rover. | TREATY OF JULY 2, 1791. 161 
tempt of the authority of the United States be suffered with im- 
punity, it will be in vain to attempt to extend the arm of govern- 
ment to the frontiers. The Indian tribes can have no faith in such 
imbecile promises, and the lawless whites will ridicule a government 
which shall, on paper only, make Indian treaties and regulate Indian 
boundaries.” ! 
He recommended the appointment of three commissioners on the 
part of the United States, who should be invested with full powers to 
examine into the case of the Cherokees and to renew with them the 
treaty made at Hopewell in 1785; also to report to the President such 
measures as should be necessary to protect the Indians in the bound- 
aries secured to them by that treaty, which he suggested would involve 
the establishment of military posts within the Indian country and the 
Services of at least five hundred troops. President Washington, on 
the same day, transmitted the report of the Secretary of War, with the 
accompanying papers, to Congress. He approved of the recommenda- 
tions of General Knox, and urged upon that body prompt action in the 
matter. ; 
Congress, however, failed to take any decisive action at that session, 
and on the 11th of August, 1790, President Washington again brought 
the subject to the attention of that body. After reciting the substance 
of his previous communication, he added that, notwithstanding the 
treaty of Hopewell and the proclamation of Congress, upwards of five 
hundred families had settled upon the Cherokee lands, exclusive of 
those between the fork of the French Broad and Holston Rivers.2. He 
further added that, as the obstructions to a proper conduct of the mat- 
ter had been removed since his previous communication, by the acces- 
sion of North Carolina to the Union and the cession to the United States 
by her of the lands in question,* he should conceive himself bound to 
exert the powers intrusted to him by the Constitution in order to carry 
into faithful execution the treaty of Hopewell, unless it should be thought 
proper to attempt to arrange a new boundary with the Cherokees, 
embracing the settlements and compensating the Cherokees for the 
cessions they should make. 
United States Senate authorizes a new treaty.—Upon the reception of 
this message the Senate adopted a resolution advising and consenting 
that the President Should, at his discretion, cause the treaty of Hope- 
well to be carried into execution or enter into arrangements for sueh 

‘American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 53. 
* Th., p. 83. 
*The assembly of North Carolina proceeded in 1789 to mature a plan for the sey- 
erance of Tennessee, and passed an act for the purpose of ceding to the United 
States of America certain western lands therein described. In conformity with one 
of the provisions of the act, Samuel Johnson and Benjamin Hawkins, Senators in 
Congress from North Carolina, executed a deed to the United States on the 25th of 
February, 1790. Congress accepted the cession by act of April 2, 1790, and Tennessee 
ceased to be a part of North Carolina. 
5 ETH il 

