part of it. There certainly can be no impropriety in an officer's communicating to the public proper infor mation when circumstances require it, and the general proceedings relating to the prospects and progress of the Cherokee emigration are of this nature. But it is with regret the President observes in this communication allusions to persons and parties which do not seem to be necessary, and are calculated to produce an injurious effect. There is one error of fact, which it becomes the special duty of this Department to correct, as the requisite information is upon its files. You state that Mr. McConnell "has for some years past, under the procurement of Judge White, of Tennessee, been receiving pay from the United States Government, as a secret and confidential agent," &c. You have been led into a mistake on this subject. Mr. McConnell was not employed under the procurement of Judge White. The suggestion that Mr. McConnell's services might be useful, as well to the United States as to the Cherokee Indians, was made to this Department from another and very respectable quarter. All the necessary circumstances were not fully known at the Department, proper instructions were given to Mr. McConnell, and enclosed to Judge White, to be delivered if he thought the ar rangement would be useful. Judge White had no agency whatever in the matter until he was requested, by the express direction of the President, to serve as a medium of communication between Mr. McConnell and this Department.

Mr. McConnell transmitted various reports, containing information respecting the state of things in the Cherokee country. But there is nothing in these going in the slightest degree to show that he did not act with due fidelity, as well to the United States as to the Cherokee Indians.

It is also a matter of regret that you should have attended at all to the employment of Mr. McConnell. From the relation in which he stands to the Cherokees, and the suspicious disposition of Indians, the disclosure may even put his life at hazard. It is therefore the more imperative upon me to state explicitly, as I have done, that there was nothing in the reports of Mr. McConnell which could give just offence to the Indians.

The President has directed me to say that he has read and approves this letter; and that, while he appreciates the zeal you have displayed in the execution of your duties, he deems it incumbent upon him to recommend to you great discretion, and particularly to convey to you his disapprobation of the allusion you have made to the employment of Mr. McConnell.

Very respectfully, your most obedient servant, LEWIS CASS. Major B. F. CURRY, New Echota, Ga. To this, on the 16th, I wrote a very short reply:

WASHINGTON, January 16, 1836.

DEAR SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge that I received last night your favor under date of the 14th, with its enclosure, in answer to mine of the 2d instant.

The result is so different from what I think I had a right to anticipate, that I refrain from any remarks on the contents of the letter written to Mr. Curry by direction of the President.

I have the honor to be, most respectfully, your obedient servant,

HUGH L. WHITE.

I had applied, in the only friendly mode I could devise, for the interposition of the executive power. I remembered well the great principle for which the party had struggled to elevate the President to his present station. I remembered his recognition of it in his inaugural address, which thousands of the citizens of the United States, as well as most of those now in

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the reach of my voice, heard him deliver, as containing the principles upon which he would administer the Government. The paragraph is in the following words:

"The recent demonstration of public sentiment inscribes on the list of executive duties, in characters too legible to be overlooked, the task of reform, which will require, particularly, the correction of those abuses that have brought the patronage of the federal Government into conflict with the freedom of elections, and the counteraction of those causes which have disturbed the rightful course of appointment, and have placed or continued power in unfaithful or incompetent hands."

This short paragraph shows the main ground on which the contest rested, which ended in the election of the present Chief Magistrate. It contains the sentiments avowed by him in the presence of nearly twenty thousand freemen. It contains the sentiments which, as one of his advocates, I honestly entertained. It contains the sentiments on the maintenance of which, I believe our freedom and liberty essentially depend. I felt hurt and mortified upon reading the Secretary's letter; I could not reply without using expressions not fit to address to a member of the President's cabinet. In place of Mr. Curry receiving such rebuke as would deter him from committing a similar offence in future, it appeared to me that he was complimented. Although his conduct was not approved as to McConnell, as to me it was very well; that, instead of an inferior agent, he was to be viewed as an electioneering political diplomatist; and that, hereafter, if the gardener spoken of by the Senator from Massachusetts the other day is to wear his diplomatic button, Mr. Curry ought to figure in his political electioneering star and garter.

In some

But, sir, what was I to do next? The falsehood has gone forth to answer the meditated mischief. of the States it is probable it has accomplished its object. How is it to be contradicted? I have been furnished with a document proving the falsehood. Is it supposed that I would sneak to a printing office to beg a publication of its contradiction? No. I cannot descend to such an act of meanness. If I could, I dare not. proud, high-minded, honorable men who sent me here would, for such an act of degradation, recall me from a station among honorable men, and thus gratify some high in office who seek to displace me.

