of the Government. I would not pick up the unmeaning scrawl from the earth. What, take a patent to secure my title west of the Mississippi, when fifty treaties on the east side, signed by all your Presidents, sanctioned by all your Congresses, have proved themselves not worth what it cost to engross them! I would regard the offer of it as an insult. Treaty and patent; what is the difference, save that the former is the more solemn and authentic pledge of the public faith? Are they not both of the like parchment, signed and sealed? What is there in a patent to give it a binding power? Is there any principle of obligation in it; any life or voice to upbraid its violators? There is nothing in it. It is a word, a name. It signifies nothing-it can do nothing. It is meant well-and that is well-and that is all.

View the subject in another light. What is to keep these Indians, after their removal, from making war o each other? This danger was instantly perceived by the intelligent traveller whom I have already cited.* Since this period," says he, "hostilities, as might have been er pected, have again commenced between these restless and warlike tribes, (the Cherokees and Osages,) who c perhaps never be prevailed upon to live in friendship, as they will be perpetually transgressing each other's bunting grounds. At a very recent date, (1821,) four hat dred Osage warriors appeared before the garrison at Belle Point, on their way against the Cherokees, accompanied But, sir, these Indians could not live in this country, by a party of the Sac and Fox Indians, and killed four not even if your advancing population would let them Quapaws hunting in the neighborhood. Such is the ef alone, and the country itself were a pretty good one. It fect of the imprudent and visionary policy of crowding the requires some of the highest qualities of civilized man to natives together, in the hopes of keeping them at peace" emigrate to advantage. I do not speak of great intellectu These seventy-five thousand Indians whom you propose al elevation; not of book learning, nor moral excellence; to collect in this region, are not one tribe; they are m though this last is of great importance in determining the cognate tribes. We are told in some of the papers which prosperity of a new settlement. But it is only the chosen have been laid on our tables, that the four southern tribes portion of a community, its élite, that can perform this speak the same language. It is not so. The Choctaws great work of building up a new country. The nervous, ar and Chickasaws speak substantially the same; the Creeks dent young man, in the bloom of opening life, and the pride speak a different language; and the Cherokees still a of health, can do it. It is this part of the population that other. With these southern tribes and the north westers, has done it. This is the great drain of New England and there is no affinity. There are between various tribes of the other Atlantic States. But take up a whole popula- Indians hereditary feuds. Mr. McCoy's Indians were ti the old, the feeble, the infant, the inefficient, and war with the Osages, and had been for years. You pet helpless, that can hardly get through life anywhere, to them down side by side. You bid them huut in the same take them up by a sweeping operation, and scatter them waste. You grant the same land two or three times over over an unprepared wilderness, is madness. It is utterly to different tribes. The lands granted to the Cherokees impossible for them-I do not say to prosper-but even to of Arkansas, had been in part given, the year before, to subsist. Such a thing was never heard of. How narrow- the Creeks. The Chickasaws are to be put down on the ly did the pilgrims of New England escape destruction, Choctaw lands. The new Cherokee territory runs over the although their ranks were made up of men of the sternest reservation of the Kansas and Osages; and into this ter moral qualities, well provided with pecuniary resources, and recruited for several years by new adventurers! The Indians are to be fed a year at our expense. So far is well, because they will not starve that year. But are the prairies to be broken up, houses built, crops raised, and the timber brought forward, in one year! Sir, if a vigorous Proposed residence of the Indians.-The whole exc young man, going into the prairie, and commencing a set- try west of Missouri and Arkansas, (including the forty tlement, can raise a crop to support himself the second miles severed from the latter,) is already parcelled out to year, I take it he does well. To expect a community of the different tribes that now occupy it. The Cherokees Indian families to do it, is beyond all reason. The chairman of the committee tells us it would be cruel to cast them off at the end of one year; they must be helped along Doubtless they must. And, in the progress of this way of living, partly by the chase, partly by husbandry, and partly by alms, if a people naturally improvident do not speedily

tion;

ritory, thus pre-occupied, you are going to pour down from fifty to seventy-five thousand more. I will eite, this subject, a paragraph from an Arkansas paper. I pretend not to claim for it any other weight than what it de rives from the manifest reasonableness of its purport.

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and Creeks are already murmuring on account of their restricted limits, and complain that the Government has | assigned to both the same tract of country. The prods ¦ tions of the habitable parts of the country, under the care

* Nuttall, p. 212.

MAY 19, 1830.]

Removal of the Indians.

[H. OF R

less culture of the Indians, will be found not more than Sir, these alarms of war are not imaginary. A hostile sufficient to supply the wants of the present population. incursion was made as late as last January into the south If the proposition respecting the formation of an Indian western corner of the Territory of Arkansas. Que citizen colony, contained in the report of the Secretary of War, was killed while at work, and the neighboring settlements should be adopted by the Government, we will have, ac thrown into confusion, and threatened with being broken cording to the Secretary's calculation, seventy-five thou- up. Affidavits proving the fact are on your table. A sand at one litter, in addition to those already in the coun-letter is before me from a bighly respectable source in the try. Will he tell us where he will put them and how he Territory of Arkansas, stating it to be now " ascertained will support them under existing circumstances? I believe that the Indians are preparing to make a general attack this plan rational and practicable, if the Texas country on our frontiers in the month of May or June next." belonged to the Government; but, otherwise, the restricted limits in which he would have to plant his colony, would render it a perfect Indian slaughter-house."

There is only one way in which we can prevent this mutual havoc. and that is, by the constant presence of a powerful armed force, and on that I shall presently say a word.

While I speak it, sir, the savage is perhaps on your frontier settlements. Will he spare your own Indians, whom you propose to throw as a barrier between him and these settlements No, sir, he will consider these new comers as intruders on his own domain. The vast region to which we have extinguished the title of the Osages and Kanzas, and over which we propose to scatter our tribes, is claimed as their own hunting ground, by the Pawnees and Camanches; and you are not to suppose that, while their war parties are insulting the regular troops of your own army, they will respect your enfeebled Indians. Let gentlemen read the account of the expedition sent out to overawe these war parties during the last summer, and they will see this is to be no trifling business.

But the difficulty does not stop here. There are two boundaries to this new territory. There is Arkansas on one side, a part of our Union, from which, of course, no violence will be perpetrated against the Indians. But, on the other side, they will be open to the desert. Is that desert empty Is it occupied only by the buffalo Sir, it is the hunting ground of the Pawnees and Camanchesthe fiercest tribes of the continent. These are the masters Do gentlemen forget that we have already been called in civilization, to whom we are going to send our hopeful pupils, to complete their education. Our Indians have made some progress in the arts of life; and now we are going to put them down by the side of these dreadful hordes, who are a terror even to our own armed traders, and still realize that frightful picture of Indian ferocity and power, which fills the early pages of the history of AmeriWhat must be the consequence? The answer is short: they will be destroyed. When these wild savages of the desert shall take our civilized red brethren in hand, they will most probably crush them.

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on for strong measures of defence There is now a bill on our tables, from the Senate, to mount ten companies for the protection of the frontier; and it is not alone against the unreclaimed savages of the desert, that we are called upon for protection. I find, sir, among the papers accom. panying that bill, a Memorial from the Legislature of Missouri, setting forth the danger to be feared from the Indians collected by ourselves in the region beyond the Mississippi. Coming in a form so authentic and respectable, I shall be pardoned for citing a few sentences from it. It was adopted by the Legislature of Missouri on the 26th of Decem

