The Administration was apparently convinced that the agreement of 1825 was not fairly obtained, and, in January of 1826, entered into another agreement with the Creeks, which, while recognizing the nullity of the agreement of 1825, secured the extinguishment of their claims to all lands in Georgia lying east of the Chattahoochee, and to a considerable tract north and west of this river. The Administration asserted that all the Creek lands lying within the limits of Georgia were secured. Senator Berrien of Georgia, who represented the interests of his Commonwealth when the agreement came before the Senate for ratification, said, on the contrary, that it failed by a million of acres of having done so.
| The Governor of Georgia repudiates the Convention of 1826. |
Governor Troup declared that the general Government could not by an agreement with the Creeks rob Georgia of vested rights, which had been, once for all, perfected by the agreement of 1825. He ordered the public surveyors to include in their surveys the lands claimed by Georgia west of the line designated in the agreement of 1826. The Indians resisted them, and appealed to the President to protect their rights as recognized by the latter agreement. The President ordered the United States District Attorney and Marshal for Georgia to arrest any one caught in the act of surveying the lands west of the line fixed by the agreement of 1826. The Governor was informed of this order, and was given to understand that the President would uphold the agreement of 1826 by any and all power necessary. The Governor, however, defied the Administration, ordered the law officers of the Commonwealth to effect, by any means necessary, the release of the arrested surveyors, and to secure the arrest and trial of those persons who had taken or held them in custody, ordered the commanders of the militia of the Commonwealth to hold their forces in readiness to resist the threatened invasion by the military power of the United States, and sent a message to the legislature informing that body of what he had done in the premises. In this message he took the ground that questions of jurisdiction—he called them questions of sovereignty—between the general Government and the Commonwealths could not be determined by the judicial power of that Government, but must be settled by agreement between the two parties.
| The President submits the matter to Congress. |
President Adams was deeply impressed with the seriousness of the situation. He felt that he must uphold the dignity and authority of the Government at all hazards and by all the means intrusted to him by the Constitution and the laws; and yet he was unwilling to provoke civil war, if it could be avoided, or to enter upon the work of coercion without the practically unanimous support of the country. He resolved, therefore, to lay the matter before Congress, and await its action. Congress did practically nothing, and the President was convinced that the nation was not prepared to have the Indian problem fought out under the issue of "States' rights" versus the Union.
| Georgia and the Cherokees. |
Encouraged by this success the Georgians now resolved to subject the Cherokees living within the limits of the Commonwealth to the laws thereof or force them to emigrate. In December of 1827, the legislature passed a law extending the criminal jurisdiction of the Commonwealth over a part of the lands occupied by the Cherokees. The Indians appealed to the President. The appeal came before the President during the last month of his official term, and he discreetly and courteously resolved not to embarrass the new Administration by committing the Government to any position in the question.