GILMER COUNTY. 273 



and industry were confined to tlie whites, and the children of 

 white men, that the power over the tribe should become cen- 

 tral in the same hands. But that these causes were calculated 

 to produce similar effects upon the Indians (the real aborigines) 

 is disproved by every example among the thousands which the 

 experience of the two last centuries has furnished in every 

 part of this continent. The Cherokees have lost all that was 

 valuable in their Indian character — have become spiritless, de- 

 pendent, and depraved as the whites, and their children have 

 become wealthy, intelligent, and powerful. So long as the 

 Cherokees retained their primitive habits, no disposition was 

 shown by the States, under the protection of whose govern- 

 ments they resided, to make them subject to their laws. Such 

 policy would have been cruel, because it would have interfered 

 with their habits of life, the enjoyments peculiar to Indians, 

 and the kind of government which accorded with those habits 

 and enjoyments. It was the power of the whites, and their 

 children among the Cherokees, that destroyed the ancient laws, 

 customs, and authority of the tribe, and subjected the natives 

 to the rule of that most oppressiv^e of governments, an oli- 

 garchy. There is nothing surprising in this result. From the 

 character of the people, and the causes operating upon them, 

 it could not have been otherwise. It was this state of things 

 that rendered it obligatory upon the State of Georgia to vindi- 

 cate her rights of sovereignty, by abolishing all Chei'okee 

 government within its limits. Whether intelligent or ignorant, 

 the State of Georgia has passed no law violative of the 

 liberty, personal security, or private property of any Indian. 

 It has been the object of humanity and wisdom to separate 

 the two classes among them, giving the rights of citizenship 

 to those who are capable of performing its duties, and properly 

 estimating its privileges, and increasing the enjoyment, and 

 the probability of future improvements to the ignorant and idle, 

 by removing them to a situation where the inducements to 

 action will be more in accordance with the character of the 

 Cherokee people. Your suggestion that it would be conve- 

 nient and satisfactory if yourself, the Indians, and the Governor 

 would make up a law case, to be submitted to the Supreme 

 Court for the determination of the question, whether the Legis- 



