Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

ally prescribed such instructions; and its adoption would be an unauthorized assumption of power.

The general principle was also asserted, that the house was bound to carry treaties into effect, irrespective of their expediency ; that the question of expediency was one which the house was not called upon to decide. Such was the opinion of Washington, who, when called on by the house for a copy of the instructions to Mr. Jay, who had negotiated the treaty with Great Britain, stated, as a reason for refusing to comply with the request, that treaties, “when ratified by the president, with the advice and consent of the senate, become obligatory;” and “ that the assent of the house of representatives is not necessary to the validity of a treaty.” Congress was morally bound to pay the salaries of the officers of the government. The appointment of ministers, by whom treaties were made, was also given to the president and senate; and hence was inferred the duty of the house, in the present case, to vote the salaries of the ministers who had been constitutionally appointed.

The proposed restriction upon the ministers in relation to any “proposition of alliance or compact, binding the United States to resist interference from abroad with the South American governments," was the subject of much discussion. It seems to have been intended to counteract the designs (if any existed) on the part of the executive, to carry into effect the declaration of Mr. Monroe against European colonization in America, and against any attempts of the Allied Powers to extend their system to any portion of this continent. One object which Mr. Monroe had in view, was to prevent the occupation of the island of Cuba by any other European power; an event then not altogether improbable, but which might endanger the safety of the United States. The restriction, it was urged, would place it out of our power to counteract such design. The president was known to coincide in this principle of Mr. Monroe; and Mr. Clay, in his general instructions to Mr. Poinsett, our minister to Mexico, had requested him to bring to the notice of the Mexican government the message of Mr. Monroe to congress, in 1823, in which the declaration was made.

The advocates of the restriction would not look with indifference ou an attempt by any power to interfere with the independence of these republics, or to control their right of self-government; but they desired to be left free to adopt such measures as might be thought proper when the crisis should arrive. They denied that the amendment contained instructions, either to the president or to the ministers; and therefore it did not interfere with the constitutional rights of the executive. The right and the propriety of the house to express its opinion respecting the expediency of uniting in the contemplated congress, were asserted; as also the right to withhold appropriations for the mission. It was held that the constitutional power to do any act, implied a discretionary power to determine its expediency. What rendered the exercise of this power peculiarly proper in the present instance, was, that the question was submitted to the judgment of the house in express terms by the resolution of the committee.

The debate on the resolution of Mr. M'Lane continued in committee of the whole, until the 20th of April, when the committee reported to the house the resolution of the committee on foreign relations, without amendment. Mr. M'Lane then moved, in the house, the amendment he had offered in committee, which, after several ineffectual motions to amend it, was adopted, 99 to 95. On the next day, the question was taken on the resolution of the committee on foreign relations as amended on motion of Mr. M'Lane, and decided in the negative: ayes, 54; noes, 143.

The bill providing for the expense of the mission was then taken up in committee of the whole, slightly amended, and reported to the house. Mr. M‘Duffie moved to strike out the enacting clause, and supported his motion by a long, animated, and violent speech. The motion was lost, 61 to 134. On the following day, (April 22,) the bill was passed, 134 to 60.

It is impossible from these several votes to determine precisely the sense of the house upon the different points embraced in the general question. Some of the friends of the administration and of the mission without restriction, had voted for Mr. M’Lane's aniendment, regarding it as not hostile to the intentions of the president as expressed in his message. The next day, however, some of them, considering the amendment an encroachment on the coastitutional rights of the executive, united with those who were opposed to the mission as wholly inexpedient, in rejecting the amended resolution. Some probably voted for the bill appropriating the funds, who, though not friendly to the mission, considered it the duty of the house to make the appropriation without expressing its opinion on the expediency of the mission. Hence it is not certain, either that a majority of the house was in favor of the mission unrestricted, or of asserting a right to give instructions in relation to our foreign policy. The bill was concurred in by the senate, with but three dissenting votes.

The congress, composed of representatives from Colombia, Peru, Central America, and Mexico, assembled at Panama on the 22d of June, 1826. The United States were not represented. Mr. Anderson, our minister to Colombia, who had been ordered to attend the congress, died on the way; and the delay caused by the protracted discussion on the subject of the mission, in both houses of congress, prevented the attend ance of Mr. Sergeant. Sufficient time did not remain after the decision of the house to make the necessary preparation for his departure, and to cross the isthmus in time to avoid exposure to the sickness which prevailed there at a certain season of the year.

The congress closed its session the 15th of July; having concluded a treaty of league and perpetual friendship, in which the states not represented might join within the year. The congress adjourned to meet again in February, 1827, at Tacubaya, near the city of Mexico.

Mr. Poinsett, our minister to Mexico, was appointed commissioner in the place of Mr. Anderson, deceased; and Mr. Sergeant, with Mr. Rochester, secretary of the mission, departed for Tacubaya in November. The congress, however, did not assemble; owing, it was said, to the internal commotions in Colombia, Peru, and Central America, which had prevented the ratification, by their governments, of the treaties concluded at Panama. Until this should be done, it was believed the congress would not be resumed: and Messrs. Sergeant and Rochester returned the following summer.

