Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
In the consummation of a policy originating at an early period, and
steadily pursued by every Administration within the present century--so
just to the States and so generous to the Indians--the Executive feels
it has a right to expect the cooperation of Congress and of all good
and disinterested men. The States, moreover, have a right to demand it.
It was substantially a part of the compact which made them members of
our Confederacy. With Georgia there is an express contract; with the
new States an implied one of equal obligation. Why, in authorizing
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama to form
constitutions and become separate States, did Congress include within
their limits extensive tracts of Indian lands, and, in some instances,
powerful Indian tribes? Was it not understood by both parties that the
power of the States was to be coextensive with their limits, and that
with all convenient dispatch the General Government should extinguish
the Indian title and remove every obstruction to the complete
jurisdiction of the State governments over the soil? Probably not one
of those States would have accepted a separate existence--certainly it
would never have been granted by Congress--had it been understood that
they were to be confined for ever to those small portions of their
nominal territory the Indian title to which had at the time been
extinguished.
It is, therefore, a duty which this Government owes to the new States
to extinguish as soon as possible the Indian title to all lands which
Congress themselves have included within their limits. When this is
done the duties of the General Government in relation to the States and
the Indians within their limits are at an end. The Indians may leave
the State or not, as they choose. The purchase of their lands does not
alter in the least their personal relations with the State government.
No act of the General Government has ever been deemed necessary to give
the States jurisdiction over the persons of the Indians. That they
possess by virtue of their sovereign power within their own limits in
as full a manner before as after the purchase of the Indian lands; nor
can this Government add to or diminish it.
May we not hope, therefore, that all good citizens, and none more
zealously than those who think the Indians oppressed by subjection to
the laws of the States, will unite in attempting to open the eyes of
those children of the forest to their true condition, and by a speedy
removal to relieve them from all the evils, real or imaginary, present
or prospective, with which they may be supposed to be threatened.
Among the numerous causes of congratulation the condition of our impost
revenue deserves special mention, in as much as it promises the means
of extinguishing the public debt sooner than was anticipated, and
furnishes a strong illustration of the practical effects of the present
tariff upon our commercial interests.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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