296 ANDREW JACKSON 



credit their antagonists by calling them Tories, but 

 the device found little favour. On strict construc- 

 tionist grounds Jackson in 1829 vetoed the bill for a 

 government subscription to the stock of the Mays- 

 ville turnpike in Kentucky; and two other similar 

 bills he disposed of by a new method which the 

 Whigs indignantly dubbed a "pocket veto." The 

 struggle over the tariff was especially important as 

 bringing out a clear expression of the doctrine of nul- 

 lification on the part of South Carolina. Practically, 

 however, nullification was first attempted by Georgia 

 in the case of the disputes with the Cherokee Indians. 

 Under treaties with the federal government these 

 Indians occupied lands which were coveted by the 

 white people. Adams had made himself very unpopu- 

 lar in Georgia by resolutely defending the treaty 

 rights of these Indians. Immediately upon Jackson's 

 election the state government assumed jurisdiction 

 over their lands, and proceeded to legislate for them, 

 passing laws that discriminated against them. Dis- 

 putes at once arose, in the course of which Georgia 

 twice refused to obey the Supreme Court of the United 

 States. At the request of the governor of Georgia, 

 Jackson withdrew the federal troops from the Cherokee 

 country and refused to enforce the rights which had 

 been guaranteed to the Indians by the United States. 

 His feelings toward Indians were those of a frontier 

 fighter, and he asked, with telling force, whether an 

 Eastern state, such as New York, would endure the 

 nuisance of an independent Indian state within her 

 own boundaries. In his sympathy with the people of 

 Georgia on the particular question at issue, he seemed 

 for the moment to be conniving at the dangerous prin- 