This event can only be averted by another. If the In-ber, 1828. dians whom you congregate in these prairies, can (which "There is another consideration equally forcible. The I do not believe) ward off starvation; if they take root and Government of the United States has caused various powflourish; and if they withstand the power of the untamed erful tribes of Indians to be removed from the east of the tribes in their neighborhood, it must be by resuming them- Mississippi river, and located on our western frontier. It is selves the savage character. If they fight the Pawnees believed that these Indians, while on their hunting parties, and Camanches, it must be by themselves again becoming pay as little respect to the property of the whites, as do a warlike race. I have no faith whatever in their being the wandering and less civilized tribes of the western terriable to sustain themselves; but if they do, what have you tory. The Government having thus located these Indians, effected? You have built up a community of near one it is expected that every reasonable precaution will be hundred thousand Indians, obliged, in self defence, to as taken to secure the citizens of our State from Indian desume a warlike character, and provided, by your annuities, predations. Savages are restrained by nothing but force; with the means of military annoyance. And what sort of and we have good grounds to apprehend, that, unless a neighbors will they be to your own white settlements military force be placed among them, they will not only What sort of a barrier will you have raised to protect Ar- repeat their aggressions on our trading parties, but that kansas from the Camanches; for this is one of the pro ere long they will make inroads on our frontier settlements. spective benefits which have been set forth as likely to re- We have the authority of an experienced Indian agent for sult from this measure. The impolitic character of the saying that the Pawnee Indians, a powerful tribe, are now measure, in this view of it, did not escape the observation much disaffected towards us, and are determined to spare of the most judicious person who has visited that country.no white man who falls in their way." "It is now, also," says Mr. Nuttall," the intention of the In consideration of facts and representations like these, United States to bring together, as much as possible, the you have now before you a bill for mounting ten compasavages beyond the frontier, and thus to render them, in nies, a force equal to one-tenth part of the army of the all probability, belligerent to each other, and to the civil- United States. You are actually obliged to turn one-tenth ized settlements on which they border. To strengthen of your army into rangers to protect that frontier, beyond the hands of the enemy, by conceding to them positions which you are going to congregate your Indian neighbors. favorable to their designs, must certainly be far removed If one-tenth are now required, can any one doubt that our from prudence and good policy. To have left the abo whole army would be little enough to repress the incurrigines on their ancient sites, rendered venerable by the en- sions of the wild tribes, and keep the peace among seventydearments and attachments of patriotism, and surrounded five thousand of our own Indians, pent up in their new by a condensed population of the whites, must either have districts, and protect the frontier from both? There is held out to them the necessity of adopting civilization, or little doubt in my mind, that it would require the standing at all events, have most effectually checked them from army to be doubled in order to effect these objects. committing depredations. Bridled by this restraint, there And now, sir, let us count the cost. Let us count the would have been no necessity for establishing among them cost! I do not say this is to be the governing consideration. an expensive military agency, and coercing them by ter-I do not say, that, if the object could be fairly, and ri,btfully, and with good faith, attained, I would not go with

ror."

H. OF R.]

Removal of the Indians.

[MAY 19, 1830,

gentlemen who have expressed their readiness, on the expel them. If we do this, as we are bound, in equity like supposition, to take a hundred millions of dollars from and in common justice, to do, we shall have to pay, fot the treasury, and pledge the public credit for a century the gold region alone, a sum equal to the whole of what I in advance. I will decide that, when the case comes up. have estimated for the entire extinguishment of the India But I will know, first, what this movement is really to title. I am, therefore, amply warranted in taking the cost. I will not vote in the dark. I will not be amused price of the Creek cession as the standard of the esti with a vote of five hundred thousand dollars, to execute a mate, and putting down the first item at more than seves project, of which the expense will fall little, if any, short millions of dollars. of five times five millions.

