But it is in vain to contend that the signatures of the last ten, which were obtained on the second mission, or of the three who have sent on their assent lately, is such a signing as was contemplated by the resolution of the Senate.  It is competent, however, for the Senate to waive the usual and customary forms in this instance and consider the signatures of these last thirteen as good as though they had been obtained in open council.  But the committee can not recommend the adoption of such a practice in making treaties, for divers good reasons, which must be obvious to the Senate; and among those reasons against these secret individual negotiations is the distrust created that the chiefs so acting are doing what a majority of their people do not approve of, or else that they are improperly acted upon by bribery or threats or unfair influences.  In this case we have most ample illustrations.  Those opposed to the treaty accuse several of those who signed their assent to the amended treaty with having been bribed, and in at least one instance they make out the charge very clearly.

Although the committee, being four in number, were unable to agree upon any recommendation to the Senate, it does not appear that there was any diversity of opinion amongst them in regard to this part of the report.  The provision of the resolution of the Senate of the 11th of June, 1838, requiring the assent of each of the said tribes of Indians to the amended treaty to be given in council, and which was also made a condition precedent to the recommendation to me of the Senate of the 2d of March, 1839, to carry the same into effect, has not, therefore, been complied with as it respects the Seneca tribe.

It is, however, insisted by the advocates for the execution of the treaty that it was the intention of the Senate by their resolution of the 2d of March, 1839, to waive so much of the requirement of that of the 11th of June, 1838, as made it necessary that the assent of the different tribes should be given in council.  This assumption is understood to be founded upon the circumstances that the fact that only sixteen of the chiefs had given their assent in that form had been distinctly communicated to the Senate before the passage of the resolution of the 2d of March, and that instead of being a majority that number constituted scarcely one-fifth of the whole number of chiefs, and it is hence insisted that unless the Senate had so intended there would have been no use in sending the amended treaty to the President with the advice contained in that resolution.  This has not appeared to me to be a necessary deduction from the foregoing facts, as the Senate may have contemplated that the assent of the tribe in the form first required should be thereafter obtained, and before the treaty was executed, and the phraseology of the resolution, viz, “that whenever the President shall be satisfied,” etc., goes far to sustain this construction.