In his message of December 8th, 1829, President Jackson devoted much space to the Indian problem in general, and to it, as it affected Georgia and Alabama, in particular. He repeated to Congress the views which he had expressed to the Cherokees themselves, which were, as we have seen, that the general Government could not lend its countenance to the creation of an {217} Indian State within the confines of any Commonwealth of the Union against the will of that Commonwealth, and that the only alternative to subjection to the laws of the Commonwealth on the part of the Indians was emigration beyond the limits of the same. He also suggested the setting apart of a district in the far West for the permanent home of such Indian tribes as should prefer to continue in tribal organization, independent of the jurisdiction of any Commonwealth of the Union, where they might work out their own customs unmolested. This was the democratic, "States' rights" view of the subject. It denied all exemptions from the supremacy of the laws, and it also denied to the general Government any power to restrain a Commonwealth from the assertion of its jurisdiction over all persons within its legal limits, except in cases specially reserved by the Constitution. [Sidenote: Indian policy before Jackson.] The Administration of Mr. Adams, and the Administrations of all of his predecessors, had apparently inclined to the view that the Indian tribes were already states, having dominion over, and property in, the territory of the continent when the Europeans arrived upon it; that the titles of the European states to it were only valid as against each other, and meant, in relation to the aborigines, only a right of pre-emption; and that after the Constitution was established no government except the general Government of the United States could have anything to do with them. This was a crude and an impracticable view of the relation. It contained more of sentiment and humanitarianism than of common sense and inductive wisdom. The theory broke down completely in the Georgia case, and could not be re-enlivened for practical purposes {218} even by judicial decisions. The necessities of civilization have forced the country to follow the course outlined by President Jackson, and that is certainly good evidence of its correctness. The Georgians must have been encouraged by his message, for the legislature of Georgia immediately passed an act connecting the Cherokee lands with the counties which they adjoined, and imposing the full jurisdiction of the Commonwealth upon all persons living or being within the same. [Sidenote: The case of the Cherokee Nation.]