CHAPTER VI.

The Treaty of Indian Springs-Murder of McIntoshGeneral Gaines and Governor Troup-Threatened Collision of State and Federal Forces-The State Sustains Her Position-The Cherokee Nation-An Appeal to the Supreme Court-Its Writ of Error Disregarded-The Question of Coercion, &c., &c.

"When the United States, under the treaty-making power, claimed the right to settle with Great Britain the northern boundary of Maine, Governor LINCOLN, of that State insisted upon the right of Maine to assert her own boundary. Fortunately for Governor LINCOLN, he lived in a favored region; and his doctrine of State rights and sovereignty brought down no invectives upon his head, although in theory, and in language, too, he did not lag far behind the fiery Georgian."

SENATOR JOHN FORSYTH, 1831.

"The European journals, especially the English ones, which had followed the struggle with lively interest, had to listen to many a sneering remark about the short-sightedness which, springing from their hostility to everything Republican, had already led them to think they saw the United States bathed in the blood of her citizens, and the Union shattered forever."

VON HOLST'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.

"I entreat you most earnestly, now that it is not too late, to step forth, and having exhausted the argument, to stand by your arms." GOVERNOR TROUP'S MESSAGE.

All Georgia was in a blaze of excitement. The hostile Creeks declared they would not respect the treaty. The State of Georgia took steps at once to make a survey of the lands relinquished by the treaty, and to throw them upon the market. The Georgians complained that the agents had excited the Indians to violate the stipulations of the treaty. The President commissioned Colonel Andrews to investigate the com

plaints made against the agents.

General Gaines was

instructed to suppress any hostilities on the part of the Indians, and to seek some way by which an understanding could be arrived at with them.

General Gaines proceeded to the scene of hostilities, and as his intercourse was most closely with the Government agents, his views of the situation were very soon turned against the pretensions of Georgia. He reported to his Government that the INDIAN SPRINGS treaty was a fraud. He represented the people of Georgia as longing to rob the Indian of his lands, and as resorting to the foulest means of cunning and deceit to manufacture a treaty, plausible on its face, but unjust and tyrannical at heart He intimated that MCINTOSH was but an instrument of Governor TROUP, and that he had been used for the base purpose of giving a color of consent for the Creek Nation when ninety-nine hundredths of them were utterly opposed to a cession of their lands.

To this it was replied by the people of Georgia that it was true they wanted the lands of the Indian, but they did not seek to obtain them by robbery. The INDIAN SPRINGS treaty gave the Creeks better and more extensive lands in the West. It gave them means of transportation and a vast sum of purchase money. The Georgians wanted the lands of the Indian to make them subserve the purposes of a civilized rather than Savage life. This was no robbery. It was simply exercising the right of conquest, without imposing a single condition of hardship upon the subject. It was extending the area of Anglo-Saxon enlightenment and progress, and rendering compact and homogeneous the power of the republic from the Atlantic to the Missis

sippi. They asserted also that MCINTOSH, the chief of that branch of the Creeks which was true to the United States in the late war, and which had conquered and subdued their enemies, the RED STICKS, alone had the right to speak for the Nation. That right had been recognized by the General Government in a letter from the Secretary of War, of the 17th March, 1817. In conformity to that recognition, MCINTOSH and the friendly chiefs had been in the habit of speaking and still spoke for the Creeks. That the RED STICKS assassinated the faithful friends of the whites was no reply to the force of this argument. They further contended that President Monroe had recognized, and the Senate had ratified the Indian Springs treaty; that the Georgia Legislature, in pursuance of that ratification had enacted a law for the survey and distribution of the ceded territory; that citizens had acquired vested rights under this treaty and the laws made in pursuance thereof, which were the supreme laws of the land; and that by virtue of the decision of FLETCHER aginst PECK, those vested rights could not be disturbed, however the treaty might have been secured. They contended, moreover, that the treaty was secured fairly; that if money was used to bribe the chiefs, it was nothing more than had been done from the discovery of America. What JOHN SMITH and WILLIAM PENN could do for a few ounces of beads and a dozen or so red blankets, had now to be done, in the present advanced state of Indian ideas, with a more substantial largess. It was denied that the chiefs had been bribed by the State. The Governor could pay no money from the State treasury unless specially appropriated; no appropriation had been made for any such purpose; the

contingent fund was barely enough to keep cattle out of the capitol grounds and to pay the hire of servants about the offices of State; and finally, the treasury of the State was not able to pay one-tenth of the sums which the enemies of Georgia had set as the price of the treaty.

The true motive for the ratification of a treaty so favorable to the Georgians, might have been found in the relationship existing between the Governer of Georgia and the great Creek chief. George M. Troup was born in 1780, at McIntosh Bluff, on the west bank of the Tombigbee river, in what is now the State of Alabama. His grandfather was a captain in the royal

army, and chief of the McIntosh clan of Scotland. For valuable services in Florida, he was rewarded by King George with a grant of McIntosh Bluff and extensive lands in Mississippi. This Captain MCINTOSH had one son and one daughter. The son was, like his father, a British officer. The daughter married an officer of the British army named TROUP, while on a visit to England. Upon her return to her father's home, Governor TROUP was born at McIntosh Bluff. Captain MCINTOSH, the father of Mrs. TROUP, had a brother named RODERICK MCINTOSH, also an officer in the royal army. He was a man of great physical stature and courage, and the embodiment of chivalry. He took part with the Royalists in the Revolution. His cousins, JOHN and LACHLIN MCINTOSH, took part with the Whigs. RODERICK, or "Old Rory," as he was called familiarly, took to himself a squaw of the Creek Nation, and was the father of CHIEF WILLIAM MCINTOSH. The chief partook of the characteristics of the MCINTOSH family. He was brave, as a lion. His stature was above that of ordi