What, Sir, is the character of this government of the Cherokees, which appears to have offended the pride of Georgia so highly? They claim no jurisdiction over the concerns of any body but themselves. They have always had this, and always exercised it. Their government has lately assumed a more convenient form, and one better adapted to their improved condition. Their domestic institutions show more of civilization and good order than we have seen among them before; and I hope we do not reproach them for that. Their regulations for the allotment of their lands, and the better government of their own people, interfere with nobody. I have never yet been able to see the force of that suggestion, which treats them as a State within the sense of that part of the Constitution which forbids the erection of any new State within the juris diction of any other without its consent, I think it has no application to the case. The Cherokee government has neither been formed or erected as one of the States of this Union, or to be admitted into it. It is no more calculated to alarm the jurisdiction of any State than a certain kingdom lately projected on Grand Island, the institutions at New Lebanon, or the family government at New Harmony.

But it has been said, in answer to the claims of the Indians, that we hold our sovereignty over them and their lands by conquest, as well as discovery. I shall say but little as to that pretension. They may have been defeated in battle. Their country may have been overrun by our armies. We may have invaded them, and sometimes burnt their towns, and driven them into places of concealment. But it is essential to title by conquest, that we should have exercised the right which the laws of war allow to the conqueror. Have we taken away their lands, abolished their governments, and put them in subjection to our laws? If this has not been done, (and history shows that it has not,) it is too late now to say that there has been a time when we might have done it. So far from claiming to exercise this right, we have closed our hostilities by treaties ever since we became an independent government; and both parties were restored to their original condition, except on points which the treaties provided for. It must be considered, too, that when we set up the title of conquest, we seem to feel that discovery alone would not have reached the rights of soil against the native inhabitants; and I thought the gentleman from Tennessee felt pressed in making out his case, when he assumed that discovery gave us the right to follow it up by conquest. The war must at least be lawful to justify that title, in any case, on the score of morality. I do not think that the position can be sustained, that, because we have discovered any new country, we have the right to conquer it. If we choose to put it on the ground of mere force, I will not say that title by conquest may be denied, though the war may have been unlawful. But I do not agree that this was done on the discovery of America. Our history does not show it.

I forbear to take up more of your time on this part of the question, for I fear that I have already wearied your patience. But before I leave it, I beg leave to call your attention to one of the many luminous papers which have issued upon this subject from the department of war. We have found a pamphlet on our tables containing a letter, of the 25th of August last, to the Rev. Eli Baldwin, Secretary of a Board formed in the city of New York, for the "salvation of the Indians." This Board is pledged, in its constitution, to co-operate with the federal government in its "operations on Indian affairs." But this article has fortunately restricted that hasty pledge by an express condition "at no time to violate the laws" of the Union. Of these laws, the intercourse acts and treaties are certainly the most sacred in right and morals. In replying to a letter communicating to the President a copy of the constitution of this benevolent association, the Secretary of War availed himself of the occasion to take it upon himself to instruct the Board in that casuistry, by which the faith of our treaties might be impaired successfully. The argument is very brief, and the process quite summary, by which he accomplished this political absolution in our behalf. I do not feel at liberty to hazard the omission of a single word, that might impair its merit or obscure its clearness, by undertaking to repeat it from memory.

"How can the United States' government contest with Georgia the authority to regulate her own internal affairs? If the doctrine every where maintained be true, that a State is sovereign, so far as, by the Constitution adopted, it has not been parted with to the general government, then it must follow, as matter of certainty, that, within the limits of a State, there can be none other than her own sovereign power that can claim to exercise the functions of government. It is certainly contrary to every idea of an independent government for any other to assert adverse dominion and authority within her jurisdictional limits; they are things that cannot exist together. Between the State of Georgia and the Indian tribes within her limits, no compact or agreement was ever entered into; who then is to yield? for it is certain, in the ordinary course of exercised authority, that one or the other must. The answer heretofore presented from the government, and which you, by your adoption, have sanctioned as correct, is the only one that can be offered. Georgia, by her acknowledged confederative authority, may legally and rightfully govern and control throughout her own limits, or else our knowledge of the science and principle of government, as they relate to our forms, are wrong, and have been wholly misunderstood."

Now, Sir, all this may seem to be very clear demonstration to its author. I do not doubt that he honestly thought it must prove quite convincing to all who should have the good for tune to meet with it. With your leave, Sir,

"I'll talk a word to this same learned Theban."

I should like to know whether it ever occurred to him, în the course of his profound investigations, that the question to

be examined was, whether this was really the internal affair of Georgia only or not? It would have been better to have proved this conclusion than to have assumed it. He began to reason at the wrong end of the matter, and that is the misfortune of his whole argument. It must strike the mind of others, too, if the Secretary himself failed to discover it, that the powers which Georgia has in fact parted with to the general government, must be exercised within the States, or they cannot be exercised any where. Yet Georgia remains an independent government, as to all the sovereignty she has reserved. What more is there in that paper but a jargon of words? Adverse authority-exercised authority-confederative authority! I wish to hold the government of my country in some respect if I can, but I was ashamed to find the justification of one of its measures put forth in such a paper as this from one of the Executive departments. I trust that he answers for himself only, when he speaks of our knowledge of the principles of our own government, and then I will agree, that, if we are to judge from this paper, he knows very little about them.

