Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.Quincy, Josiah
History
Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams.
Quincy, Josiah
Adams, John Quincy, 1767-1848
On the 3d of January, 1831, Mr. Adams thus remarked on the resolutions
of the Legislature of Georgia setting at defiance the Supreme Court of
the United States: "They are published and approved in the _Telegraph_,
the administration newspaper at Washington. By extending the laws of
Georgia over the country and people of the Cherokees, the constitution,
laws, and treaties, of the United States, were _quoad hoc_ set aside.
They were chaff before the wind. In pursuance of these laws of Georgia,
a Cherokee Indian is prosecuted for the murder of another Indian,
before a state court of Georgia, tried by a jury of white men, and
sentenced to death. He applies to a chief justice of the Court of the
United States, who issues an injunction to the Governor and executive
officers of Georgia, upon the appeal to the laws and treaties of the
United States. The Governor of Georgia refuses obedience to the
injunction, and the Legislature pass resolutions that they will not
appear to answer before the Supreme Court of the United States. The
constitution, the laws, and treaties, of the United States, are
prostrate in the State of Georgia. Is there any remedy for this state
of things? None; because the State of Georgia is in league with the
Executive of the United States, who will not take care that the laws
be faithfully executed. A majority of both houses of Congress sustain
this neglect and violation of duty. There is no harmony in the
government of the Union. The arm refuses its office. 'The whole head is
sick, and the whole heart faint.' This example of the State of Georgia
will be imitated by other states, and with regard to other national
interests,--perhaps the tariff, more probably the public lands. As the
Executive and Legislature now fail to sustain the Judiciary, it is not
improbable cases may arise in which the Judiciary may fail to sustain
them. The Union is in the most imminent danger of dissolution from the
old, inherent vice of confederacies, anarchy in the members. To this
end one third of the people is perverted, one third slumbers, and the
rest wring their hands, with unavailing lamentations, in the foresight
of evils they cannot avert."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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