More interesting and more important to the West and South was the stern and persistent policy of Jackson in removing the Indians from their fertile lands. From Michigan the natives were pushed into Wisconsin and Illinois, where they rested a few short years, only to be driven in 1833 beyond the Mississippi to the western parts of Iowa and Minnesota, against the heroic struggles of Black Hawk and a handful of followers. From the lower South the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws were gradually removed during the years 1830 to 1838, sometimes after the most shameless and brutal treatment by the representatives of both the States and the Nation. Before Jackson came to office the Creeks of western Georgia had been browbeaten into sales of their lands and then removed to the region beyond Arkansas, to be known thereafter as the Indian Territory. In 1833 to 1835 the Choctaws and Chickasaws of Mississippi were defrauded of their best lands and carried forcibly to the new Indian country; but the most arbitrary part of the governmental policy was the expulsion of the Cherokees from their beautiful hills in northern Georgia. Thirteen thousand in number, civilized and devotedly attached to their homes, these people insisted on remaining and becoming a State to themselves. Under the leadership of John Ross, they presented the case to the United States Supreme Court, which decided in 1830 that they composed a nation and that they could not lawfully be compelled to submit to Georgia. The people of Georgia would not for a moment consider such a proposition, and moreover they had made up their minds that the Cherokees must likewise give up their lands and migrate to the Far West. Jackson took this view, and in December, 1835, he made a treaty with some of the chiefs whereby the Cherokees were to receive new lands in the Indian Territory and more than five millions in money. This treaty was at once denounced and repudiated by the majority of the Indians, but the government agents executed it, and during the next three years the helpless natives were hunted down and carried, all save a small remnant, to the new region. Thus President Monroe's plan of settling the natives beyond the western frontier in Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and what is now Oklahoma, was worked out, and the land-hungry Western settlers were fast following them into their distant homes; but practically all the lands east of the great river were open to settlement, and Wisconsin, Illinois, Alabama, and Mississippi rapidly became populous communities.[4] No measure of Jackson's Administration won him greater popularity than that of the removal of the Indians.
With the tariff question “definitely” settled, the internal improvements demands temporarily in abeyance, the Bank “out of the way,” and with a growing prestige both at home and abroad, Jackson might now have formulated the other Western ideals, free homesteads, the re-claiming of Texas, and the occupation of Oregon. But this was all left to Van Buren, the man already practically chosen to carry forward the policies of the “old hero.” However, without a free homestead law or even a preëmption system, on which Benton had long insisted, the West was filling up with people in an unprecedented manner. The population of Alabama was only a little more than a hundred thousand in 1820; in 1835, it was not less than half a million. Mississippi counted seventy-five thousand in 1820; in 1840, its population had increased sixfold. The same story was told by the statistics of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. There was life, vigor, and rapid growth in all the accessible parts of the region which worshiped the President. Jackson's election was an advertisement of the West; the long debates in Congress about checking emigration to the Mississippi Valley increased the desire to go to the new and happy country; and the hard times of 1833-34 set thousands of men upon the highways leading to the promised land. And in the Western States every effort was made to attract people. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois built waterways which should feed the Mississippi or Erie Canal commerce, and thus make Western life profitable as well as free and unconventional. Where canals could not be constructed would go the great government road, passing through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and its state-built branches. Even railroads were projected in that far-off country. In the Southwest the network of rivers offered transportation facilities to the increasing crops of cotton, and ambitious men flocked there to “make fortunes in a day.” Sargent Prentiss, the poor New England cripple, went to Mississippi about 1830, and in six years he was both rich and famous; John A. Quitman, the preacher's son, of New York, worked his way about the same time to the lower Mississippi country, and in a few years was receiving an annual income of forty thousand dollars. John Slidell left New York City a bankrupt in 1819, but soon became a great lawyer and slave-owner in New Orleans.
The yearly migration of thousands of Eastern men to the valley of the Mississippi was still further augmented by streams of refugees from the unsettled and distressed conditions of Germany. In Ohio, Kentucky, southern Illinois, and Missouri these idealistic emigrants from Europe found new homes and substantial encouragement. They sent glowing accounts of the new world to their friends at home, and the tide of immigration which was destined to enrich American life steadily increased. All this stimulated speculation in Western lands, in canal and banking ventures. The Government sales of lands rose from $4,837,000 in 1834 to $24,000,000 in 1836. And the canal schemes of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois found financial support in New York and in London. No wonder the eastern manufacturers sometimes desired to close the roads that crossed the Alleghanies.
“Nothing succeeds like success” is an American saying which applies admirably to Jackson's second administration. The Western President had won all his great contests; Calhoun and the radical South had been tamed; Clay and Webster were dragged behind his car of state; the National Bank was rapidly passing from the political stage; and the tariff was no longer a troublesome factor in public life. The receipts of the Treasury had steadily outrun the expenses, and in 1834 the last of the national debt was paid. Since the income was almost certain to continue great, Jackson was at a loss what to do. Henry Clay urged a simple distribution among the States. The President feared the effect of this, and vetoed a bill to that effect; he even proposed that the Federal Government should buy stock in all the railway corporations in order that these growing monopolies be duly restrained. After two years of disagreement a law was enacted which offered to deposit the surplus with the States without interest charges, but subject to recall. The States hastened to make the necessary arrangements, and during the second half of 1836 and the first quarter of 1837 more than $18,000,000 were thus deposited.
The land speculations, already at fever heat in the West, the building of railways and canals, and the prospective distribution of millions of the public money warned the wise that sail must be taken in, else disaster would ensue. Jackson, therefore, issued an executive order in July, 1836, requiring the land offices to accept only specie in payment for lands; but it was not thought that this would occasion any great distress. The people seemed to be satisfied with the “reign” of Andrew Jackson, and it might have been expected that he would have little difficulty in placing his friend Van Buren in the high office so soon to be vacated.
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