in their corporate, or collective character, from bringing their grievances before the courts? Nothing. And, that they were competent to this, we had only to look at the state papers which had emanated from them, and which did them immortal credit, to be convinced. The senator from Tennessee asked, 'what the states would do? Would they array the federal power against the power of the state governments, and thus produce that condition. of things which must result in the Indians' being stricken from the face of the earth?' Did not the honorable senator remember the period when a state of this union was actually arrayed and marshalled to defend its interpretation of the constitution? He was hearty in the support of the force bill; he did not stop to look at the possible consequences of a civil war. He, (Mr. Clay,) gave it his reluctant and most painful support. He would gladly have turned the bitter cup from his lips, but he felt it to be his duty to sustain the authority of the general government; and, after giving to the subject the most solemn and serious consideration, he felt himself constrained to sustain that measure. And he went along with the senator from Tennessee upon the principle, now denied by him, that the federal authority must maintain its dignity. He went upon the ground, now abandoned by the senator from Tennessee, that no state ought to array itself against the constitutional powers of this government.

How was the fact up to the period of 1829? The gentleman from Tennessee tells us the true policy of this government is to send these poor creatures beyond the Mississippi, and that there is no impediment in the obligations of subsisting treaties. Never, until the new light burst upon us, that hundreds of Indian treaties, made during a period of half a century, under almost every administration of the government, concluded and ratified with all the solemn forms of the constitution, and containing the most explicit guarantees and obligations of protection to the Indians, and of security to their possessions, were mere nullities, was it supposed competent to effect a compulsory removal of the Indians beyond the Mississippi. It is true, that the policy of removing them has been long entertained; was contemplated by Mr. Jefferson; but it was a free, voluntary, and unconstrained emigration. No one, until of late, ever dreamed of a forcible removal, against their consent, accomplished either by the direct application of military power, or by cruel and intolerable local legislation. He wished that they would voluntarily remove. He believed that absorption or extinction was the only alternative of their remaining in the bosom of the whites. But they were a part of the human race, as capable as we are of pleasure and pain, and invested with as indisputable a right as we have, to judge of and pursue their own happiness.

It is said, that annihilation is the destiny of the Indian race.

Perhaps it is, judging from the past. But shall we therefore hasten it? Death is the irreversible decree pronounced against the human race. Shall we accelerate its approach, because it is inevitable? No, sir. Let us treat with the utmost kindness, and the most perfect justice, the aborigines whom Providence has committed to our guardianship. Let us confer upon them, if we can, the inestimable blessings of christianity and civilization, and then, if they must sink beneath the progressive wave of civilized population, we are free from all reproach, and stand acquitted in the sight of God and man.

The senator from Tennessee has left the senate under the impression, no doubt unintentionally, that three other states had advanced as far as Georgia in the exercise of a jurisdiction over the Indians and their property. But if he, (Mr. Clay,) were rightly informed, this was far from correct. North Carolina had exercised no such jurisdiction. She had not touched a hair upon the head of any Indian. Tennessee had extended her laws to the Indian country, for the sole purpose of protecting the Indians, and punishing the white intruders. Her upright judges and tribunals concurred, unanimously, if he were rightly informed, in supporting the Indian rights. No state, he believed, but Georgia, had seized upon the Indian lands, and distributed them among the whites. From the commencement of our independence down to this time, there was not another instance of such seizure, and appropriation, by any other member of the confederacy.

Mr. Clay assured the senator from Georgia, that he had not sought for the position in which he was placed. It was sought of him. He was applied to by the unfortunate Cherokees, to present their case to the senate. And he should have been false and faithless to his own heart, and unworthy of human nature, if he had declined to be their organ, however inadequate he feared he had proved himself to be.

On the whole, then, said Mr. Clay, the resolutions proposed an inquiry into the suitableness of making further provision for the Cherokees who choose to emigrate beyond the Mississippi. And in regard to those of them who will not go, but who prefer to cling to the graves of their forefathers, and to the spot which gave them birth, in spite of any destiny impending over them, the resolution proposes, that, since Georgia has shut her courts against them, we should inquire whether we should not open those of the federal government to them, and ascertain whether, according to the constitution, treaties, and laws, we are capable of fulfilling the obligations which we have solemnly contracted.

The memorial of the Cherokees was then referred to the committee on Indian affairs, and Mr. Clay's resolutions laid on the table for one day.

ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD BILL.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 11, 1835.

[THE Cumberland road is a national work, constructed under the authority of congress, commencing at Cumberland on the Potomac river in the state of Maryland, and extending west to the Ohio river at Wheeling; from whence it is to be continued, under the name of the national road, through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, to Jefferson, the capital of the latter state. At the time when the compact with the state of Ohio was made by the United States, this road had become absolutely necessary for the purpose of securing an intercourse between the west and the east side of the Alleghany mountains. The first step to effect this, was taken in 1802, when Mr. Jefferson was president. Its completion to the Ohio river, was in a great measure owing to the exertions of Mr. Clay in the cause of internal improvement, at various pericds during his congressional career. After the road had been made to Columbus, in the state of Ohio, the Ohio section had been given to and accepted by that state. At the session of congress in 1834, an appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars had been made for repairing the road, and on the present occasion a further sum of three hundred and forty thousand dollars was proposed for the purpose of putting the work in good condition, previously to its being surrendered to the states through which it passes. The bill to effect this object passed the senate by a vote of thirty-two to nine, after considerable discussion; Mr. Clay giving his views as follows.]

