I herewith transmit a report of the Secretary of War, together with a report from the Commissioner of the General Land Office, accompanied by the necessary documents, communicating the information heretofore requested by a resolution of the House in relation to the salt springs, lead and copper mines, together with the probable value of each of them and of the reservations attached to each, the extent to which they have been worked, the advantages and proximity of each to navigable waters, and the origin, nature, and extent of any claim made to them by individuals or companies, which reports contain all the information at present possessed on the subjects of the said resolution.
JAMES MONROE.
MARCH 30, 1824.
To the House of Representatives of the United States:
In compliance with a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 14th instant, requesting information whether an advance of compensation had been made to any of the commissioners who had been appointed for the examination of titles and claims to land in Florida, and by what authority such advance, if any, had been made, I transmit a report of the Secretary of State, which contains the information desired.
JAMES MONROE.
WASHINGTON, March 30, 1824.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
I transmit to Congress certain papers enumerated in a report from the Secretary of War, relating to the compact between the United States and the State of Georgia entered into in 1802, whereby the latter ceded to the former a portion of the territory then within its limits on the conditions therein specified. By the fourth article of that compact it was stipulated that the United States should at their own expense extinguish for the use of Georgia the Indian title to all the lands within the State as soon as it might be done peaceably and on reasonable conditions. These papers show the measures adopted by the Executive of the United States in fulfillment of the several conditions of the compact from its date to the present time, and particularly the negotiations and treaties with the Indian tribes for the extinguishment of their title, with an estimate of the number of acres purchased and sums paid for lands they acquired. They show also the state in which this interesting concern now rests with the Cherokees, one of the tribes within the State, and the inability of the Executive to make any further movement with this tribe without the special sanction of Congress.
I have full confidence that my predecessors exerted their best endeavors to execute this compact in all its parts, of which, indeed, the sums paid and the lands acquired during their respective terms in fulfillment of its several stipulations are a full proof. I have also been animated since I came into this office with the same zeal, from an anxious desire to meet the wishes of the State, and in the hope that by the establishment of these tribes beyond the Mississippi their improvement in civilization, their security and happiness would be promoted. By the paper bearing date on the 30th of January last, which was communicated to the chiefs of the Cherokee Nation in this city, who came to protest against any further appropriations of money for holding treaties with them, the obligation imposed on the United States by the compact with Georgia to extinguish the Indian title to the right of soil within the State, and the incompatibility with our system of their existence as a distinct community within any State, were pressed with the utmost earnestness. It was proposed to them at the same time to procure and convey to them territory beyond the Mississippi in exchange for that which they hold within the limits of Georgia, or to pay them for it its value in money. To this proposal their answer, which bears date 11th of February following, gives an unqualified refusal. By this it is manifest that at the present time and in their present temper they can be removed only by force, to which, should it be deemed proper, the power of the Executive is incompetent.