Strong, however, as was that desire he was unable to bring himself to the support of the methods that were being pursued in the negotiation of the proposed treaty. On the 5th of March following the conclusion of the treaty of 1835, he wrote the Secretary of War thus:
I conceive that my duty to the President, to yourself, and to my country, reluctantly compels me to make a statement of facts in relation to a meeting of a small number of Cherokees at New Echota last December, who were met by Mr. Schermerhorn and articles of a general treaty entered into between them for the whole Cherokee Nation.
* * * I should not interpose in the matter at all but I discover that you do not receive impartial information on the subject; that you have to depend upon the ex parte, partial, and interested reports of a person who will not give you the truth. I will not be silent when I see that you are about to be imposed on by a gross and base betrayal of the high trust reposed in Rev. J. F. Schermerhorn by you. His conduct and course of policy was a series of blunders from first to last. * * * It has been wholly of a partisan character.
Sir, that paper * * * called a treaty is no treaty at all, because not sanctioned by the great body of the Cherokees and made without their participation or assent. I solemnly declare to you that upon its reference to the Cherokee people it would be instantly rejected by nine-tenths of them and I believe by nineteen-twentieths of them. There were not present at the conclusion of the treaty more than one hundred Cherokee voters, and not more than three hundred, including women and children, although the weather was everything that could be desired. The Indians had long been notified of the meeting, and blankets were promised to all who would come and vote for the treaty. The most cunning and artful means were resorted to to conceal the paucity of numbers present at the treaty. No enumeration of them was made by Schermerhorn. The business of making the treaty was transacted with a committee appointed by the Indians present, so as not to expose their numbers. The power of attorney under which the committee acted was signed only by the president and secretary of the meeting, so as not to disclose their weakness. * * * Mr. Schermerhorn's apparent design was to conceal the real number present and to impose on the public and the Government upon this point. The delegation taken to Washington by Mr. Schermerhorn had no more authority to make a treaty than any other dozen Cherokees accidentally picked up for that purpose. I now warn you and the President that if this paper of Schermerhorn's called a treaty is sent to the Senate and ratified you will bring trouble upon the Government and eventually destroy this (the Cherokee) nation. The Cherokees are a peaceable, harmless people, but you may drive them to desperation, and this treaty cannot be carried into effect except by the strong arm of force.[426]
ELIAS BOUDINOT'S VIEWS.
About this time there also appeared, in justification of the treaty and of his own action in signing it, a pamphlet address issued by Elias Boudinot of the Cherokee Nation. Mr. Boudinot was one of the ablest and most cultured of his people, and had long been the editor and publisher of a newspaper in the nation, printed both in English and Cherokee. The substance of his argument in vindication of the treaty may have been creditable from the standpoint of policy and a regard for the future welfare of his people, but in the abstract it is a dangerous doctrine. He said:
We cannot conceive of the acts of a minority to be so reprehensible and unjust as are represented by Mr. Ross. If one hundred persons are ignorant of their true situation and are so completely blinded as not to see the destruction that awaits them, we can see strong reasons to justify the action of a minority of fifty persons to do what the majority would do if they understood their condition, to save a nation from political thralldom and moral degradation.[427]
SPEECH OF GENERAL R. G. DUNLAP.
It having been extensively rumored, during the few months immediately succeeding the conclusion of the treaty, that John Ross and other evil disposed persons were seeking to incite the Cherokees to outbreak and bloodshed, the militia of the surrounding States were called into service for the protection of life and property from the supposed existing dangers. Brig. Gen. R. G. Dunlap commanded the East Tennessee volunteers. In a speech to his brigade at their disbandment in September, 1836, he used the following language:
I forthwith visited all the posts within the first three States and gave the Cherokees (the whites needed none) all the protection in my power. * * * My course has excited the hatred of a few of the lawless rabble in Georgia, who have long played the part of unfeeling petty tyrants, and that to the disgrace of the proud character of gallant soldiers and good citizens. I had determined that I would never dishonor the Tennessee arms in a servile service by aiding to carry into execution at the point of the bayonet a treaty made by a lean minority against the will and authority of the Cherokee people. * * * I soon discovered that the Indians had not the most distant thought of war with the United States, notwithstanding the common rights of humanity and justice had been denied them.[428]