About this time there also appeared, in justification of the treaty and of his own action in signing it, a pamphlet address issued by Elias Boudinot of the Cherokee Nation. Mr. Boudinot was one of the ablest and most cultured of his people, and had long been the editor and publisher of a newspaper in the nation, printed both in English and Cherokee. The substance of his argument in vindication of the treaty may have been creditable from the standpoint of policy and a regard for the future welfare of his people, but in the abstract it is a dangerous doctrine. He said: We cannot conceive of the acts of a minority to be so reprehensible and unjust as are represented by Mr. Ross. If one hundred persons are ignorant of their true situation and are so completely blinded as not to see the destruction that awaits them, we can see strong reasons to justify the action of a minority of fifty persons to do what the majority would do if they understood their condition, to save a nation from political thralldom and moral degradation.[427] SPEECH OF GENERAL R. G. DUNLAP. It having been extensively rumored, during the few months immediately succeeding the conclusion of the treaty, that John Ross and other evil disposed persons were seeking to incite the Cherokees to outbreak and bloodshed, the militia of the surrounding States were called into service for the protection of life and property from the supposed existing dangers. Brig. Gen. R. G. Dunlap commanded the East Tennessee volunteers. In a speech to his brigade at their disbandment in September, 1836, he used the following language: I forthwith visited all the posts within the first three States and gave the Cherokees (the whites needed none) all the protection in my power. * * * My course has excited the hatred of a few of the lawless rabble in Georgia, who have long played the part of unfeeling petty tyrants, and that to the disgrace of the proud character of gallant soldiers and good citizens. I had determined that I would never dishonor the Tennessee arms in a servile service by aiding to carry into execution at the point of the bayonet a treaty made by a lean minority against the will and authority of the Cherokee people. * * * I soon discovered that the Indians had not the most distant thought of war with the United States, notwithstanding the common rights of humanity and justice had been denied them.[428] REPORT OF GENERAL JOHN E. WOOL. Again, February 18, 1837, General John E. Wool, of the United States Army, who had been ordered to the command of the troops that were being concentrated in the Cherokee country "to look down opposition" to the enforcement of the treaty, wrote Adjutant-General Jones, at Washington, thus: