soil of their rightful inheritance, and while the exertions and labors of various religious societies of these United States are successfully engaged in promulgating to them the words of truth and life from the sacred volume of Holy Writ, and under the patronage of the General Government, they are threatened with removal or extinction. * * * We appeal to the magnanimity of the American Congress for justice, and the protection of the rights and liberties and lives of the Cherokee people. We claim it from the United States by the strongest obligation which imposes it on them—by treaties: and we expect it from them under that memorable declaration, ‘that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’”
The dignified and pathetic remonstrances of the Cherokee chiefs, their firm reiterations of their resolve not to part with their lands, was called by the angry Georgian governor “tricks of vulgar cunning,” and “insults from the polluted lips of outcasts and vagabonds;” and he is not afraid, in an official letter to the Secretary of War, to openly threaten the President that, if he upholds the Indians in their rejection of the overtures for removal, the “consequences are inevitable,” and that, in resisting the occupation of the Cherokee lands by the Georgians, he will be obliged to “make war upon, and shed the blood of brothers and friends.”
To these Cherokees Mr. Jefferson had written, at one time during his administration, “I sincerely wish you may succeed in your laudable endeavors to save the remnant of your nation by adopting industrious occupations, and a government of regular law. In this you may always rely on the counsel and assistance of the United States.”
In 1791 he had written to General Knox, defining the United States’ position in the matter of Indian lands: “Government should firmly maintain this ground, that the Indians have a
