ROYCE. TREATY OF MAY 6, 1828. 239 
The President expressed it as his opinion that the Indian title was 
not in the slightest degree affected by the compact with Georgia, and 
that there was no obligation resting on the United States to remove the 
Indians by force, in the face of the stipulation that it should be done 
peaceably and on reasonable conditions. The compact gave a claim to 
the State which ought to be executed in all its conditions with good 
faith. In doing this, however, it was the duty of the United States to 
regard its strict import, and to make no sacrifice of their interest not 
called for by the compact, nor to commit any breach of right or ln- 
manity toward the Indians repugnant to the judgment and revolting to 
the feelings of the whole American people. The Cherokee agent, Ex- 
Governor MeMinn, was shortly afterward ordered,! “ without delay and 
in the most effectual manner, forthwith to expel white intruders from 
Cherokee lands.” 
Alarm of the Cherokees and indignation of Georgia.—The views ex- 
pressed by the governor and legislature of Georgia upon this subject 
were the cause of much alarm among the Cherokees, who, through their 
delegation, appealed? to the magnanimity of the American Congress for 
justice and for the protection of the rights, liberties, and lives of the 
Cherokee people. On the other hand, the doctrines enunciated in Presi- 
dent Monroe’s special message, quoted above, again aroused the indig- 
nation of the governor of Georgia, who, ina communication® to the Presi- 
dent, commented with much severity upon the bad faith that for twenty 
years had characterized the conduct of the executive officers of the 
United States in their treatment of the matter in dispute. 
Message of President John Quincy Adams.—Every day but added ac- 
rimonious intensity to the feelings of the officials and people of Georgia. 
Their determination to at once possess both the Creek and the Chero- 
kee territory within her chartered limits would admit of no delay or com- 
promise. Tollowing the Creek treaty of 1826, her surveyors were 
promptly and forcibly introduced into the ceded country, in spite of an 
express provision of the treaty forbidding such action prior to the 1st 
of January, 1827. So critical was the state of affairs considered to be 
that President John Quincy Adams invited the attention of Congress 
to the subject in a special message.*| Therein the President declared 
that if ought not to be disguised that the act of the legislature of Geor- 
gia, under the construction given to it by the governor of that State, 
and the surveys made or attempted -by his authority beyond the bound 
ary secured by the treaty of 1826 to the Creek Indians, were in direct 
violation of the supreme law of the land, set forth in a treaty which had 
received all the sanctions provided by the Constitution; that happily 
distributed as the sovereign powers of the people of this Union had 
been between their general and State governments, their history had 
already too often presented collisions between these divided author- 
' May 3, 1824. 3 April 24, 1824. 
2 April 16, 1824. 4February 5, 1827. 

