Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

be made.

Our right not asserted now, is lost forever. If the legislature shall fail to vindicate that right, the responsibility will be theirs, not mine."

Gen. Gaines having continued his personal and caustic letters to the governor, the latter (August 31) demanded of the president the arrest and trial of the general according to the articles of war. The president (Sept. 19) informed Gen. Gaines of this demand, and of his decision not to accede to it; but expressed his disapprobation of the writing and publishing of the letters, and enjoined him, “in his future official intercourse with Gov. Troup, to abstain from every thing which may be deemed offensive;" adding, that he regarded the previous charges against him by Gov. Troup, and the publicity given to them, as affording a palliation of his conduct; without which, he (the president) would have considered it his duty to yield to the demand. This decision was also communicated to Gov. Troup, with a copy of the letter to Gen. Gaines.

The interest awakened by this controversy was not confined to this country. The belligerent attitude of Georgia toward the general government, was a prominent topic of newspaper remark abroad, and gained for that state and its valorous executive a wide notoriety. Apprehensions of a civil war were seriously entertained on the other side of the Atlantic, and a rupture of the union was regarded as among the probable consequences. Our government was considered too weak to endure, answering well enough for a small community, but inadequate to the wants of a great and growing nation. A state, thwarted in its interests by the measures of the general government, naturally looked to separation as the remedy. More correct opinions, however, generally prevailed even among foreigners. No serious alarm was extensively felt in this country; how much soever the injury inflicted by this affair upon our national character abroad was to be regretted.

The executive, having endeavored in vain to obtain the acquiescence of the Creeks to the treaty, and anxious to effect an amicable settlement of the controversy, succeeded, after much effort, in making a new treaty, (January 24, 1826,) which was satisfactory to the Indians, and by which was obtained, with the exception of only a small quantity, all their land lying within the state of Georgia. The treaty was negotiated at Washington by James Barbour, secretary of war, on the part of the United States, and a delegation of Indians duly authorized by the Creek nation.

On the 31st of January, it was submitted to the senate for ratification. At the suggestion of the Georgia senators, and with the view of securing to that state the whole of the Creek lands lying within the same, a new negotiation was entered into, and a supplementary article agreed on, extending two of the lines limiting the former cession, by which the desired object would probably be attained ; depending on the establishment of the line to be run between Georgia and Alabama. The additional article was communicated to the senate the 31st of March; and, on the 22d of April, the treaty thus amended, having been duly ratified, was proclaimed by the president.

In the house, the bill “making appropriations to carry the treaty into effect," met with violent opposition from the Georgia members, who recorded their protest, asserting the validity of the former treaty, denying the right of the president and senate, without the consent of Georgia, to invalidate the right which that treaty secured to her; and they objected to the new treaty that it did not, by an express provision, cede all the lands of the Creeks in that state, nor require their removal before January, 1827. The bill was passed May 9, 1826, by 167 yeas to 10 nays.

But the controversy was not yet settled. Unwilling to submit to the terms of the new treaty, Gov. Troup (July 24) ordered the surveys to be commenced the first of September, 1826. The commissioners appointed to establish the boundaries between Georgia and Alabama having been unable to agree, the Georgia commissioners proceeded alone to run the line.

In January, 1827, complaints reached the department, that the Georgia surveyors had passed the line established by the treaty, and were surveying lands not ceded. The fact was communicated by the president to congress, February 5, with the information that he had ordered prosecutions against the intruders for the penalties incurred; and that if acts of encroachment were not discontinued, the military force would be employed to aid in executing the laws. The subject was referred to a committee in each house. The senate committee concluded their report recommending a resolution, requesting the president "to continue his exertions to obtain from the Creek Indians the relinquishment of any claim to lands within the limits of Georgia."

The committee of the house, at the close of a long report recapitulating the facts relating to the controversy, recommend the adoption of two resolutions : (1.) “ That it is expedient to procure a cession of the Indian lands in the state of Georgia.” (2.) “That, until such a cession is procured, the law of the land, as set forth in the treaty of Washington, ought to be maintained by all necessary, constitutional, and legal means." This report was made on the last day of the session; and there was consequently no time for a full discussion of the resolutions. Mr. Drayton,

a of South Carolina, offered a series of resolutions, declaring that Georgia possessed the right to the soil occupied by the Creeks; the right herself to extinguish the title to the same, and to legislate for the Indians; the right to survey the land ; and that the treaty of the Indian Springs was valid. No other action on the subject was taken, except ordering 6,000 copies of the report and accompanying documents to be printed.

Assurances that efforts would continue to be made by the president to obtain from the Indians a relinquishment of the small remainder of their unceded lands in Georgia, and that the opening of fresh negotiations had been prevented by the delay in fixing the dividing line between Georgia and Alabama, seem in a measure to have repressed, for a time, the hostile feelings of Gov. Troup toward the executive. But on his being officially apprised of the president's determination, expressed in his message to congress on the 5th of February, to employ force, if necessary, in executing the laws, his hostility revived; and, in a letter to the department, February 17, declares his purpose “to resist, to the utmost, any military attack from the government of the United States," and that measures for such resistance were in progress.“ From the first decisive act of hostility,” says the letter, "you will be considered and treated as a public enemy, and with the less repugnance, because you, to whom we might constitutionally have appealed for our own defense against invasion, are yourselves the invaders; and what is more, the unblushing allies of the savages, whose cause you have adopted.”

On the same day, the attorney and solicitors general of the state were ordered to take the proper measures to effect the liberation of any, surveyors that had been or might be arrested, by any civil process, under the authority of the general government, and to bring to justice the persons concerned in such arrestation. Major-generals were also required to issue orders to hold in readiness their regiments and battalions to repel any hostile invasion of the territory of the state.

Measures of resistance, however, appear to have been suddenly arrested. A few days after the governor's defiatory letter to the secretary of war, he addressed a letter to the Georgia delegation in congress, expressing his pleasure on having just learned, that, since the communication of the secretary of war of the 29th of January, informing him of the intended employment of force to expel the surveyors, the president had taken measures to procure the residue of the Indian lands. The letter bears indications of having been written with subdued feelings. It says :

“ You are at liberty to state to the councils before whom you represent the interests and rights of this state, that the governor of Georgia has never entertained the idea of resorting to military force to counteract measures of the government of the United States, but on the occasion where it was deemed better in honor, in conscience, and in duty, to sacrifice every thing we hold dear, than unresistingly to submit.”

The governor was not pleased with the reference of the question to the supreme court. He said: “It will be for the government of Georgia

a

[ocr errors]

ultimately to submit, or not, to the decision of that tribunal.” He did not consider the supreme court the constitutional arbiter in controversies involving rights of sovereignty between a state and the United States. He complained of the wrong, cruelly inflicted, of having been charged with seeking a dissolution of the union, and concluded with the hope of success to the contemplated negotiation, and an amicable adjustment of difficulties, wishing them to "make use of this disclosure and explanation” in endeavoring to promote the peace and harmony which ought always to subsist between the states and the United States, in which he assures them none can feel deeper concern than himself. The controversy was at length concluded, about the first of January, 1828, by a treaty for the purchase of their remaining strip of land in Georgia.

The policy recommended in the message of Monroe to which we have alluded, of effecting the removal of the Indian tribes beyond the Mississippi, seems not to have been lost sight of by the succeeding administration. In compliance with a request from the committee on Indian affairs, Mr. Barbour, the secretary of war, on the 3d of February, 1826, transmitted to the chairman of that committee, the project of a bill for the preservation and civilization of the Indian tribes within the United States,” with a report elucidating its purposes. The secretary in this admirable report, deplores their threatened extinction; recognizes their appeals to our compassion; and recommends the adoption of a just and humane policy as due alike to the Indians and to the character of our nation. The following paragraphs from this report will be read with interest:

“It is the province of history to commit to its pages the transactions of nations. Posterity look to this depository with intense interest. The fair fame of their ancestors, a most precious inheritage, is to them equally a source of pride, and a motive of continued good actions. But she performs her province with impartiality. The authority she exercises in the absence of others, is a check on bad rule. The tyrant and the oppressor see, in the character of their prototypes, the sentence posterity is preparing for them. Which side of the picture shall wo elect ? for the decision is left to ourselves. Shall her record transmit the present race to future generations, as standing by, insensible to the progress of the desolation which threatens the remnant of this people ? or, shall these unfriendly characters give place to a generous effort which shall have been made to save them from destruction ? While deliberating on this solemn question, I would appeal to that high Providence, whose delight is justice and mercy, and take counsel from the oracles of his will, revealed to man, in his terrible denunciations against the oppressor.

“ In reviewing the past, justice requires that the humane attempts of

the federal government, coeval with its origin, should receive an honorable notice. That they have essentially failed, the sad experience of every day but too strongly testifies. If the original plan, conceived in a spirit of benevolence, had not been fated to encounter that as yet unabated desire to bereave them of their lands, it would, perhaps, have realized much of the hopes of its friends. So long, however, as that desire continues to direct our councils, every attempt must fail. A cursory review is all that is necessary to show the incongruity of the measures we have pursued, and the cause of their failure.

“Missionaries are sent among them to enlighten their minds, by imbuing them with religious 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 presented 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, not only for their abode, but for the administration of justice, and for religious worship. And when they have so done, you send your agent to tell them they must surrender their country to the white man, and recommit 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 strongest 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 that they hear, with unmixed indignation, 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

What new pledges can you give us that we shall not again be cxiled when it is your wish to possess these lands? It is easier to state than to answer this question. A regard to consistency, apart from every other consideration, requires a change of measures. Either let him retain and enjoy his home, or, if he is to be driven from it, abstain from cherishing illusions we mean to disappoint, and thereby make him to feel more sensibly the extent of his loss."

ask us :

>

>

« AnteriorContinuar »