The next item is improvements. The bill provides that There are several items in the expenditure requisite to effect such a movement, which, though heavy in amount, we are to pay for such as add real value to the land. The are contingent in their nature, and difficult to calculate. term, improvements, is an expression somewhat vague in I shall take only such as admit of being brought to a stand these Indians, as well as the dictates of the barest justice, its import. But the promises which we have held out to ard of calculation: 1st. The first item is the original pur-will require us to make the Indians in the new country, chase money; the price we are to give for the title which the Indians have (whatever we call that title) to the lands good. If we force them from their houses, we mus build them other houses as good. We have solemnly pro they occupy. This has ever been a heavy charge in our Indian treaties. What will it cost to extinguish the Indian mised we will. We shall be barbarians ourselves, if we do not. We must rebuild for them, in the far distant title to more than fifty millions of acres of land, the quan- wilderness, where wood is scarce, even for fuel, houses, tity occupied by the Indians to be removed! Here we mills, and workshops, such as they have left. They have can have no safer estimate than experience. I shall take, as the basis of the calculation, the last considerable treaty Shall we set them down in the pathless desert, and de expended no small sums out of their annuities in roads with the Creek Indians, that of Washington, in 1826. By that treaty. we acquired four million seven hundred nothing to open avenues of communication to it, and be thousand acres of land. The amount paid for this cession, closures to their fields: we must replace these in the tween its different parts? They have here extensive en including a principal sum, whose interest would equal the perpetual annuity of twenty thousand dollars, was six bun- prairie. They have wagons, ploughs, looms, and boats. dred and fifty thousand nine hundred and thirty-three dol- their value. They must be paid for, or replaced to them. These cannot be transported but at an expense beyond lars. This sum does not include the expenses of negotia- They have a large amount of live stock, most of which tion, the value of improvements relinquished, nor the will be an entire loss to them, unless we purchase it, or purchase of the territory west of the Mississippi. The amount of land to be acquired exceeds fifty millions of put it in their power to replace it in the desert. All this acres; say eleven times the cession made by the treaty of furnishes a vast amount. I will not undertake to make Washington, or fifty-one million seven hundred thousand an estimate of my own; but I will take one furnished from acres. Eleven times the price paid for the Creek ces to the Chickasaws. After a detailed enumeration of the the War Department, by Colonel McKenney, in reference sion amounts to seven million one hundred and sixty items of the estimate, he gives the aggregate sum at four thousand one hundred and thirty-three dollars. I deem it hundred and eighty-four thousand seven hundred and fifty fair, on every ground, to suppose that we shall have to dollars for the Chickasaws alone, a tribe amounting to fear pay, at least, as much for the other cessions as we did for thousand souls. Now, it is perfectly well known that that of the Creeks. The Creeks are the least civilized of this is not the most advanced tribe in civilization. They the southern tribes, and consequently place the least value on their lands. The Cherokees and Choctaws could do not exceed the Choctaws, and they fall behind the Cherokees. I consider it, then, safe to take this estimate not, in reason or fairness, be expected to sell a cultivated of the War Department, for the Chickasaws, as the standcountry for anything like what is paid for the hunting ard of the estimate for the Indians to be removed. This grounds of uncivilized tribes. If the bill is passed the Indians, in general, will feel and know that their lands will will give us as the value of the property of seventy-five be purchased, at whatever price. On all these grounds, nine million and seventy-five thousand dollars. thousand Indians, to be paid for, reimbursed, and replaced, I am warranted in taking the treaty of Washington as a safe standard for the calculation. I might, with great pro- tion. Here we have not merely official estimates, but exThe next item is the cost of collection and transporta priety, go above it; for it is now ascertained that a considerable region of these Cherokee lands is rich in gold. Perience to guide us, Two parties of Creeks have been We are informed that four or five thousand persons are the emigrating Creeks, cost fifty-two thousand two hunThat headed by Mr. Brearley, the agent of engaged in washing gold within the Indian country, and dred and ninety-seven dollars, for one thousand twe that they get two dollars each per diem. It may not be hundred individuals. The other party, headed by Colonel half that: but if it is only a quarter, or fifty cents a day, Crowell, cost twenty-seven thousand five hundred and (which is likely to be nearer the truth,) it makes the country an exceedingly rich gold region.* Hosts of intruders viduals. The expense of the first party is forty-three dol eighty-five dollars, for one thousand three hundred indiare already pouring into the country, to rob the Indians lars and fifty-eight cents per head; that of the second, of their gold. We surely shall not imitate their example; twenty-one dollars and twenty-two cents per head; an we surely shall not take from them gold mines, yielding Now we thousands of dollars a day, without an equivalent. If the average of thirty-two dollars and forty cents. whole movement is not to be high-handed force, in its further reduced. Why? If we form an estimate on two are told from the department, that the price may be still most offensive form, we shall pay them something like the fair experiments, the only reasonable mode of procedure value of the treasure, from the possession of which we is that of average; otherwise, we may make fancied esti More gold.-One of our townsmen has brought, from Habersham mates that it will cost nothing, supposing it may be done county. a piece of gold, recenty found there, worth one hundred and for less and less each time. But we are to move them by fifty dollars. We begin to be of the opinion, generally entertained in contract, says the Second Auditor. Not, sir, with my extthe upper counties of this State, that Georgia is extremely rich in the sent. Though I deprecate beyond measure the passage precious metals, and perhaps as much so as Mexico or Peru. Our gold region begins to attract more attention than the sugar region. How of this bill, I will liberally and cheerfully vote the appr strange, that the discovery of gold in this State was not made at an priations to carry it humanely and equitably into execution earlier period! Thousands are now profitably employed in searching But I will not vote a dollar for this dreadful contract. Sir. for this precious metal, and we are afraid some of our most steady prudent citizens will have their heads turned by "golden dreams" send these Indiaus off by contract, and their removal will Milledgeville Recorder. present a scene of suffering, unequalled by that of a flying

