force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves or in conformity with treaties and with the acts of Congress." The Georgia statute was, accordingly, held unconstitutional, and Worcester was ordered to be discharged. Georgia again defied the mandate of the court: the state court refused to issue a writ of habeas corpus, and Worcester and his companions remained in prison until January, 1833, when they were pardoned by the governor.

1

Jackson declined to support the court. "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" he is reported to have said. The equivocal position of Jackson, engaged as he was at the moment in breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the nullifiers in South Carolina, did not escape the keen eye of Calhoun. In the debate on the "force bill" he remarked that a great change seemed to have come over the opinion of the executive in the past twelve months. In South Carolina, where the tariff was a sore grievance, the decision of the supreme court as the "final arbiter" was to be supported, if necessary, by the full military and naval power of the federal government. In Georgia, where the position of the Indians was involved, "the will of the executive is to be supreme." There was truth in the charge, for in no part of his public policy did Jackson show less regard for law and consistency, or less respect for a co-ordinate department of the federal government, than in the case of the Cherokee Indians.

That the open defiance of the supreme court by the state of Georgia did much to encourage nullification is clear. As to Jackson's course in the matter, rational considerations fail to afford a satisfactory explanation. Jackson strongly disliked Marshall, and the latter was known to be opposed to Jackson's re election in 1832. An article in the Globe, in March, 1832, apparently written by Cass,1 offered an elaborate argument against the position of the supreme court. The insults of Georgia, moreover, were hurled at the court rather than at the president. Doubtless, too, Jackson's own views about the Indian influenced his conduct. On the whole, however, the affair seems to illustrate the erratic character of Jackson's political mind. He chose to ignore the threats and denunciations of Georgia. He chose to take notice of the threats and denunciations of South Carolina. In the one case he offered no explanation, while in the other he framed a bold and convincing justification of his course. That the two positions were mutually contradictory seems not to have given him concern.

Jackson appears to have been committed from the first to the policy of removal, although he felt it necessary repeatedly to defend his course and to argue the case, often at considerable length. His annual messages of 1829, 1830, 1833, and 1835 deMcLaughlin, Cass (rev. ed.), 161.

vote special attention to the subject. Cass discussed the matter fully in his annual report for 1831. The line of argument is in each case the same-consideration for the Indians as such and regret at their disappearance, but denial of their right to impede the development of the country and of their claim to legal equality with the whites. Congress supported the policy by an act of June 30, 1834, creating an Indian territory west of the Mississippi.1

The Cherokees, encouraged by the decision of the supreme court in Worcester vs. Georgia, and by Jackson's proclamation to South Carolina, long refused to go. The painful struggle was at last terminated by a treaty of December 29, 1835,2 by which the Indians relinquished to the United States all their lands east of the Mississippi, receiving in return five million dollars, an additional grant of land in the Indian territory, and the expenses of removal to their new home. Even so, some of the Cherokees refused to leave and had to be removed by force. Members of the tribe in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, who did not wish to remove, were granted pre-emption rights to land in those states. With the Choctaws and Chickasaws there was not much trouble. By March 1, 1833, both of these tribes had accepted the liberal terms offered by the United States for the cession of their lands east of the Mississippi, and begun their removal westward. In the case of the Choctaws,

U.S. Statutes at Large, IV., 740.

VOL. XV.-13

2

Ibid., VII., 478,479.

Jackson took the unusual course of submitting some modifications of the agreement proposed by the Indians, and asking the advice of the Senate as to which line negotiations should take. All the lands of the Creeks east of the Mississippi were ceded to the United States in 1832.

Further to carry out the same policy, the early extinguishment of the Indian title in all of the states was urged, not only as sound public policy, but also as a fulfilment of the contract between the federal government and the states when the latter entered the Union. There was steady progress in this direction throughout Jackson's terms. In his annual message in December, 1835, Jackson was able to state that, "with the exception of two small bands living in Ohio and Indiana, not exceeding fifteen hundred persons, and of the Cherokees, all the tribes on the east side of the Mississippi, and extending from Lake Michigan to Florida, have entered into engagements which will lead to their transplantation." Between 1829 and 1837, ninety-four Indian treaties, most of them treaties of cession, were concluded.

The policy of removal was not carried out without opposition. Members of the Society of Friends and other religious bodies, who were interested in the education and conversion of the Indians, opposed Jackson's course, as did anti-administration members of Congress. Clay, though holding opinions • Richardson, Messages and Papers, III., 171.

about the Indians substantially identical with those of Jackson, was in opposition for political reasons.1 On the whole, however, Jackson's Indian policy undoubtedly met with the approval of the great majority of the people of the United States. There could be little question that the claim of the Cherokees to independent sovereignty within the limits of Georgia, while good in law and solemnly guaranteed by the action of the United States during fifty years, was nevertheless contrary to public policy, and constitutionally an anomaly which could not last. Sooner or later, by fair means or foul, the jurisdiction of the state would be coextensive with its boundaries. On the other hand, the compulsory removal of the Indians from their homes to the region beyond the Mississippi, attended as it often was with distressing incidents, seemed needlessly harsh, and made a painful impression. It was fortunate, on the whole, for the Indians that they received from Jackson, an old frontier soldier, as generous treatment as they did.

The most serious armed collision with the Indians in Jackson's time was the Black Hawk War, in 1832.2 During the War of 1812, the Sac and Fox Indians had allied with the English, but a treaty of peace made in 1816 was for many years faithfully observed. The removal of the tribe to the west, however, in enforcement of a treaty of cession of

Schurz, Clay (rev. ed.), II., 59.

Winsor, Narr. and Crit. History, VII., 406, 439.