The

My course is here; my place is here. From my stand, on this floor, I contradict the falsehood and expose the injustice. If any opponent will deny my statement, or justify this outrage, I meet him here openly, face to face, eye to eye, and maintain and assert what is due to my constituents and myself by all honorable means in my power.

But the Nashville Union-this vehicle of slanders and falsehoods, gotten up in this city, as I have understood, for just such purposes. The editor came here last winter, upon his own mere motion, or by the solicitation of some other person, with, as I have understood and believe, not more money than would bear his expenses. He lived in the House with my honorable colleague, and, while here, was furnished with some five or six thousand dollars to establish his press in Nashville, and, without relying upon subscribers, to be enabled to throw his paper into the hands of every man who would condescend to read it. Even this very number, containing this letter, I have no doubt, has been innocently sent, under the frank of Senators, from this floor, to many of the States in the Union.

If there is any person within my hearing who can contradict my statement, as to the manner in which this paper was established, I wish to hear him do so.

[Mr. GRUNDY rose and stated that the editor had come here last winter, not at his instance; that how the money was raised, or by whom, he had no knowledge;

that the paper had taken its side, and was maintaining it as well as it could; that he had not noticed this letter in it, and that there was a great scuffling to get subscribers for it at home. Mr. McConnell he knew, and thought him a clever man, of good sense, and he believed he had recommended him for this office.]

To which Mr. WHITE replied. Yes, Mr. Presi dent, there was a great scuffling to get subscribers for it; so great that our old acquaintance, Samuel Gwyn, the land officer from Mississippi, was called into the service; and, when procuring subscribers at Gallatin in April last, he wrote to Mr. Ritchie, of the Enquirer, the celebrated letter as to Tennessee politics, intended unjustly to influence the Virginia elections, and which, no doubt, had the desired effect.

Mr. President, I have made these disclosures with great pain and the most deep mortification; but I deemed it my duty to do so. The answer to my resolution

will show whether it will be in my power, and whether it will be my duty, to attempt any thing farther on the unpleasant subject.

The resolution was then agreed to.

[The following is Mr. Curry's letter, alluded to in the foregoing remarks:

From the Federal Union.

CHEROKEE AGENCY, Dec. 1, 1835.

SIR: I know your anxiety on the subject of a treaty, and having seen intimations, on Indian authority, that a treaty will be concluded at an early period, I have thought fit to give you a short sketch of the proceedings of the council, as well as before and since, connected with the Indian matters.

You will remember, Mr. Ross and his coadjutors entered into a written agreement with the Secretary of War last winter, to take for their claims east whatever sum the Senate of the United States might award, upon submitting the question to that body.

The question was submitted, and the Senate awarded five millions of dollars. Mr. Ross and his party acted on this occasion under a power of attorney from the committee and council of the nation, who claimed all the power and authority of the nation. This power of attorney was drawn by a skilful lawyer, Colonel Hansell, and signed by all who claimed authority and power as counsellors. Mr. Ridge and others, who seceded from Mr. Ross's council, made an arrangement, reduced to the solemn form of a treaty, and signed by the representatives of that party, on the basis of this award.

At the October council there attended a certain Mr. Payne, and one Samuel McConnell, of Tennessee; Payne hails from New York, but came through Georgia. He is of the whig party, and rumor makes him an abolitionist. He, it is said, formed an alliance with Mr. Longstreet, of Augusta, and other editors, by which he was to furnish matter, and they were to print it for political effect. McConnell is the same who instigated the arrest of the Georgia surveyor, and had him carried to Athens, Tennessee, for a violation of the intercourse laws, some three years ago, for marking lines within the limits of your State. He has large claims for reservations made to Indians under the treaties of 1817-'19; and has, for some years past, under the procurement of Judge White, of Tennessee, been receiving pay from the United States Government, as a secret and confidential agent, while all his visible efforts have been to defeat the measures of the ostensible agents in bringing about a treaty.

Lewis Ross, one of John Ross's executive counsellors, visited Knoxville about the commencement of this council, and, while absent, much concern was manifested by John to know where his brother Lewis could be. Lewis at length arrived.

[JAN. 18, 1836.

Rumor was put afloat that Judge White, if made President, would do much for this people.

Ridge and his party shortly afterwards arrived. McConnell met him, as Ridge told it, and put him on his guard against the agent and Mr. Schermerhorn, who, he intimated, was about to sacrifice Ridge, and proposed that Ridge and his party should ride with him in the direction of Governor Carroll's, in order to see that commissioner before myself and Mr. Schermerhorn had an opportunity to give to his mind such a bias as it might receive, provided that this precaution was not used. Mr. Ridge was evidently much perplexed, and his confidence apparently shaken through some unexpected interference.

