"The

because they are not used as God designed, is a logic which I cannot appreciate. It will not be understood, that I object to the occupation of America by civilized man, or to its reduction and appropriation to the most important objects of human society, provided the advancements towards this purpose be made on the basis of the established and recognized principles of social morality. I believe the age is gone by, when the end sanctifies the means. just claims of others?" Indefinite, vague, convenient! "And such are the views of elementary writers;" that is, jurists have thus explained the intent of the original charters, spread over the American continent. Their opinion, as to the propriety of these charters, and their speculations on the designs of Providence are subject to any one's revision. I have already given my opinion of their opinion, so far as they appeal to the authority of Heaven to vindicate the assumption of another man's right without his consent.

"Like many other practical questions, it may be difficult to define the actual boundary between them (the Indians) and the civilized States, among whom and around whom they live." "Practical questions." The commentary of this, I suppose, is to be found in the following passage of this writer:-"The mode of acquiring the

possessory right of the Indians, is a question of expediency, and not of principle." A more undisguised, or more reckless prostration of morals, I can hardly imagine, is to be found on the records of sober debate. Well might this man say: "We are prepared to expect, that many worthy and benevolent persons will be shocked at a proposition, which would leave it with one party to judge what extent of territory should be yielded by the other, and what consideration should be awarded." And I sincerely hope, that the time will never come, when the moral sense of all mankind will not be shocked at these horrible doctrines!

My apology for such an extended notice of this article of the North American, is, that its influence, accidentally, was so considerable, and, as I conceive, so unfortunate on what is called in America—the Indian question. Not, that the American Congress ever recognized the doctrines contained in the extracts I have adduced; but the general argument, published at the moment the question was under debate, was doubtless influential, and in this view has acquired an importance, which it would not otherwise merit. It is supposed, that for the time it satisfied the conscience of many individuals, when called upon to discharge a momentous and most responsible duty.

CHAPTER V.

DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, INVOLVING THE CASE OF THE CHEROKEE INDIANS AGAINST THE STATE OF GEORGIA, AND ALSO THE RIGHTS OF INDIANS GENERALLY.

It gives me unfeigned and great satisfaction, that I am able to introduce, in the Appendix of this volume, the decision and argument of the Supreme Court of the United States, delivered by Chief Justice Marshal, on the 3d of March, 1832, in the case I have before alluded to, of Samuel A. Worcester v. the State of Georgia. As the argument of the Court involves the substantial history of the case, I will not anticipate its developements, but would simply remark here, that the trial brought in question before the highest judicial authority of the nation the entire range of Indian rights, which have recently been so

* See Appendix.

vigorously controverted in America; and obtained a decision in that tribunal, itself the third and co-ordinate branch of the national Government, from whose decrees there is no appeal except by violence; a decision, condemning the usurpations, which had been advanced over the Indians, and confirming them in all the rights claimed for them by themselves and their friends. Whatever, therefore, may be the course and issue of the contest in the actual administration of the executive branch of the Government, the honour of the nation is so far redeemed: that the highest tribunal, and the last authority in such controversy, after a protracted and painful investigation, has recorded its solemn and irrevocable decree in favour of the Indians.

I do not conceal, that after having sympathised and to some extent laboured in this cause, under long protracted and painful anxieties, I have felt a most cheering triumph in finding all my own views fully sustained by the solemn decisions of that high tribunal. Although that decision was announced to me in due time, I had never obtained a copy of the argument, by which it is supported, until this work was nearly ready for the press; and this chapter is actually an interpolation in the place, which it occupies. It will be seen, by a reference to the argument of

the Court, that Chief Justice Marshal has advocated and thoroughly defended my own. position: viz. that the rights of discovery and the power of royal charters do not relate to the rights of the Aborigines, either to deny or impair them; but that they respect only the relative claims of European powers, liable to come into collision; and that those powers adopted this method, not to arrogate from the natives, but to defend against each other. Next, it will be seen, that the Court have made out an admirable, and what seems to me an irrefragable vindication of Great Britain, in the entire line of her practical policy towards the American Aborigines, until the principal cluster of her colonies in that quarter went off from her jurisdiction. And while I subscribe fully to this part of the argument of the Court, and am rejoiced to see the proof of it, I have not chosen on the whole to alter what I had written on this point, although in some of its features, it may seem not perfectly coincident. My own strictures have allowed to the enemies of Indian rights what they have assumed-in other words, the full weight of their own argument in this particular, viz. that the royal charters of European powers did assert, in the letter, original rights over portions of the American continent;-of which fact there can be no doubt.