legislatures may impose, till they are prepared by education and habits for its full enjoyment. And is not this preferable to their present system of polity? All history teaches that no free government can exist among half-civilized people. It must become a despotism, ruled by one or a few. And if we are not wholly misinformed, the experience of our own Indian tribes confirms the general lesson. If the southern Indians have made those advances in improvement which many so confidently assert and believe, they can not be injured by the operation of just laws. If they have not, they are unfit for the task of self-government, and to become the founders of an independent state."

The Secretary then proceeds to an elaborate examination of the question, whether the form of the treaties and stipulations, and the descriptive epithet, "nation," applied to the Indians, are a full recognition of their independent position, precluding the general government from denying the legitimate consequences flowing from such admissions. He clearly establishes, by authority and argument, that they are not, and terminates this branch of the controversy with this potential observation:

"We can not express the true doctrine as well as it was expressed at Ghent, where this very objection was urged, and pertinaciously repeated. The treaty of Greenville,' say the American Commissioners, neither took from the Indians the right which they had not, of selling lands within the jurisdiction. of the United States to foreign governments or subjects, nor ceded to them the right of exercising exclusive jurisdiction within the boundary line assigned. It was merely declaratory of the public law in relation to the parties, founded on principles previously and universally recognized.'

"The position of the Indians is no doubt anomalous. Europe presents nothing similar. To demand that the principles of intercourse which have been adopted, shall be reconciled with the received maxims of public law, which govern the relations of civilized and independent nations, is to reject the universal practice of all governments who have founded colonies in the new world, and is to sacrifice the true interests of society to a definition and a deduction."

Approaching the material inquiry in this great case, namely, whether the treaties with the Cherokees contain stipulations incompatible with the exercise of jurisdiction by the State of Georgia

over them, the Secretary, examining the entire field of controversy, commencing with the treaty of Holston, in 1731, and terminating with that of Tellico, in 1798, which was the last treaty, prior to the execution of the compact between the United States and Georgia, in 1802, announces the irrefragable conclusion, that the relations of the general government with the various Indian tribes living within the boundaries of the United States, do not extend to prevent the legislatures from subjecting those Indians, whenever they please, to the operation of State laws.

Thus far, he had discussed the rights of the several parties. He now leaves that field, and briefly considers the expediency of their just exercise, on the part of the legitimate authorities.

"In the previous discussion we have confined ourselves to the question of right, ar.ding all those considerations which render it expedient that these Indians should remove to the country, west of the Mississippi, assigned for their permanent residence. No false philanthropy should induce us to wish their continuance in the situation they now occupy. The decree has gone forth; it is irreversible, that the white and the red man can not live together. He who runs may read. He may read it in the past and in the present, and he may discern it in the signs of the future. Without attempting to investigate the causes, moral and physical, which have enacted this law of stern necessity, it is enough for our present purpose to know that it exists, and to feel that its penalty is destruction to one of these parties; a penalty only to be avoided by their migration beyond the sphere of its influence. The longer this salutary measure is delayed, the greater will be the injury to them. Their state of excitement and uneasiness will continue, the collisions and difficulties with their white neighbors will multiply, and surrounded, as they must be, with disheartening troubles, their habits and prospects may be wrecked in this hopeless conflict. Had they not better go, and speedily? Go to a climate which is known to be salubrious, to a country fertile and extensive; beyond their wants now, and for generations to come; and to a home which promises comfort and permanence.

"Can they expect to maintain their present position? To establish an independent government, having undefined and undefinable relations with the State of Georgia? To add another imperium in imperio to our complicated system? Such an expectation appears to us vain and illusory, practically unattainable, and

fraught with their destruction if it could be obtained. They would be exposed to the operation of all those evils which have swept over their race, as the fatal simoon, the blast of death, sweeps over the desert."

Thus was the ability and discretion of General Cass displayed, at this signal period of the Indian controversy. This reviewin fact, as the reader was apprised a few pages back, a state paper

-was a luminous and powerful refutation of the doctrine of the Supreme Judicature of the land. He dissented, not as a factionist resisting authority, or as a sciolist unable to comprehend it, but as a patriot, a jurist and a scholar. Its effect upon the public mind was prodigious, and the signs of returning reason, on this vexed subject, to many of the accomplished intellects in Congress, were unmistakable.

