That the Aborigines have been cruelly treated, cannot be doubted.  The very words of the Message admit this; and the tone of feeling and conciliation which follows that admission, coupled as it is with the intended injustice expressed in other paragraphs, can be viewed in no other light than as a piece of political mockery.  The Message says, “their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies.  Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions.  By persuasion and force, they have been made to retire from river to river, and from mountain to mountain, until some of the tribes have become extinct, and others have left but remnants, to preserve for a while their once terrible names.”  Now the plan laid down by the president, in order to prevent, if possible, the total decay of the Indian people, is, to send them beyond the Mississippi, and guarantee to them the possession of ample territory west of that river.  How far this is likely to answer the purpose expressed, let us now examine.

The Cherokees, by their intercourse with and proximity to the white people, have become half civilized; and how is it likely that their condition will be improved by driving them into the forests and barren prairies?  That territory is at present the haunt of the Pawnees, the Osages, and other warlike nations, who live almost entirely by the chase, and are constantly waging war even with each other.  As soon as the Cherokees, and other half-civilized Indians, appear, they will be regarded as common intruders, and be subject to the united attacks of these people.  There are even old feuds existing among themselves, which, it is but too probable, may be renewed.  Trappers and hunters, in large parties, yearly make incursions into the country beyond the boundaries of the United States, and in defiance of the Indians kill the beaver and the buffalo—­the latter merely for the tongue and skin, leaving the carcase to rot upon the ground.[16] Thus is this unfortunate race robbed of their means of subsistence.  Moreover, what guarantee can the Indians have, that the United States will keep faith for the future, when it is admitted that they have not done so in times past?  How can they be sure that they may not further be driven from river to river, and from mountain to mountain, until they reach the shores of the Pacific; and who can tell but that then it may be found expedient to drive them into the ocean?

The policy of the United States government is evidently to get the Indians to exterminate each other.  Its whole proceedings from the time this question was first agitated to the present, but too clearly indicate this intention; and if we wanted proof, that the executive government of the United States would act on so barbarous and inhuman a policy, we need only refer to the allocation of the Cherokees, who exchanged lands in Tennessee for lands west of the