The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1829-12-23
THE INDIANS.


incorrect in its statement of facts, and unsound
in its deductions. Georgia" he says, "be-
came member of the confederacy which even
tuated in our Federal Union, as a sovereign
State, always asserting her claim to certain lin
It's; which having been originally defined in
her colonial charter, and subsequently recog-
nized in the treaty of peace, she has ever since
continued to enjoy, except as they have been
circumscribed by her own voluntary transfer of
portion of her territory to the United States,
! in the articles of cession Of 1902. Alabama
was admitted into the Union on the same foot
ing with the original States, with boundaries
which were prescribed by Congress" Within
the limits of these States, so defined, he says,
"a portion Of the southern tribes" of Indians
have lately attempted to erect an independent
Government Under these circumstances, the
question presented was, whether the General
| Government had right to sustain those peo-
pie in their pretensons /? The Constitution
declares, that no new State shall be formed or
erected within the jurisdiction of any other
State without the consent of its Legislature.
| If the General Government is not permitted
to tolerate the erection of confederate State
within the territory of one Of the members Of
this Union, against her consent, much less
could it allow foreign and independent gov
eminent to establish itself there" Hence he
considers it as an "obvious" conclusion, that
the Indians have no right to govern themselves,
and that Georgia and Alabama have an I'M
doubted right to extend the jurisdiction of their
laws over all the Indians living within the lin
its of those States. calculated by this view of
the subject" the President informed the In
dams inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama
that their attempt to establish an Independent
Government would not be countenanced by the
Executive Of the United States, and Gduised
them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi, or
submit to the laws Of those States"
1t is by the assumption of false premises that
the President has arrived at this most errone-
ous and unjust conclusion. The limits of
Georgia, which he says she has SO long claim
ed and enjoyed, and which, to support the
ground that has been taken, must have been
absolute and unconditional, are, in fact, only
nominal and contingent. Her claim to such
limits, is only against the title of other States,
subject always to the prior right of the Indians,
and amounts to nothing more than the right of
preemption to the sovereignty, when the prior
right of the Indians shall have been extinguish-
ed. As such, she has herself heretofore consid-
cred it, as may be shown by sundry conventions
,.,;,l, H. Tnd;ans and uifl, Tho GanaraI Covorn.
ment, to which she has been party; and no
pretence to any other right has ever been ad-
vanced till within the last four years. But the
Indian right has been repeatedly acknowledged
by treaty, and their jurisdiction within the linn
its they now claim has been solemnly guaran-
tied to them by the Government of the Union,
with the assent of Georgia. All the reasoning,
therefore, in the foregoing extracts falls to the
ground.
But tho gross and palpable inconsistency of
the Presidents conclusions, becomes more man
ifest when the falsity of another of his assump-
tions is shewn. "a portion of the Southern
tribes" he says, have lately attempted to
erect an independent Government within the
limits of Georgia and Alabama" Is this true
Have not the Cherokees enjoyed" an hide
pendent Government much longer than even
the State of Georgia itself? 1t is true, they
have lately changed the form of their govern
ment; but it might as well be argued, that the
adoption, by any one of the United States, of a
new Constitution, was the establishment of a
new government, not belonging to the Union,
as it may be, that the mere change of the mode
Of government among the Cherokees, also
changed the relations which existed between
them and the governments of Georgia and the
United States. They existed as an Independ-
ent Nation, with an " Independent Govern
ment," when Georgia was first settled by the
whites as such they continued when our Con-
stitution was adopted, and SO they remain to
the present day. That portion, therefore, of
the Constitution, relating to the erection of
new State within the Jurisdiction OF another
State,' has no application to this case, because
no new State" has been erected, nor has
Georgia or Alabama ever exercised any juris-
diction' over the territory in question. The
/ indians have had the sole and undisturbed ju-
risdiction from the earliest settlement of the
country by tira whites. to the present day.
Tho President says, there is no constitu-
tional conventional, or legal provision, which
allows them less power over the Indians within
their borders, than is possessed by Maine or
New York" and then asks, " would the people
of New York permit each remnant of the Six
Nations within her borders, to declare itself an
Independent people, under the protection of
the United States?" To this it may be an
swered that there is no occasion for them to
make such declaration, for their right of self
government is not only admitted by the State
of New York, but has been established by tie
highest legal tribunal in the State, as will be
seen by the following extract from the New