Thus terminated the Panama mission, which, though well intended, and perhaps wise and proper if the congress had been fully attended, was, by the opponents of Mr. Adams, turned to the disadvantage of his administration,

[blocks in formation]

The removal and settlement of the Indian tribes beyond the Mississippi, had been repeatedly made the subject of executive recommendation. Mr. Monroe, in a special message, March 30, 1824, called the attention of congress to the subject; and again on the 27th of January, 1825, a few weeks before the close of his administration. In the latter message, the president said: “The great object to be accomplished is, the removal of these tribes to the territory designated, on conditions which shall be satisfactory to themselves and honorable to the United States. This can be done only by conveying to each tribe a good title to an adequate portion of land to which it may consent to remove, and by providing for it there a system of internal government, which shall

[ocr errors]

protect their property from invasion, and, by the regular progress of improvement and civilization, prevent that degeneracy which has generally marked the transition from the one to the other state."

The four principal southern tribes were the Creeks located in Georgia and Alabama, and numbering about 20,000; the Cherokees, in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, 9,000; the Choctaws, in Mississippi and Alabama, 21,000; and the Chickasaws, in Mississippi, 3,625. For the removal of the tribes within the limits of Georgia, the president considered the motive peculiarly strong, arising from an existing compact with that state.

Georgia was the only state having large claims to unoccupied western lands, which did not make an early cession of them to the United States. At length, by a compact between the two governments, Georgia ceded to the United States her right and title to all the lands south of the state of Tennessee, and west of the Chatahoochie river, and a line drawn from the Uchee dircct to the Nicojack on the Tennessee river. In consideration of this cession, the United States stipulated to pay the state of Georgia $1,250,000, and “ to extinguish at their own expense, for the state of Georgia, the Indian title to the lands lying within the limits of that state, as early as it could be peaceably obtained, and on reasonable terms."

The quantity of land owned by the Creeks at that time within the state of Georgia, was estimated at 19,578,890 acres. By several successive treaties, the last of which was held in 1821, the United States had procured the cession of 14,749,590 acres. At the date of the compact, the Cherokees were in possession of 7,152,110 acres, of which 995,310 acres had been acquired by the general government for Georgia. According to the report of the secretary of war accompanying the message of January 27, 1825, the Creeks still claimed in Georgia, 4,245,760 acres; and the Cherokees 5,202,160 acres. And the two tribes claimed in Alabama, 5,995,200 acres. The Cherokees claimed in Tennessee, 1,055,680 acres. The Choctaws and Chickasaws, claimed in Mississippi, 15,705,000 acres, and 1,276,976 in Alabama.

In farther fulfillment of the stipulation of the United States to extinguish the Indian title to lands in Georgia, a treaty was made February 12, 1825, with chiefs of the Creek nation, by which they ceded to the United States their lands in Georgia, and agreed to receive in exchange for them a like quantity west of the Mississippi on the Arkansas river, and the sum of $400,000 as a compensation for the improvements made on their lands, for their losses and the inconveniences attending their removal, and for obtaining supplies in their new settlement. They were to remove from their lands in Georgia by the 1st of Sept., 1826.

a

[ocr errors]

The execution of this treaty by Gen. M'Intosh, one of the principal chiefs, and a few others, without the consent of the representatives of the Creek nation, gave great dissatisfaction. Under the policy adopted at an early period, the southern Indians had become in a good measure civilized, and were exchanging their habits of hunting for the pursuits of agriculture. They were therefore averse to any farther sales, and had enacted the punishment of death against any chief who should sanction such a measure. In accordance with this law, M'Intosh and one or two other chiefs were summarily executed for this unauthorized and fraudulent transaction.

It was this treaty that led to the unhappy controversy between the state of Georgia and the general government. The Indians were determined not to leave their lands; and the government of Georgia insisted on the fulfillment of the treaty. A special meeting of the legislature was called by Gov. Troup, for the purpose, chiefly, of providing for the survey and appropriation of the territory acquired from the Creeks. The governor, however, took occasion to notice another subject, which, from its supposed superior importance, or for other reasons, took precedence in the deliberations of the legislature. The language and conduct of the governor and the legislature, and especially that of the committee to whom the subject was referred, were generally regarded as both ludicrous and reprehensible.

Mr. King, a senator from New York, had at the preceding session of congress, offered a resolution proposing to appropriate, after the payment of the public debt, the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, to aid in the emancipation of slaves, and the colonizing of free persons of color, without the limits of the United States. This resolution had never been called up by the mover, being intended, as was supposed, merely for record as his opinion on the subject to which it related. Similar propositions had been pressed upon the consideration of congress by the legislatures of several slaveholding states. Also Mr. Wirt, of Virginia, attorney-general of the United States, had given an official opinion, that a law of South Carolina, authorizing the imprisonment of colored mariners arriving there, was unconstitutional.

These acts of Mr. King and Mr. Wirt, were pronounced by the governor in his message, "officious and impertinent intermeddlings with our domestic concerns." The doctrine of the attorney-general, if sanctioned by the supreme court, “would make it quite easy for congress, by a short decree, to divest this entire interest, without cost to themselves of one dollar, or of one acre of public land. If the government of the United States," said the governor, “wishes a principle established which it dare not establish for itself, a cause is made before the supreme

a

[ocr errors]

a

a

« PředchozíPokračovat »