284 CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. 
lutely null and void.' A copy of these resolutions having been trans- 
mitted to the Secretary of War by General Wool, the former was di- 
rected” by the President to express his astonishment that an officer ot 
the Army should have received or transmitted a paper so disrespectful 
to the Executive, to the Senate, and through them to the people of the 
United States. To prevent any misapprehension on the subject of the 
treaty the Secretary was instructed to repeat in the most explicit terms 
the settled determination of the President that it should be executed 
without modification and with all the dispatch consistent with propriety 
and justice. Furthermore, that after delivering a copy of this letter to 
Mr. Ross no further communication should be held with him either 
orally or in writing in regard to the treaty. 
To give a clearer idea of the actual state of feeling that pervaded the 
Cherokee Nation on the subject of removal, as well as the character of 
the methods that distinguished the negotiators on the part of the 
United States, a few quotations from the letters and reports of those in 
a position to observe the passing events may not be inappropriate. 
REPORT OF MAJOR DAVIS. 
Maj. William M. Davis had been appointed an agent by the Secretary 
of War for the enrollment of Cherokees desirous of removal to the 
West and for the appraisement of the value of theirimprovements. He 
had gone among the Cherokees for this specific purpose. He held his 
appointment by the grace and permission of the President. It was 
natural that his desire should be strongly in the line of securing the 
Executive approval of his labors. 
Strong, however, as was that desire he was unable to bring himself 
to the support of the methods that were being pursued in the negotia- 
tion of the proposed treaty. On the 5th of March following the con- 
clusion of the treaty of 1835, he wrote the Secretary of War thus: 
I conceive that my duty to the President, to yourself, and to my country, reluct- 
antly compels me to make a statement of facts in relation to a meeting of a small 
number of Cherokees at New Echota last December, who were met by Mr. Schermer- 
horn and articles of a general treaty entered into between them for the whole Chero- 
kee Nation. 
* * * Tshould not interpose in the matter at all but I discover that you do not 
receive impartial information on the subject; that you have to depend upon the 
ex parte, partial, and interested reports of a person who will not give you the truth. 
I will not be silent when I see that you are about to be imposed on by a gross and 
base betrayal of the high trust reposed in Rey. J. F. Schermerhorn by you. His con- 
duct and course of policy was a series of blunders from first to last. * * * Tt has 
been wholly of a partisan character. 

1The Secretary of War, October 12, 1836, directed General Wool to inform Mr. Ross 
that the President regarded the proceedings of himself and associates in council as in 
direct contravention of the plighted faith of their people, and a repetition of them 
would be considered as indicative of a design to prevent the execution of the treaty 
even at the hazard of actual hostilities, and they would be promptly repressed. 
2 October 17, 1836, 
ee 
