Cherokee Sovereignty, Nullification, and the Sectional Crisis ______

Home , Jeremiah Evarts, John Lyde Wilson, John Randolph of Roanoke

“FRAUGHT WITH DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES FOR OUR COUNTRY”: CHEROKEE SOVEREIGNTY, NULLIFICATION, AND THE SECTIONAL CRISIS ______

A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board ______

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy ______

by Nancy Morgan July 2015

Examining Committee Members:

Jonathan D. Wells, Advisory Chair, History Department David Waldstreicher, History Department Gregory J. W. Urwin, History Department Tim Alan Garrison, External Member, Portland State University

1 ABSTRACT

““Fraught with Disastrous Consequences for our Country”: Cherokee

Sovereignty, Nullification and the Sectional Crisis” explores how the national debates over Indian sovereignty rights contributed to the rise of American sectionalism. Although most American citizens supported westward expansion, the Cherokee Nation demonstrated effectively that it had adopted Western civilized standards and, in accord with federal treaty law, deserved constitutional protections for its sovereignty and homelands. The Cherokees’ success divided American public opinion over that nation’s purported rights to constitutional protections. When Georgian leaders and the state militia harassed Northern white American missionaries who supported Cherokee sovereignty rights, even citizenship rights seemed in question. South Carolina’s leaders capitalized on the Cherokee debate by framing their own protest against federal tariffs as a complementary states’ rights issue. Thus, in 1832, nine months after the U.S. Supreme

Court upheld Cherokee sovereignty protections against Georgia’s removal efforts in

Worcester v. Georgia, South Carolina issued an Ordinance of Nullification, proclaiming its state right to nullify federal taxation. Current historiography tends to suggest that most

Americans at that time ignored Cherokee sovereignty to confront South Carolina’s

Nullification challenge. Alternatively, this project proposes that the debates over

Cherokee sovereignty exacerbated Americans’ fear over South Carolina’s Nullification crisis, because together they representing a two-state challenge to federal authority.

While current historiography also recognizes that expansion was a critical feature of

American sectionalism, the debate over Indian sovereignty within already established ii

Eastern states demonstrates that the politics of expansion was not simply a Western borderlands issue. Nullification threatened the Union because Georgia and President

Andrew Jackson simultaneously ignored the U.S. Supreme Court’s authority to interpret constitutional law, while promoting the vital importance of constitutional law.

To explore the sectional tensions that linked Cherokee sovereignty and

Nullification, this project reviews the earlier period in American politics when these issues evolved separately to demonstrate the effect of their eventual connection. The first chapter provides an example that shows how the Cherokees protected their treaty rights successfully during this earlier period. Chapter Two considers the unique histories of

South Carolina and the Cherokee Nation, and their collective challenges to the evolving

American political economy. Chapter Three explores how the non-white republic of the

Cherokee Nation contributed to the weakening of race-based slavery positivism, despite its own investment in slavery. Chapter Four demonstrates how a widening circle of congressional figures began connecting publicly the debates over Cherokee removal, tariffs, and slavery, made especially visible during the Webster-Hayne debates in the

Senate. Chapter Five delineates the national discord over the extra-legal violence against white missionaries who protected Cherokee interests. As evident through the recently discovered prison journal of Rev. Samuel Austin Worcester—of Worcester v. Georgia— this chapter also demonstrates that despite their rhetoric otherwise, Jacksonians recognized the sectional toxicity when the American public connected Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have been the luckiest graduate student in the world. My committee has shepherded me through this dissertation process with a perfect balance of unflagging support and useful critique. They worked effectively with one another in the best interests of my project, surrounding my thesis with a secure weave of insight and direction. With great humility I offer my dissertation and accept all its shortcomings as my own.

While the political ramifications of Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification were national in scope, my advisor, Jonathan D. Wells, guided this Northern-born tourist past the most challenging landmines within Southern historiography. Steering me through regional nuances between planter authority and the slave power, from the beginning, Dr.

Wells buoyed me with his optimism over the significance of my work. He encouraged me to validate Southerners as quintessentially American and respect the insider’s experience through my outsider’s observations.

David Waldstreicher became nothing short of a co-advisor. Increasingly excited by the implications over the connection between Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification,

Dr. Waldstreicher conducted me through a complex symphony of significant articles, monographs, and scholarship-yet-to-be-published with his incomparable command of early American political history. Known for “not suffering fools gladly,” it seems more accurate to say that Dr. Waldstreicher does not suffer foolishness gladly. He is an exceptional teacher and a generous advisor to those who accept the challenge of his exacting standards.

Gregory J. W. Urwin provided his critical military history expertise to my study of frontier culture, Southern militarism, and “The General” Andrew Jackson. Driven by that holistic approach exemplified by the best of scholars, Dr. Urwin brought a drill- sergeant’s demand for straightforward argumentation and clear prose. His insistence that

I do better than my best benefitted my project enormously from the editorial assistance of

Petra Shenk.

As my outside reader, Tim Alan Garrison continues to guide and encourage me through the complex historiography connecting Native American history and sovereignty jurisprudence. Patient, kind, and brilliant, Dr. Garrison has repeatedly insisted on rigorous scholarship without the polemics, a challenging balance to uphold within the dangerously ironic labyrinth of federal Indian law.

