Make the Civil Subordinate to the Military Power." 1 But argument and defiance alike were unavailing, for the vote in both houses on the passage of the bill was overwhelming.

2

The convention of South Carolina met March 11, Hayne replacing Hamilton as president. A committee of twenty-one, appointed to consider the proper steps to be taken, reported on the 13th an ordinance rescinding the ordinance of nullification and the legislative acts passed to give effect to it. On the 15th, by a vote of 153 to 4, the rescinding ordinance was adopted. To nullify the "force bill" was difficult, and, in McDuffie's opinion, ridiculous, but an ordinance3 to that effect, together with a report calling upon the legislature to pass laws to prevent its enforcement, were adopted on the 18th by a vote of 132 to 19. The same day the convention adjourned, and nullification in South Carolina was at an end.

Both sides claimed the victory, and with some reason. The supremacy of the Union had been maintained, and attempted resistance by a state defeated. If the course of events could settle a question of law, then a protective tariff was constitutional. On the other hand, the tariff complained of had been greatly modified, and force had not been used by the federal government. On the

1 Debates of Congress, IX., 1903.

* Statutes of South Carolina, I., 390.

' Houston, Nullification in South Carolina, 149.

whole, the greater victory lay with South Carolina. Alone, unaided by its "co-States," it had challenged the constitutionality of a federal policy, formally refused longer to submit to it, and prepared itself to resist by force of arms. In response, the president had declared that the law must be obeyed, and had taken steps to secure obedience, if necessary, by force; but before the test came Congress had pushed through in two weeks a compromise measure which would shortly reduce duties to a revenue basis. Politically, nullification cost something. Calhoun ceased to belong to any party, and South Carolina did not again join with the Democracy until 1840. As to the "force bill," much as men might wish to forget the circumstances which called it out, it was in every way a proper addition to the body of federal law. Calhoun was correct in writing, December 12, 1833, that he saw little prospect of repealing the act; and the principle of the act is a part of the federal law to-day.

CHAPTER X

INDIAN AFFAIRS

(1825-1837)

WHILE Jackson was reconstituting the civil

service, undermining the Bank of the United

States, and circumventing nullification by mingled threats and concessions, a controversy with Georgia and Alabama came also to a head. In the act by which Georgia, in 1802, ceded its western lands to the United States, it was agreed that the United States should extinguish the Indian title to lands within the state "as early as the same can be peaceably obtained upon reasonable terms." By a series of treaties, the United States succeeded in extinguishing the title to a considerable portion of the lands; but in 1825 the Creeks still held 4,245,760 acres, and the Cherokees 5,292,160 acres, in Georgia. Much of this was among the best land in the state. In addition, the two tribes held 5,995,200 acres in Alabama, the Cherokees 1,055,680 acres in Tennessee, and the Choctaws and Chickasaws 15,705,000 acres in Mississippi and 1,277,376 acres in Alabama. At that time the Creeks in Georgia and Alabama numbered about 20,000; the Cherokees in

1

Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, 9000; the Choctaws in Mississippi and Alabama, 21,000; and the Chickasaws in Mississippi, 3600. In 1827, after a controversy between Georgia and the federal government which had gone on since the beginning of Adams's administration, the remaining lands of the Creeks in Georgia were purchased by the United States.2

The position of the Cherokees, the most highly civilized of all the southern Indians, was substantially identical with that of the Creeks, and their leaders early recognized that the overthrow of their neighbors would be the signal for immediate encroachment upon their own territory. Against such encroachment, to be sure, they held indisputable constitutional guarantees. By a series of treaties extending from 1785, the United States had "recognized the Cherokees as a nation, capable of making peace and war, of owning the lands within its boundaries, and of governing and punishing its own citizens by its own laws." 3 These treaties were a part of the supreme law of the land, and the state of Georgia, as one of the parties to them, was clearly bound by them.

Jackson was not long in declaring his policy. A Georgia statute of December 20, 1828, annexed the Cherokee lands to five adjacent counties, and de

1 Am. State Papers, Indian, II., 546.

'Turner, Rise of the New West (Am. Nation, XIV.).
'Cherokee Nation vs. State of Georgia, 5 Peters, 17.

clared that after June 1, 1830, all laws of the Cherokee nation should be null and void, and all Indians resident in the Cherokee country should be subject to the laws of the state. A protest against the encroachments of Georgia had been presented to Adams by the Cherokees in February, 1829, but had been left without action. April 18, Eaton, the secretary of war, informed the Cherokee representatives that their only course was either "to yield to the operation of those laws which Georgia claims, and has a right, to extend throughout her own limits," or else to remove beyond the Mississippi. The right of the Indians to maintain an independent government within the limits of a state, but outside its jurisdiction, could not, it was declared, be conceded by the United States. Similar views were expressed in Jackson's annual message of the following December, where the case of the Indians in Georgia and Alabama was discussed at length.

2

For the welfare of the Indians the message of 1829 expressed kindly consideration; indeed, there is nothing in any of Jackson's official utterances to support the charge that he viewed the Indians with contempt or indifference, or that he was regardless of their treatment. Justice and humanity, he averred, required that they be saved from the destruction which must fall upon them if they re

1 Lalor, Cyclopædia, II., 392; Worcester vs. Georgia, 6 Peters, 'Niles' Register, XXXVI., 258.

52.5.