On the other hand, among the circumstances establishing the propriety of a contrary construction may be mentioned the language of the eighth article of the treaty, that "the United States also agree and stipulate to remove the Cherokees to their new homes and to subsist them one year after their arrival there." This language imports pecuniary responsibility rather than a simple disbursement of a trust fund. In the "talk" also which was sent[521] by President Jackson to the Indians to explain the advantages of the proposed treaty, he mentioned that the stipulations offered "provide for the removal at the expense of the United States of your whole people, and for their subsistence a year after their arrival in their new country." It was also the common practice of the United States in removing the Indian tribes from one locality to another to defray the expense of such removal, and this was done in the cases of their neighbors, the Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. It is a matter of but little surprise, therefore, that a conflicting interpretation of this treaty through a series of years should have produced grave embarrassments. Independent, however, of the literal provisions of the treaty of 1835, there existed other grounds upon which to base a judgment favorable to the claims of the Cherokees. The treaty with the supplementary article was finally ratified on the 23d of May, 1836, and by its provisions the Cherokees were required to remove within two years. It had been concluded (in the face of a protest from a large majority) with a small minority of the nation. Within the two years those who had favored the treaty had mostly emigrated to the West under its provisions.[522] The large majority of the nation, adopting the counsels of John Ross, had obstinately withstood all the efforts of the Government to induce them to adopt the treaty or emigrate. They had repudiated its obligation and denounced it as a fraud upon the nation. In the mean time the United States had appointed its agents under the treaty and collected a large military force to compel its execution. The State of Georgia had adopted a system of hostile legislation intended to drive them from the country. She had surveyed their territory and disposed of their homes and firesides by lottery. She had dispossessed them of a portion of their lands, subjected them to her laws, and at the same time disqualified them from the enjoyment of any political or civil rights. In this posture of affairs, the Cherokees who had never abandoned the vain hope of remaining in the country of their birth or of obtaining better terms from the United States made new proposals to the United States through John Ross and others for the sale of their country and emigration to the West. Still pursuing the idea that they were aliens to the treaty of 1835 and unfettered by its provisions, they proposed to release all claim to their country and emigrate for a named sum