An interview was shortly afterwards brought about between John Ross and John Ridge, which resulted in a determination never to treat on the basis of the award of the Senate. This was accordingly submitted to the people, about six or seven hundred only being present. Coupled with this, however, was a resolution appointing nineteen delegates to treat here (at Red Clay) or elsewhere, with the Government of the United States. After the passage of these resolutions, most of the Indians went home rejoicing that they had got their lands back. The committee thus appointed to treat remained, and raised an objection to Mr. Schermerhorn's authority; and in this they were sustained by this Mr. Payne: for the truth of this I refer you to Colonel Hansell. While Payne was thus engaged, Mr. Foreman, a Cherokee of respectability, informs me McConnell was using these arguments with Ridge's friends, who had refused to go over with them. You had nothing to expect from the agent; and the commissioner will have no power. All the patronage and money for which your country is sold will be at the disposal of Ross. had better leave them and join him; stick to them, and you are ruined; go with him, and you are saved.

You

The suspicious movements of Mr. Payne, and the secret conclaves constantly going on between him and Mr. Ross, united with the strange results of this council, and the increased insolence of the Indians, strengthened the suspicion that these fresh hopes were founded upon anticipated insurrection in the South and West, and a severe conflict at the same time with foreign foes; during which the Indians might have an opportunity to reinstate themselves. The parties (Payne and Ross) were closeted, after the adjournment of council, for at least a week, just back of the Georgia line, within Tennessee. Indians, committing the most atrocious murders in that part, had been arrested and carried before the circuit courts of Tennessee, and the laws had, by Judge Keith, been declared unconstitutional, leaving the country neither subject to State nor federal jurisdiction. From the great variety of character in that section of the country, and the absolute necessity of knowing where to look for protection against the incendiary as well as the assassin, I was instrumental in taking an appeal from his honor Judge Keith's decision to the supreme court of Tennessee, the opinion of which had not reached the Indian country in a tangible character at the time of Mr. Ross and Mr. Payne's temporary arrest; since which, I have seen it announced that the supreme court of Tennessee had reversed the decision of Judge Keith against the unconstitutionality of the laws. But from this high tribunal an appeal has been taken to the Supreme Court of the United States (as I am informed) at the instance of some of those very persons in Tennessee who rail out so largely against the Georgia guard for having stepped a few paces across the line into an unorganized territory, to examine into the correctness of an alleged conspiracy against the vital interest of not only yours but the adjoining States. Abolition tracts have been circulated among the In

dians; and I have seen, in the handwriting of Mr. Payne, charges that the Government of the United States had attempted to bribe John Ross, by offering him a bribe of fifty thousand dollars, and a tissue of other misrepresentations, calculated, and no doubt intended, to alienate the confidence of the Indians from our Government, and excite them against its citizens; which, with his persuasions to them that Mr. Schermerhorn was not duly authorized to treat with them, being calculated to delay its measures with this tribe, are flagrant violations of the intercourse law of 1831; and had I been aware of the extent of this gentleman's offence, and been here before his release, his confinement would have continued at least until orders as to the proper course to be pursued could have been received from the War Department.

The foregoing shows that, while the Indians have appointed a delegation to treat, they resolve, by the same voice, not to treat on the basis of the five million. The delegation have refused to meet the commissioners at Newtown, and say they will go to Washington city, although they have been notified by the Secretary of War and Commissioner of Indian Affairs that the Department will hold no more communications with them. Last winter, after the award of the Senate was had, the Secretary of War requested Mr. Ross and his party to submit the details of a treaty, to be based upon the Senate's award. This he objected to, because he believed it to be more satisfactory to his people to have a treaty concluded in their presence, which would save the delegation from unjust imputations, &c. Commissioners were sent into the country therefor, and now, by the procurement of Ross and Ridge, a resolution is passed declaring they will not abide by their own engagements, and never will treat on the basis of the Senate's award.

Should you think this worthy a place in your paper, I hold myself answerable for its contents. Most respectfully, your obedient servant,

BEN. F. CURRY.

To the EDITOR of the Federal Union.]

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19.

SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. The Senate proceeded to the consideration of the question on the petition, from sundry citizens of Ohio, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; the question being, "Shall the petition be received?"

Mr. LEIGH rose and said he considered it his duty to discuss the questions that had arisen in the debate on the motion of the gentleman from South Carolina, against receiving these petitions; yet he had felt all along, and still felt, some reluctance to perform that duty. For, though he was not sensible of an excitement in his own breast, and, so far from wishing to increase, was most anxious to allay the existing excitement in the public mind, by all means best adapted to counteract and remove the causes of irritation; and though he was sure, if he could be sure of any thing depending on the evidence of his own consciousness, that he had no party feeling at all connected with the subject, he was, nevertheless, somewhat apprehensive that the remarks he should feel it his duty to make (such was the nature and delicacy of the topics to which he must advert) might not prove, in their effect, exactly correspondent with his wishes and design.

He reminded the Senate that there had been three memorials presented on this subject: two from Ohio, as to which the gentleman from South Carolina insisted on the preliminary question, whether they should be received or not; and one from the Society of Friends of Pennsylvania, which the gentleman who presented it

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[Mr. BUCHANAN] moved to reject, without further consideration. All three had one and the same object; they all prayed Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. But (said Mr. L.) the temper and language of these memorials are widely different. That from the Quakers does indeed represent slavery as unchristian and inhuman, as they would deprecate and remonstrate against war, however just and necessary, as unchristian and inhuman; but they evince no animosity towards slaveholders; they manifest the same mild and peaceful spirit, the same good-will and brotherly love towards all men, which that society of Christians have so signally, at all times and on all occasions, displayed in word and deed. They have been holding similar language for years; holding it in the slaveholding as well as the nonslaveholding States; addressing it to Congress; addressing it, in conversation, to their slaveholding neighbors in Virginia, (as my colleague and I can testify,) and in memorials to our Legislature; yet they have never given offence, provoked resentment, or excited alarm. Sensitive as we are supposed to be on this subject, the Quakers who have lived among us have found out the art of maintaining their opinions without offence; and the art consists simply in purifying their own hearts and language from the least taint of malignity. I cannot help wishing I could find some principle of discrimination, favorable to this memorial of the Quakers, on which I could think myself justified in giving it a different treatment from that which I have no hesitation in giving to the memorials from Ohio. One of these is from men; the other is signed by women only. That from the men is comparatively moderate; they only intimate their opinion that the holding of slave property, and the transfer of it by sale, as practised in this country, is alike detestable with the African slave trade, which has been declared piracy by law. But the memorial from the softer sex contains as much matter of offence, insult, and vituperation, applicable to all the slaveholding portions of their fellow-citizens, as could possibly have been put into a paper of the same compass. These ladies probably thought (or rather, perhaps, the person who prepared the memorial for them thought) that their sex would give them a title to indulgence. But, in my sense of things, their sex, instead of furnishing a motive for treating them with indulgence, is an aggravation of their fault. They have unsexed themselves. These memorialists of Ohio, male and female, it seems, are sorely afflicted with the cruel grievances our slaves endure from us, their ruthless masters; their souls are oppressed with the load of mortal sin which we incur by holding their fellow-creatures in bondage; and, while they profess sympathy and compassion for the slave, it is but too apparent that abhorrence and detestation of the slaveowner constitute the moving spirit that dictates their language and their conduct.

There are some who impute the restless, busy, mischievous schemes of agitation, in which the abolitionists are engaged, to mere fanaticism, and thence seem willing to infer that, however furious their zeal and pernicious its effects, their motives may not be wanting in sincerity and benevolence. But, for my part, supposing their conduct justly imputable to fanaticism, that would be no argument with me, either of their sincerity or their benevolence; for, of all the evil spirits that have ever possessed the human heart, fanaticism has proved itself the most persecuting, unsparing, cruel, and relentless; and no man that has read the history of the civil broils of our British ancestors in the times of Charles I. can need more to convince him that fanaticism is apt to be accompanied with hypocrisy, and conscious hypocrisy, too.

Mr. L. then stated the precise question before the Senate to be, whether we ought to receive these Ohio

gress to emancipate the slaves in this District, without the consent of the owners, or any slave without the consent of the individual owner.

Such a power, if it exists, must be deduced from the provision of the constitution giving Congress power "to exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased, by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock yards, and other needful buildings."

I pray the Senate to consider, in the first place, that if this shall be construed a grant to Congress of an unlimited, absolute, despotic power of legislation over this District, and if, by virtue of the grant, Congress may abolish the rights of slave property in the District, they may exercise "like authority" over the forts, magazines, arsenals, &c., which they have purchased in the slaveholding States. They may not only organize the negroes they shall make free into militia regiments here, but they may form them into corps of regulars; they may station them as garrisons in the forts and places of arms established among us; they may commit to their safe-keeping the magazines and arsenals, the munitions and implements of war. The power claimed is one of most fearful import and extent; and no gentleman, I presume, will now wonder at the anxiety which the claim to such a power raises in our minds. Let us not be told that Congress will never proceed to any such dangerous extremes in the exercise of the power, let its existence be ever so unquestionable! Not a great many years have passed over my head since I thought it impossible that any set of men (but the Quakers) could seriously propose the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, in the actual state of things in Virginia and Maryland.

