10. That the treaty should contain a clear and specific definition of the rights and status of the Cherokee Nation in its political attitude toward and relations with the United States. The proposed treaty formed the subject of much careful consideration, and negotiations were conducted throughout a large portion of the winter, without, however, reaching satisfactory results. The failure of the delegation to secure definite action on these matters caused a great degree of dissatisfaction among all classes of their people.[548] They were anxious to sell their surplus detached land, and by that means free themselves from financial embarrassment. They were fully conscious that, so long as their financial affairs continued in such a crippled condition, there was little ground for a hopeful advancement in their morals or civilization. A traditional prejudice against the policy of parting with any of their public domain was deep seated and well nigh universal among the Cherokees, but so grinding and irksome had the burdens of their pecuniary responsibilities become and so anxious were they to discharge in good faith their duty to their creditors that this feeling of aversion was subordinated to what was believed to be a national necessity. SLAVERY IN THE CHEROKEE NATION. The reports of the Cherokee agent during the year 1855 devote considerable space to the discussion of the slavery question in its relations to and among that nation, from which it appears that considerable local excitement, as well as a general feeling of irritation and insecurity among the holders of slave property, had been superinduced by the antislavery teachings of the Northern missionaries and emissaries of the various free soil organizations throughout the North. Three years later the agent reported that the amicable relations which existed between the Cherokees and the General Government certainly merited the latter's fostering care and protection, for already they were evincing much interest in all questions that concerned its welfare; that the majority of them were strongly national or democratic in political sympathy, though it was with regret he was obliged to report the existence of a few black republicans, who were the particular foundlings of the abolition missionaries. This same agent the following year (1859), after commending their enterprise and thrift, remarks: "I am clearly of the opinion that the rapid advancement of the Cherokees is owing in part to the fact of their being slaveholders, which has operated as an incentive to all industrial pursuits, and I believe if every family of the wild roving tribes of Indians were to own a negro man and woman, who would teach them to cultivate the soil and to properly prepare and cook their food, and could have a schoolmaster appointed for every district, it would tend more to civilize them than any plan that could be adopted." The latter part of this proposition perhaps no one would be willing