We are less justifiable in applying the principles which have been asserted to the Indian nations in Alabama and Mississippi. Before these States were erected, they were the territory of the United States. The jurisdiction was in the general government. There were no State rights in existence there. We had solemnly guarantied to the Creek nation all their lands, and recognised their sovereignty under various treaties. These States have but recently been admitted into the Union. Yet the President has said in his message, "It is too late to inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them (the Indian nations) and their territory within the bounds of new States, whose limits they could control. That step cannot be retraced. A State cannot be dismembered by Congress, or restricted in the exercise of her constitutional power." It is not denied here, nor could it have been, that while this was the territory of the United States, it was competent for the government to admit the sovereignty of the Creek nation. But it is assumed, that the erection of this territory into States under the same Constitution which sustained the treaties, has abrogated our obligations. This casuistry will hardly mislead any very plain man. We are to be released from the effect of our treaties by our own act, against the will of the other party, who has faithfully kept them. Is it indeed too late to inquire if this be just? I know of no such maxim among nations, if it is to be found any where. The Constitution secures the inviolability of these treaties as effectually as it has the federal sovereignty of these new States. In acceding to the Union, they become bound with the other States in all their political and conventional obligations. If the older States remain bound by these treaties, (and no one, I presume, denies that,) the new States, as constituent parts of the federal sovereignty, are bound to respect and fulfil them too.

The history of our guaranties to the Cherokee and Creek na

tions is stated at large in the executive journal of the Senate. General Washington came with general Knox to the Senatechamber, and laid before the Senate the state of the difficulties existing between North Carolina and Georgia and these Indian nations. These States had protested against the treaties of the Old Congress as infringements of their legislative rights. General Washington stated that the Cherokees had complained that their treaty had been violated by the disorderly whites on the frontiers, but that, as North Carolina had not acceded to the Union, it was doubtful whether any efficient measures could be taken by the general government. In relation to the difficulties between Georgia and the Creeks, it was stated to be of great importance to Georgia, as well as the United States, to settle those differences, and that it would be highly embarrassing to Georgia to relinquish certain lands, which she alleged the Creeks had already ceded to her, and which her citizens had settled upon. To fix certain principles as instructions to the commissioners, general Washington stated several questions to the Senate for their advice. Among these was the subject of a cession from the Creeks of the lands in controversy, and one of the conditions to be offered them on that point was as follows:

"4th. A solemn guaranty by the United States, to the Creeks of their remaining territory, and to maintain the same, if necessary, by a line of military posts."

The Senate advised and consented to this, and the treaty was negotiated and ratified. The differences with Georgia appeared then to be finally settled.

On the 11th of August, 1790, general Washington stated to the Senate in a message, that as the obstacles to closing the difficulties with the Cherokees had been removed by the accession of North Carolina to the Union, he should now execute the power vested in him by the Constitution, to carry into faithful execution the former treaty of Hopewell, unless a new boundary was agreed upon; and proposed to the Senate several questions, as to the compensation to the Cherokees for that purpose, and the following condition:

3. Shall the United States stipulate solemnly to guaranty the new boundary which may be arranged ?”

The Senate consented that this guaranty should be given, and the treaty of Holston was made in conformity to it. It was negotiated by governor Blount. The manuscript volumes of the Senate show certain instructions from the government to governor Blount, of the 27th of August, 1790, which are so highly characteristic of the administration of general Washington, that I have taken a brief extract from them, which I beg leave to read:

"In order to effect so desirable a purpose upon proper principles, it is highly necessary that the United States should set the example of performing all those engagements, which by treaties have been entered into under their authority. It will be in vain to expect a consistent conduct from the Indians, or the approbation of the impartial part of mankind, while we violate, or suffer

a violation of, our engagements. We must set out with doing justice, and then we shall have a right to exact the same conduct from the Indians."

This is the history of your guaranties, and these the professions which you made when you offered them. They were given on mature deliberation, with the full knowledge of the claims of all parties, and were entered into with a solemnity which admonishes us that they cannot be safely trifled with. Against whom were they to operate? Not against foreign powers, for they had no claims, nor against the general government. It was the claims of the States to their country, which we stand pledged to resist until they consent to part with it peaceably. It is claimed again, now, by some of the States, that our power to contract with these nations, as qualified sovereignties, violates their jurisdiction. But we have seen that this question was fully before the Senate when we gave these guaranties, and general Washington then said, that since North Carolina had acceded to the Union, he should put forth the power entrusted to him by the Constitution, to execute the treaty of the Old Congress with the Cherokees. These guaranties cannot be executed at all unless the treaties and the intercourse laws are paramount to the laws of the States. The operation of the laws of Georgia, as well as Mississippi and Alabama, shows this.

I know that there is nothing on the face of these laws, which proposes to exert any direct force for the removal of the Indians. But, under the existing condition of things there, the moral effect of these measures will as effectually accomplish this end as your army could do it. The Indians themselves believe it, and the Secretary of War well understands that to be the inevitable consequence of them. I infer from a document on your table, that he has instructed your own agents to make use of them for that purpose. A letter from the Choctaw interpreter to the War Department, of the 27th of November last, says: "I was put in possession of the contents of your letter of the 31st ult. to colonel Ward, United States' agent to the Choctaws, and was ordered by him to interpret and fully explain the nature of the laws of Mississippi that were about to be extended over them, and the bad consequences that would attend, as they were not prepared to live under said laws. I have advised them on all occasions to make the best arrangement with the government they possibly can, and emigrate to the west of the Mississippi." The Secretary wrote to the agent of the Cherokees, since this measure has been pending: "The object of the government is to persuade, not coeree, their Indian friends to a removal from the land of their fathers. Beyond all doubt, they cannot be peaceable and happy where they are; yet still will they be protected to the extent that right and justice, and the powers possessed, require. Beyond this the President has neither the inclination nor the authority to go. It is idle to talk of rights which do not belong to them, and of protection which cannot be extended. The most correct plan is to disclose the facts as they exist, that all in interest may be warned, and, by timely precaution, escape those evils of which experience