The policy of the administration prevailed, and to the Secretary of War belongs the glory, as its efficient, learned, and enlightened expounder and defender. Congress appropriated five hundred thousand dollars for the removal of the Indians from Georgia, Alabama, and other States, to a territory west of the Mississippi, without the limits of any State or organized territory, and belonging to the United States. The Indians were removed, under every humane care, to places better fitted for their future homes; the high claim of Georgia to be sovereign within her own borders was fully vindicated against those disorganizing counterprinciples, subversive of the first elements of civilization that would have denied it; and with such an approving voice did the people of Georgia regard the conduct of General Cass, that the Legislature of that State unanimously named a county after him, which, since its creation, has been noted for its undeviating adherence to the cause of the Democratic Republican party.

CHAPTER XVII.

Black Hawk War-Peace-Treaties of cession with Winnebagoes, Sacs and Foxes-General Cass' efforts to effect Reforms in the Army-The United States Bank-Nullification-Letters to General ScottThe action of South Carolina-Letter to Mr. Ritchie-The Virginia Legislature-The Mission of Mr. Leigh-The happy Termination.

In the summer of 1832, the aggressions of the Sac and Fox tribes of Indians were daring and extensive-so much so as to demand the interposition of the government. The Secretary of War was too well versed in Indian character, and their invariable mode of warfare, not to adopt prompt and active measures for their subjugation and punishment. The Indians were under the lead of a noted chief, called Black Hawk, and personally known to General Cass.

The executives of the States of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, and of the Territory of Michigan, co-operated zealously and efficiently in the protective measures of the department. The regular troops in the vicinity of the theater of hostilities were concentrated under Brigadier General Atkinson, and brought into the field; and the militia of Illinois, and that part of the Territory of Michigan exposed to danger, promptly repaired to the defense of the frontier. Such was the nature of the warfare and of the country, that it was difficult immediately to protect the long line of scattered settlements, and to bring the enemy into action. As a precautionary measure, and to place the result of the campaign. as far beyond the reach of accident as possible, the garrisons at some of the posts upon the seaboard, and upon the lakes, were ordered to Chicago, under the command of Major General Scott, to co-operate with the force already employed under Brigadier General Atkinson. The troops moved with the greatest despatch

one of the companies reaching Chicago in eighteen days from Old Point Comfort, a distance by the route necessarily traveled of more than eighteen hundred miles. At this place they met a foe far more to be dreaded than their Indian foe, and their hopes were suddenly arrested, when highest, by that worse than Athenian plague—the cholera; and probably few military expeditions

have presented scenes more appalling in themselves, or calling for the exercise of greater moral courage. The occasion, however, was met by General Scott, the commanding officer, in a manner worthy of his high character; and the example which he gave to the American army, in that trying period of responsibility, is not less important than was his gallant bearing in the presence of the enemy at Lundy's Lane and Bridgewater. The mortality was great; and of about fifteen hundred officers and men of the regular troops ordered to that frontier, not less than two hundred fell victims to the pestilence.

The United States soldiers stationed in the vicinity of the scene of outrage, together with the militia from the State of Illinois and of the western part of the Territory of Michigan, were concentrated under the command of General Atkinson, and marched to the locality of the enemy. When they reached the spot where it was supposed Black Hawk and his forces were encamped, it was found that the Indians had withdrawn upon their approach. General Dodge was dispatched in pursuit. He overtook them on the evening of the twenty-first of July, and engaged in battle with a band of about three hundred Sacs, at a place called Petit Roche, near the Wisconsin river, and about thirty miles from Fort Winnebago. The Indians retreated towards the river, after fifty of their number were killed. On the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth of July, General Atkinson, with thirteen hundred men, crossed the Wisconsin, and followed the trail of the enemy until the second day of August, when they came up with the main body of the Indians on the left bank of the Mississippi, opposite the mouth of the Iowa river. A battle ensued, in which the Indians were routed and driven from their position. One hundred and fifty of them were killed, as reported to the War Department. The residue crossed the river, and fled into the interior of the country. The Indians. were completely vanquished. Black Hawk, with his family, and the Prophet, his brother, were not among the conquered. turned out to be the fact, that they had fled up the Mississippi, and sought refuge among the Winnebagoes, who, in a short time, brought forth Black Hawk and the Prophet, and delivered them up to the army.

It

The ample and effective arrangements, under the direction of the War Department, were prompt and judicious, and probably saved the country from the expense and horrors of a protracted