The argument for the power of Congress I understand to be this: That the grant to Congress of the powers of exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over the District, vests in Congress all powers which the Legislatures of Maryland and Virginia may rightfully exercise within their respective jurisdictions. And I shall admit the principle, provided it is admitted, on the other hand, that Congress has the same extent of power as the State Legislatures by which the District was ceded, and no more; which, surely, is no unreasonable postulate.

I presume it cannot be contended that the State Legislature of Virginia or Maryland, or of any State in the Union, has a rightful power to make any law incom patible with a solemn, lawful compact with another State; or that Congress, in virtue of its powers of exclusive legislation over the District of Columbia, is competent to make laws directly contrary to the act of cession of the District by Virginia or Maryland; contrary to the compact which the act of cession imports; contrary to the terms on which Congress accepted the cession. There is an existing compact between Maryland and Virginia concerning the use and navigation of the Potomac, and the jurisdiction over the river; no one bas ever supposed that either State can constitutionally make a law contravening that compact, in the least particular, without the consent of the other. There is a compact between Virginia and Kentucky, upon the terms of which the latter was erected into an independent State; Kentucky has passed laws which have been complained of and impugned, on the ground that they were contrary to the terms of the compact, and the question as to their validity was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States; but the only question was, whether the

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Kentucky laws violated the compact or not; for no jurist or statesman of Kentucky ever thought of contending that, if those laws really violated the compact, they were, nevertheless, constitutional and valid. But the cession of this District is not the only cession which Virginia has made to the United States. She ceded to the United States all her rights in the Northwestern Territory, upon terms on which Congress accepted the cession, and which, therefore, constitute a compact between that State and the United States. There is, at this moment, a most interesting question pending before Congress, between the State of Ohio and the Territory of Michigan, touching the boundary between them. Michigan insists that the act of cession of Virginia has settled the boundary, unalterably and conclusively; and Ohio contends that the act of cession gives full power to Congress to ascertain and fix the boundary, as convenience, good policy, and justice, shall dictate; but neither the State of Ohio, nor any one else, contends that, if the act of cession does determine the boundary, it is competent to Congress to disregard the compact with Virginia; the only question is, what is the true meaning and effect of the compact? So with regard to this cession by Virginia of the District of Columbia. Whatever terms the Legislature of Virginia has stipulated, Congress, accepting the cession upon those terms, is bound by the compact those terms import, and it is not within its competency to make any law contrary to the compact. Now, the act of cession of Virginia is in these words:

"Be it enacted, &c., That a tract of country, not exceeding ten miles square, or any lesser quantity, to be located within the limits of this State, and in any part thereof, as Congress may by law direct, shall be, and the same is hereby, for ever ceded and relinquished to the Congress and Government of the United States, in full and absolute right and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil as of persons residing or to reside thereon, pursuant to the tenor and effect of the eighth section of the first article of the constitution of the Government of the United States: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to vest in the United States any right of property in the soil, or to affect the rights of individuals therein, otherwise than the same shall or may be transferred by such individuals to the United States."

Here, then, is a stipulation in the act of cession of Virginia of her part of the District, according to which Congress accepted the grant, and so made the stipula

*NOTE BY Mr. LEIGH.-It may be thought that the word "therein" refers to the word "soil," in the preceding member of the sentence, as its antecedent, so as to secure the rights of individuals in the soil only, and not in any other kind of property. But a little attention will show that the word " therein" has reference to the tract of country ceded. For, 1. The previous cession is "as well of the soil as of persons residing or to reside thereon;" that the proviso was intended as a qualification of the whole grant, and must be construed not only to secure rights of property in the soil ceded, but the rights of individuals resident thereon, over whom exclusive jurisdiction is also ceded. 2. As "rights of property in the soil" could be none other than the rights of individuals to property in the soil, if they alone were intended to be secured, the other member of the sentence, securing "the rights of individuals therein," will be wholly inoperative and nugatory. 3. The word "therein," in truth, belongs to both members of the sentence, though, according to the idiom of the language, it is inserted only after the last: the sense is the same as if it had been written "any right of property in the soil therein, or to affect the rights of individuals therein;" i. e. in the tract of country before ceded.