In the year 1797 the legislature of the State of Tennessee addressed a memorial and remonstrance to Congress upon the subject of the Indian title to lands within that State. The burden of this complaint was the assertion that the Indian title was at best nothing greater than a tenancy at will; that the lands they occupied within the limits of the State had been granted by the State of North Carolina, before the admission of Tennessee to the Union, to her officers and soldiers of the Continental line, and for other purposes; that the treaties entered into with the Cherokees by the United States, guaranteeing them the exclusive possession of these lands, were subversive of State as well as individual vested rights, and praying that provision be made by law for the extinguishment of the Indian claim.[107] This was communicated to Congress by the President. Mr. Pinckney, from the committee of the House of Representatives to which the matter was referred, submitted a report,[108] accompanied by a resolution making an appropriation for the relief of such citizens of the State of Tennessee as had a right to lands within that State, by virtue of the cession out of the State of North Carolina, provided they had made actual settlement thereon and had been deprived of the possession thereof by the operation of the act of May 19, 1796, for regulating intercourse with the Indian tribes. The sum to be appropriated, it was declared, should be subject to the order of the President of the United States, to be expended under his direction, either in extinguishing the Indian claim to the lands in question, by holding a treaty for that purpose, or to be disposed of in such other manner as he should deem best calculated to afford the persons described a temporary relief. _New treaty._--The House of Representatives, on considering the subject, passed a resolution directing the Secretary of War to lay before them such information as he possessed relative to the running of a line of experiment from Clinch River to Chilhowie Mountain by order of Governor Blount, to which the Secretary responded on the 5th of January, 1798.[109] Following this, on the 8th of the same month, President Adams communicated a message to the Senate, setting forth that the situation of affairs between some of the citizens of the United States and the Cherokees had evinced the propriety of holding a treaty with that nation, to extinguish by purchase their right to certain parcels of land and to adjust and settle other points relative to the safety and convenience of the citizens of the United States. With this view he nominated Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, Bushrod Washington, of Virginia, and Alfred Moore, of North Carolina, to be commissioners, having authority to hold conferences and conclude a treaty with the Cherokees for the purposes indicated.[110]