sent over.

MAY 19, 1830.]

Removal of the Indians.

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army before a triumphant foe. It will be the direct inte- [ year, at less expense. I say nothing of the support which rest of contractors to stint them in every supply and the Government, unless it leaves them to starve, will inaccommodation, and to hurry them to the utmost limits of dubitably be compelled to furnish them, at the end of the human strength. I cast no imputations on the contractors; year, and for years to come. I know not who they are to be. But they are men, engaging in this business as a money-making speculation; and the most ordinary principles of human nature show, that, if transported in this way, many of these Indians will be destroyed on the march. Let us have no contracts; but send them under the guidance of men of high responsibility, and let us cheerfully pay the necessary expense. The average expense of the two parties of Creeks, which have already emigrated, is thirty-two dollars and forty-eight cents, taking the statement of the department, in which many things are omitted, fairly chargeable to the account. I will then take the cost of collection and transportation at thirty dollars per head, an expense less than the actual average. The result is two million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the whole number to be removed.

The next item is subsistence for one year. I have made some efforts to estimate this correctly. I am convinced that in the statements made in debate, on this floor, it has been very much underrated, from not adverting to the circumstance which most directly affects the cost of the ration, which, we are told, is not to exceed eight cents. On application at the proper department, I learn that the cost of the ration at our several military posts west of the Mississippi, is as follows:

At Cantonment Jesup, twenty-five miles from
Natchitoches,

Cantonment Gibson, six hundred miles up the
Arkansas,

13 cts.

101
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Then, sir, we have titles to extinguish. The Chickasaws are to be put down on the Choctaw lands. Will this cost nothing? The basis of all our operations has hitherto been to give acre for acre. The Cherokees are to be established on lands already granted either to the Creeks or to the Arkansas Cherokees. Something must be done to quiet the claims of the Osages and Kanzas, on whose reservations we are already encroaching; and very extensive extinguishments must be made for the northwestern tribes. I say nothing of the claim of the Pawnees and Camanches, whose right to hunt in the whole region we must either buy out or fight out. For this purpose numerous treaties are to be held; and the whole aggregate expense, estimating the present value of the annuities, which will probably be the form of the payment, cannot be less than one million and a half. We have then the following items of the expenditure incident to removing several nations of Indians from their native homes to the western wilderness:

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Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, But, sir, we have not done, even at this rate. We have And that "the great facility of transportation is the cause promised these Indians, that, if they remove, we will keep of the difference in price of the ration, in favor of the up their schools, now existing in considerable numbers. last named place." This is obvious; and, in calculating We have a territorial government to support among them, the value of the ration, at any given spot, we must take which we are told by the department will cost as much as into consideration, not merely the price of beef, and pork, that of Florida, which is about twenty-five thousand doland corn meal, but that of transportation, which makes a lars per annum. It must be much more expensive, condifference of two hundred per cent. between St. Louis sidering the materials to be governed, and that the Goand Natchitoches. Now, it is to be remembered that this vernment is to descend to such details as counting off the subsistence is to be furnished in the interior of a very re- trees which each Indian family is to have in its wood lot. mote inland country. At Cantonment Gibson, which is But I take it at twenty-five thousand dollars. Then there perhaps the farthest point on the route, to which there is is the expense of the military establishment to be kept up. navigation, the ration is ten and a half cents. The coun-I will go into no considerations to show that a very large try where the rations are to be distributed, is, as Mr. military force, beyond any thing proposed or contemplatMcCoy says, one in which "the privileges of navigation ed hitherto, will be required to keep these Indians at will be very moderate. Should the territory prosper, the peace with each other; to defend them against the unretime will come when this circumstance will be felt as a claimed tribes; and to protect the frontier. I will confine serious inconvenience." We see how greatly the cost of myself to the expense of the ten companies of rangers the ration is enhanced at Cantonment Jesup, which is but already asked for. I have examined the report of the twenty-five miles from Red River. These provisions are Quartermaster General, of the 8th of last March, containto be carried by land, where they are no roads. The ing an estimate of the first cost of mounting ten companies, chairman of the Indian Committee tells us that there are and their annual support. Taking the cost of the horses fine droves of cattle on the head of the waters of the at one hundred dollars each, which we are told by General Washita. But the Washita does not penetrate this region, Jesup "it will be safer to assume," the first year's expense and there is a range of hills between. The ration will will be eighty-three thousand seven hundred and fifty dolunquestionably cost more in the recesses of this country, lars, and the annual charge. thirty-nine thousand eight than it does at Fort Jesup, within twenty-five miles of hundred and seventy five dollars. So that the civil goNatchitoches. It is there thirteen and a half cents. I be- vernment of the new territory, and the military defence lieve it will be twenty cents on a average, throughout of the frontier, will amount to sixty-four thousand eight this pathless wilderness, without rivers-without roads hundred and seventy-five dollars per annum, according to without population; but I will take it at only fifteen, being these estimates. But no man can believe it will rest withbut one cent and a half beyond the military ration within in any such limits. twenty-five miles of steamboat navigation. Taking the I return to the cost of the operation, which I have calration at fifteen cents, one year's subsistence, without any culated on official estimates. It is twenty-four millions. extras or any contingencies, would be four million one Almost just two dollars per head for the estimated populahundred and six thousand two hundred and fifty dollars. tion at the census of this year. This enormous sum is to Does this seem a vast amount? The operation is vast. be raised by a tax on the people. Let us see what proporHere is an army of seventy-five thousand souls. Look tion of it is to be paid by some of the States. I take the into the accounts of war operations, and see if such an estimated numbers from a document submitted to the army can be subsisted in an untravelled wilderness, for a House, in reference to the apportionment of Representa

H. OF R.]

Removal of the Indians.

[MAY 19, 1830

tives, under the new census. On that basis, there will be, which is to send a Government agent to every Indian is paid for removing the Indians, by

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the country, in order to tempt him off; which is to ap $748,000 praise the value of every Indian habitation, from the com 564,000 fortable dwelling of the Cherokee to the wretched cabin 1,152,000 of the fugitive Seminole; which is to establish a home in 184,000 the western prairie for every Indian who has left one ess 380,000 of the Mississippi-and to do all this, merely under the 548,000 discretion of a department, is a thing unheard of in legis 4,080,000 lation. Sir, it must of necessity be a scene of corruptice. 650,000 without example. Your commissioners may be men a 2,800,000 honor and probity; but the nature of the operation will 156,000 quire an army of agents and sub-agents, contractors and sub 652,000 contractors, appraisers and sub-appraisers. Were it but 1,400,000 for its effect on the morals of the country, in this respect, 920,000 the passage of the bill ought to be earnestly deprecated 570,000 And now, sir, what is the necessity of this measure! 476,000 What is the necessity of removing the Indians? Shail! 1,120,000 confess my weakness, sir? I have really tried to find a 926,000 necessity for passing this bill. So great has been the 2,000,000 sensibility manifested in the States most particularly in 200,000 terested; so strong their urgency; so alarming the coree 120,000 quences denounced upon us if we do not pass it, that I 664,000 have tried to feel myself under a moral necessity to pas 390,000 it. I would gladly have gone for it, as the least of evil. 396,000 But I cannot catch a glimpse of any such Becessity. I 290,000 look in vain, in all the documents from Georgia and else where, to find a positive, strong reason why the Indiass should be removed. I find nothing but vague propo tions, to which (with the utmost willingness to feel ther force) I can attach no clear, cogent meaning. They tell us, that, till the Indians are gone, they cannot consolidate their society, nor complete their improvements. These generalities carry no meaning to my mind; at least, nove to warrant such stern legislation. "Consolidate their society." Is not the social system as solid in Georgis us anywhere else? "I would not hear her enemy say " And what obstructs her improvement! Not, surely, the presence of a handful of Indians in a corner of the State. What is the population of Georgia, where there is no room for these few Indians! It is less than seven to the square mile. We, sir, in Massachusetts, have seventy-four to the square mile, and space for a great many more. Georgia is so crowded, that she must get rid of these indians in her northwestern corner!

