NULLIFICATION
[The Indian Question in Georgia]—[The Indian Springs Convention]—[The Repudiation of the Agreement]—[The Controversy between the Administration and Georgia]—[The Creek Convention of 1826]—[The Governor of Georgia Repudiates the Convention of 1826]—[The President Submits the Matter to Congress]—[Georgia and the Cherokees]—[Jackson and the Indian Question]—[Indian Policy before Jackson]—[The Case of the Cherokee Nation]—[The Case of Worcester against Georgia]—[The Failure of the President to Execute the Decision in the Worcester Case]—[Jackson and Calhoun]—[The Call of the Convention of 1832 in South Carolina]—[The Nullification Ordinance]—[The Addresses Issued by the Convention]—[The Acts of the Legislature of South Carolina for the Execution of the Ordinance]—[The Meaning of Nullification as Understood by the Nullifiers]—[Jackson's View of Nullification]—[The President's Proclamation of December 10th]—[The President's Military Preparations]—[The President's Instructions to the Customs Officers in South Carolina]—[The Popular Approval of the President's Course]—[The Verplanck Tariff Bill]—[Governor Hayne's Counter-Proclamation]—[The President's Message of January 16th, 1833]—[Calhoun's Explanations in the Senate]—[The "Force Bill"]—[The Postponement of the Execution of Nullification]—[The Compromise Tariff]—[Mr. Calhoun's Support of Mr. Clay's Bill]—[The Opposition to the Bill]—[Passage of the "Force Bill" by the Senate]—[Passage of the Compromise Tariff Bill and the "Force Bill" by Congress]—[The Nullification Ordinance Withdrawn.]
| The Indian question in Georgia. |
Before nullification was resolved upon in South Carolina, something like it had been applied in Georgia. In the year 1802 Georgia formally ceded the lands claimed by the Commonwealth west of the Chattahoochee River to the United States for the sum of one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and upon the condition that the United States Government would, at its own expense, extinguish the Indian claims to any lands in Georgia so soon as this could be done peacefully and upon reasonable terms.
Between 1802 and 1820 the Government made some advance in the discharge of this obligation. By this latter date, however, designing white men had joined with the Indian tribes located within the Commonwealth, and were seeking to organize an Indian State for the purposes of their own political ambition, and many well disposed white persons were aiding them from humanitarian motives. The Georgians even accused the Government of doing things that would contribute to the same result. The Georgians were forced to face a very serious question, the question of an Indian State, controlled chiefly by white adventurers and sentimentalists, within the legal limits of the Commonwealth.
Under this pressure the Georgians reviewed the whole question of Indian organization, and rights to territory. They advanced the propositions, that the Indian tribal organizations were not States and could not, therefore, exercise dominion, and give title to real property; that the Indians living within the legal limits of the Commonwealth were subject to its jurisdiction in the same manner as other persons, and to the same extent; that the original title to all land within the limits of Georgia was in the Commonwealth, and every valid title must be derived from the Commonwealth; that the claim of the Indians to the lands on which the tribes lived was simply an incumbrance upon Georgia's title, an incumbrance which the general Government was obligated to remove; and that, after the Government should discharge this duty, Georgia's title would be perfect, without any formal transfer of these lands to Georgia by the Government.
| The demand of Georgia for the extinguishment of the Indian claims. The Indian Springs Convention. |
In 1819 the legislature of Georgia memorialized President Monroe to hasten the work of the Government in extinguishing the Indian claims. In the year 1824 the Creek chiefs in council resolved that not a foot of the lands claimed by the Creeks should be relinquished. Nevertheless, President Monroe's administration succeeded, in February of 1825, in negotiating an agreement with certain of the Creek chieftains according to which they relinquished to the United States the Creek claims to all lands lying within the limits of Georgia, and also to lands lying to the northwest and to the west of the Commonwealth. This agreement was ratified by the Senate of the United States in March of the same year.