pleasant contemplation to the gentleman. What did the murderers win by their act? Substantial good, or disappointment-the common fate of vaulting ambition overleaping itself. Did they not find that this ambition, though for the moment successful, had put a barren sceptre in their grasp,

'Thence to be wrenched by an unlined hand,

No son of theirs succeeding.'

He vindicates the Northern States, both for their sentiments on the subject of slavery, and their forbearance to intermeddle with it; and the charges brought against them, on this subject, are injurious and unfounded. He disclaimed any connection with the Hartford Convention, and so far as it can be shown to be disloyal to the Constitution, he should be as ready to censure it as any one.

In answer to the charge of inconsistency, he shows that the views taken in his two speeches are identical. He again defends his policy in disposing of the Western lands-to sell them at low prices, but not to give them away.

He replies with great force to Mr. Hayne's question, "What interest has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio?" He refers to the votes of New England on the reduction. of the price of the public lands, and the release of former purchasers from a part of their debt, as a proof of their good feelings towards the West.

In his support of public improvements, he followed "a Carolina track." The tariff of 1816 is a South Carolina tariff.

He justifies his course in voting against the tariff of 1824. He had doubts about the constitutional power

'Alluding to the course pursued by Mr. Calhoun and his colleagues.

these doubts have been shaken, or rather removed, by the lately published views of Mr. Madison. But after the policy was adopted and settled, New England conformed to it, and naturally wished the system amended and improved. He replied at great length to some of the attacks of Mr. Hayne on the evidences of a disloyal spirit occasionally afforded by New England, and thence proceeded to assail the doctrine of nullification; and maintained that Massachusetts had never gone so far as South Carolina had done in the late resolutions of her Legislature, the import of which he considered to be somewhat indefinite; and he denied that a State has the right to declare that the Federal authorities have exceeded their powers that can be done only by the Supreme Court: he showed that the doctrine of nullification must lead to the resistance of a law of Congress, and finally to civil war; and that the right thus claimed is but the right of revolution. He finished with an eloquent appeal in behalf of the sentiment "dear to every American heart - liberty and union now and for ever, one and inseparable!" and thus concluded a speech which, beyond all others delivered by him, numerous and efficient as they have been, reached the hearts of his hearers and of the mass of the nation.

The condition of the Indians of Georgia, whom that State insisted on emigrating to the west of the Mississippi, but who most reluctantly consented to quit the lands on which they were reared, and where reposed the bones of their fathers, excited a very general sympathy throughout the Union, and especially in the Northern States, who have long since ceased to have any personal knowledge of the dire evils that are inseparable from such neighbors.

At this session, a memorial from the city of New

York was presented to Congress in behalf of these people.

The memorialists consider the doctrine recently asserted, that the Indians had no valid claim to the territory on which they live, to be "in a high degree alarming,” and utterly subversive of justice. The four Southwestern tribes of Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks are estimated at seventy-five thousand souls, whose lands, according to the President of the United States, the Legislatures of the States in which they reside may confiscate at pleasure. memorialists, for the reasons which they set forth at large, and who, in answer to a contrary doctrine, say, let justice be done. They, however, deny that there is any practical difficulty, as the Indians are willing to sell.

This is denied by the

The rights of the Indians, it is further urged, are secured by express recognitions, and conventional stipulations, of which they give examples; and they particularly refer to the treaties made between Georgia and the Indians, in 1785 and 1786.

By every motive of duty, honor, and equity, they invoke the intervention of Congress to save the Cherokees from the threatened injustice and oppression, and the country from the shame and opprobrium that would result.

About the same time, a memorial was presented from the Cherokees themselves, claiming the protection of the United States, and insisting on their exclusive and entire right to the lands on which they live. They are threatened with being brought under the jurisdiction of the State of Georgia, if they do not leave their country. To the last they are unwilling, and against the first they protest as illegal, unjust, and oppressive.

In the preceding December (1829), the State of

Georgia had enacted a law to add the territory then occupied by the Cherokees to four of the counties of the State, and to extend the laws of the State over the same; by which law it was made punishable by fine and imprisonment to prevent, or offer to prevent, or deter, any Indian residing within the limits of the State from selling, or ceding to the United States for the use of Georgia, the whole or any part of the said territory; or to prevent, or endeavor to prevent, any Indian from emigrating from the State; and to take the life of any Indian for attempting to emigrate, or attempting to meet Commissioners of the United States, by reason of any law, custom, or ordinance of said nation, shall be deemed murder, and be punishable with death."

All laws, ordinances, and regulations enacted by the Cherokee Indians after the first of June are declared null and void.

In each House of Congress, a report was made on the subject of the Indians; one providing for their removal, the other for the exchange of their lands in the Atlantic States for other lands west of the Mississippi.

In January, the State of Mississippi also passed a law to extend the jurisdiction of the State over the persons and property of the Indians within its limits; by which all the "rights, privileges, immunities, and franchises" heretofore enjoyed by them are thereby entirely abolished but all the rights and privileges of the free white inhabitants are conferred on them, and the laws of the State are extended over the territory now occupied by them. All marriages of Indians according to usages deemed valid by them, are declared to be binding. Any one who shall assume the character of chief or head man, and in any manner exercise the office of such

1 Niles's Register, Vol. XXXVIII., page 54.

chief, shall be subject, on conviction, to fine and impri

sonment.

The bill which accompanies the report of the Committee in the Senate, providing for the exchange of lands, passed that body on the twenty-sixth of April, 1830.

By this bill, the President is authorised to lay off any of the public lands west of the Mississippi, to which the Indian title has been extinguished, into districts suitable for such Indian tribes as may remove thither, and exchange them for the lands of Indians resident within the limits of any of the States or territories; such lands to be guaranteed to the Indians for ever, but to revert to the United States in case the Indians become extinct, or remove out of the State. They are to be there protected, and to be placed under the same superintendence as is now exercised by the Executive. They are to be aided in their removal, and furnished with the means of support for one year. The improvements on their lands to be paid for according to their appraised value.

Some further provisions for their benefit were proposed by way of amendment-as, that they should be protected in their present rights and property until they shall choose to remove: that, before any removal, or any exchange of lands take place, the rights of the Indians shall be stipulated by treaty: that they shall be protected in the rights already guaranteed to them by treaty and that nothing in this act shall be construed to authorise a departure from any treaty now subsisting between the United States and the Cherokees: all of which amendments were negatived by twenty-seven or twenty-eight votes to nineteen or twenty.

The feelings entertained towards the aborigines of this country who still remained within the limits of the individual States were very diverse in different parts of the Union.