I ask gentlemen from every state in this Union, if they feel justified in laying such a tax on their constituents for such an object. I will not admit that my constituents are less liberal than those of any other member. They are a frugal people, sir, and their frugality enables them to provide honorably for all just and equitable demands of the Government. But if we should go home, and tell the people of Massachusetts that we have voted away eleven hundred thousand dollars of their money to remove these Indian nations, I believe they would call us to a very strict account--an account which I, for one, should not know how to meet. Sir, I solemnly believe that I have not estimated the expense of removing this host one dollar too high: but take it at a half; take it at a quarter, (and the chairman of the committee tells us it may amount to five millions of dollars,) is there a gentleman here, who thinks that his State, if the question were fairly put, would agree to be taxed. to such an extent, for such an object? The State of New York will have to pay one million of dollars as her share of the expense, on its admitted cost. Let a resolution be introduced at Albany, approving such a tax, for such a purpose, and what would be its fute!

And yet

Sir, my eye was arrested this morning by a paragraph in the paper, said to be an extract from a letter of a most worthy and estimable gentleman, remembered with regard by many who hear me, as by myself-the Governor of Georgia. As it contains nothing but what I sincerely hope and believe is true, I will quote it:

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The Governor of Georgia, in a letter to a gentleman of Philadelphia, says: We have no such class as the poor. Our lands are so cheap, and the absolute necessaries of 1 life so easily obtained, that the number of dependent por are scarcely sufficient to give exercise to the virtue of i charity in individuals. A beggar is almost as rare with ta as a prince. Children, instead of being an incumbrance to the poor of our country, are their riches."

But the amount of this expenditure is not my greatest objection to it. The mode of its disbursement is still more exceptionable. The bill provides no check upon it. It is placed within the uncontrolled discretion of the department. Whatever confidence any gentleman may place in that department, such a discretion is at war with the character of our institutions, and peculiarly so with the principle of specific appropriations, which has been so strongly urged upon us as the rule of our conduct. Of all the various objects connected with this bill and comprehended under it, no one is specified. We cannot pass [Mr. WAYNE, of Georgia, here said, “It is true."]. our appropriation bill for the support of Government, glad of it; I hope it will always be true; and I wish I had My friend from Georgia tells me it is true. I am heartily without specifying the lowest officer who is to receive a salary, and the amount of that salary; and this, too, not-known it a week or two ago, when I was trying to prove withstanding the existence of previous laws creating the that the tariff had not ruined the southern States. office. Here we have a vast operation, extending to tribes Being true, sir, I appeal to that high-minded people to i and nations, to tens of thousands of souls, purchasing and be as liberal as they are prosperous, and leave these pour exchanging whole regions, building fifteen thousand habita- Cherokees in the possession of their native lands. tions in a distant wilderness, and putting seventy-five thousand individuals in motion across the country, and not an officer or agent specified; not a salary named; not one item of expenditure limited; the whole put into the pocket of one head of department, to be scattered at his will!

Sir, I impute no corruption nor purpose of corruption to any officer, high or low. But I say, a bill like this,

I have been struck, sir, with the prophetic import of a speech that was uttered by a celebrated Cherokee Chief on occasion of the first cession that was made by treaty of the lands of that tribe, in the now powerful and flourishing State of Tennessee. I wish the historian* had given it in

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