MR. CLAY remarked, that he would not have said a word then, but for the introduction in this discussion of collateral matters, not immediately connected with it. He meant to vote for the appropriation contained in the bill, and he should do so with pleasure, because, under all the circumstances of the case, he felt himself called upon by a sense of imperative necessity to yield his assent to the appropriation. The road would be abandoned, and all the expenditures which had heretofore been made upon it would have been entirely thrown away, unless they now succeeded in obtaining an appropriation to put the road in a state of repair. Now, he did not concur with the gentleman, (Mr. Ewing,) that Ohio could, as a matter of strict right, demand of the government to keep this road in repair. And why so? Because, by the terms. of the compact, under the operation of which the road was made, there was a restricted and defined fund, set apart in order to accomplish that object. And that fund measured the obligation of the government. It had been, however, long since exhausted. There

was no obligation, then, on the part of the government, to keep the road in repair. But he was free to admit, that considerations of policy would prompt it to adopt that course, in order that an opportunity should be presented to the states to take it into their own hands.

The honorable senator from Pennsylvania felicitated himself on having, at a very early epoch, discovered the unconstitutionality of the general government's erecting toll-gates upon this road, and he voted against the first measure to carry that object into execution. He (Mr. Clay) must say, that, for himself, he thought the general government had a right to adopt that course which it deemed necessary for the preservation of a road which was made under its own authority. And as a legitimate consequence from the power of making a road, was derived the power of making an improvement on it. That was established; and, on that point he was sure the honorable gentleman did not differ from those who were in favor of establishing toll-gates at the period to which he had alluded. He would repeat, that, if the power to make a road were conceded, it followed, as a legitimate consequence from that power, that the general government had a right to preserve it. And, if the right to do so, there was no mode of preservation more fitting and suitable, than that which resulted from a moderate toll for keeping up the road, and thus continuing it for all time to come.

The opinion held by the honorable senator, at the period to which he had adverted, was not the general opinion. He would well remember that the power which he, (Mr. Clay,) contended, did exist, was sustained in the other branch of the legislature by large majorities. And, in that senate, if he was not mistaken, there were but nine dissentients from the existence of it. If his recollection deceived him not, he had the pleasure of concurring with the distinguished individual who now presided over the deliberations of that body. He thought that he, (the vice-president,) in common with the majority of the senate and house of representatives, coincided in the belief, that a road, constructed under the orders of the general government, ought to be preserved by the authority which brought it into being. Now, that was his, (Mr. Clay's,) opinion still. He was not one of those who, on this or any other great national subject, had changed his opinion in consequence of being wrought upon by various conflicting circumstances.

With regard to the general power of making internal improvements, as far as it existed in the opinions he had frequently expressed in both houses, his opinion was unaltered. But with respect to the expediency of exercising that power, at any period, it must depend upon the circumstances of the times. And, in his opinion, the power was to be found in the constitution. This belief he had always entertained, and it remained unshaken. He could not coincide in the opinion expressed by the honorable senator

from Pennsylvania and the honorable senator from Massachusetts, in regard to the disposition that was to be made of this road.

What, he would ask, had been stated on all hands? That the Cumberland road was a great national object, in which all the people of the United States were interested and concerned; that we are interested in our corporate capacity, on account of the stake we possessed in the public domain, and that we were consequently benefited by that road; that the people of the west were interested in it, as a common thoroughfare to all places from one side of the country to the other. Now, what was the principle of the arrangement that had been entered into? It was this common object, this national object, this object in which the people of this country were interested; its care, its preservation, was to be confided to different states, having no special motive or interest in its preservation; and, therefore, not responsible for the consequences that might result. The people of Kentucky and Indiana, and of the states west of those states, as well as the people living on the eastern side of the mountains, were all interested in the use and occupation of this road, which, instead of being retained and kept under the control of that common government in which all had a share, their interest in it was to be confided to the local jurisdictions through which the road passed; and thus the states, generally, were to depend upon the manner in which they should perform their duties; upon those having no sympathy with them, having no regard for their interest, but left to do as they chose in regard to the preservation of this road.

He would say that the principle was fundamentally wrong. He protested against it; had done from the first, and did so again now. It was a great national object, and they might as well give the care of the mint to Pennsylvania, the protection of the breakwater, or of the public vessels in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, to the respective legislatures of the states in which that property was situated, as give the care of a great national road, in which the whole people of the United States were concerned, to the care of a few states which were acknowledged to have no particular interest in it states having so little interest in that great work, that they would not repair it when offered to their hands.

But, he said, he would vote for this appropriation; he was compelled to vote for it by the force of circumstances over which he had no control. He had seen, in reference to internal improvements, and other measures of a national character, not individuals, merely, but whole masses, entire communities, prostrating their own settled opinions, to which they had conformed for half a century, wheel to the right or the left, march this way or that, according as they saw high authority for it. And he saw that there was no way of preserving this great object, which afforded such vast facilities to the western states, no other mode of preserving it,