Year: 1859

A Missouri correspondent ofthe Saeramen-
to Standard says:


"The Republican publishes an excellent mes
sage from John Ross, the Cherokee President, to
the National Council OF the Cherokees, recently
assembled. That paper justly speaks Of this chief
as one who. venerable for his years and public
services adorns his station by character aud tai
ents of a high order"


The said correspondents is very ignorant of
Cherokee history, if he does not know that
John Ross is hoary-headed old scoundrel-
plunderer of his people, and foul, coward
ly murderer His power was established by
usurpation and outrage, and the removal
from his path, by secret assassination, of the
greatest and noblest ehieftans of the Chero-
kee Nation That power has been ever since
maintained in blood. Every man who has
dared to protest against the usurped authori
ty which he held has been hunted down by
his band of hireling murderers, paid from n
plundered treasury of six millions of dollars,
and slain or driven from the country. The
tears of widows and orphans, impoverished
by him, still wet the grass-grown graves of
fallen chiefs treacherously murdered at his
instigation. Some of the best blood of the
Cherokee Nation now wander in distant
lands, unable to return to the homes of which
he has robbed them and brooding in bitter
exile over a thousand wrongs which no time
can remedy. For the lives of their slain
kindred they have had but the meagre re
venge of the blood of the miserable tools who
have done the work, while the arch-scoun-
drel of all, safe in the power which plum
dered treasury has given him, has taken
shelter, like the coward that he is, behind
the walls of men who are paid to defend
him..


AT this late day, when the SHOWS of sew
enty years are upon his head and he has
done all the evil of which he is capable, he
is endeavoring, we believe, to make some
slight atonement for his crimes and infames,
by combating in the minds of the ignorant
portion of the Cherokee people those preu-
dices which he has hitherto fattered, in or
der by means Of them, to remove from his
path the true friends of civilization and or
der who stood in his way. He is now said
to be in favor of organizing the Cherokee
country into State and asking for its ad
mission into the Union. This is about the
only right thing that he ever did in the whole
course of his life; but, had he approved this
measure years ago and co-operated with men
in the Nation of superior minds to his own.
who were in favor of the same thing when it
was almost death to advocate it, instead of
stimulating these same preiudices against
them in order to effect his own selfish ends.
the Cherokees would years ago have been
ready to take the position os State which
has been offered them in the American Un-
ion.


The men who advocated this great meas.
ure, are in their graves or in exile. and now
at this late day, the old scoundrel of seventy
winters comes forward and approves it. But
he has catered to the prejudices of the ig.
norant masses so long that he cannot stem
the tide which he himself helped to roll for
ward and to which he gave strength, and
his advocacy of a State organization is
drowned in the disapproving murmurs of the
people. Still there is strong party of the
educated classes in favor of the movement,
and it will gradually overcome the preiudces
Of which we speak


We are sorry to have devoted so much
space as we have TO the character of John
Ross, but.we have felt compelled to do so by
seeing him so nnequivocally endorsed in vic
lation of the plain truth of history. 1t is a
subject upon which we dislike greatly to
speak. Justice to such men requires deeds
and not words