In addition to the signatures that validate my dissertation, this project benefits from the unofficial but watchful eyes of the Jacksonian scholar Mark R. Cheathem and

Cherokee historian Cathy S. Monholland. Both fields are life-long studies unto themselves, and I am grateful for their openhanded guidance and encouragement. The legendary Donald Fixico generously read an early version of my project. With studied hospitality, he treated me to lunch while he patiently explained why what would become

Chapter Two was essential.

I could not have completed my graduate studies and dissertation without the generous support of Temple University’s “gradjunct” work-study program, travel grants and fellowships. David Murray, history research librarian extraordinaire at Temple’s

Paley Library, guided my research and taught me the finer points of navigating the v overwhelming digital resources available through research libraries. The Filson Historical

Society, Dickinson College and the American Philosophical Society’s Phillips Fund for

Native American Research enabled me to branch out with my research and conference travels, and I am grateful for their assistance. Catherine O’Donnell graciously offered to me the opportunity to teach at Arizona State University during my final dissertation year, which protected my access to another excellent university research library. It has been as much a pleasure to work with Arizona students as it had been with Pennsylvania’s, and I continue to marvel at how much history I learn from teaching it.

I had the privilege to travel to Cherokee, North Carolina and Tahlequah,

Oklahoma and to study with scholars of the Eastern Band and the Cherokee Nation. The representations by Barbara Duncan for the Eastern Band and Julia Coates for the

Cherokee Nation were neither more nor less accurate than the scholarly works I had already studied, but the altered focus gave me new insight into the significance of the outsider and insider perspectives of a nation’s history. Both presentations were driven to protect the integrity of Cherokee resources and national sovereignty. They also hold studied accountability toward contemporary representation of their own and other vulnerable Native sovereignties, as Dr. Coates, explains, “First do no harm.” In addition to accurate representation, both Dr. Duncan and Dr. Coates recognize that historic representations hold contemporary political power, and that power needs to be wielded with judicious sensitivity.

In a wonderful moment of serendipity, Margery N. Sly, Director of Special

Collections Research Center at Temple University, happened to ask about my topic a few vi years ago. When I told her, she asked me if I knew that the Presbyterian Historical

Society in Philadelphia housed Rev. Samuel Austin Worcester’s prison journal. I scarcely believed her, but how could I not check it out? When I first read Worcester’s incomparable epiphany that connected Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification, “fraught with disastrous consequences for our country,” I could barely contain my excitement. Dr.

Garrison and Ms. Monholland generously agreed to co-edit the journals, the Worcester family and the archivists at Presbyterian Historical Society entrusted us with publication rights, and the University of Nebraska Press agreed to publish. This dissertation is one small testament to the significance of Worcester’s reflections. Worcester’s insight into the connections between the health of the United States and its good faith relationship with Native American Nations is as pertinent today as it was in early America. The

Worcester journals encourage further study into America’s emerging political economy as influenced by planters, land speculators, and the cross-race sectional conflicts over citizenship and sovereignty rights.

This final paragraph of personal thanks is perhaps unusually awkward because, while writing my dissertation, I initiated a divorce after a twenty-six year marriage. I am grateful to my parents, Charles Henry and Joan Antoinette Velardi, for letting me “come home to Mama” through the separation process. I deeply miss my children, Nicholas

Alan Morgan Jackson and Brigit Raven Jackson Morgan, who live in Philadelphia and thank them for their patience and love. I hope that someday they will understand the importance of ending a marriage between two basically good people who simply could no longer support one another. vii

“Now, look, baby, ‘Union’ is spelled with 5 letters. It is not a four-letter word.”

― Dorothy Parker

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iv

TIMELINE ...... x

INTRODUCTION ...... xiii

CHAPTER 1: 1803-1828: THE CHEROKEE NATION CHALLENGES THE DOUBLE STANDARD IN FEDERAL INDIAN POLICY ...... 1

CHAPTER 2: CHEROKEE SOVEREIGNTY AND SOUTH CAROLINA NULLIFICATION: COMPLEMENTARY VISIONS OF EXCEPTIONALISM ...... 54

CHAPTER 3: 1825-1829: POLITICAL FISSURES OVER REPUBLICANISM: THE CONTRIBUTION OF NON-WHITE REPUBLICS ...... 111

CHAPTER 4: 1829-1830: THE EMERGING PUBLIC DEBATE CONNECTING CHEROKEE SOVEREIGNTY RIGHTS AND NULLIFICATION ...... 182

CHAPTER 5: 1830-1833: “FRAUGHT WITH DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES FOR OUR COUNTRY”: IRRECONCILABLE POLITICS AND CITIZEN VIOLENCE ...... 233

EPILOGUE: MULTIDIRECTIONAL MEMORIES AND THE LOGIC OF SCARCITY ...... 274

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 289

TIMELINE 1802 Thomas Jefferson’s compact with Georgia

1803 January 18: Jefferson’s confidential message to Congress February 27: Jefferson’s secret letter to Henry Harrison April 30: Louisiana Purchase signed in Paris

1804-1806 Cherokee Chief Doublehead signed land-sale treaties 1804: Wafford’s Tract 1805: Sections of Kentucky and Tennessee 1806: October 25, 27: Tennessee and Alabama

1807 August 9: Doublehead’s murder

1816 March: Cherokees prove their support of the American government through the Battle of Horseshoe Bend against Redstick Creeks

May 14: Secretary of War Henry Crawford accepts Cyrus Kingsbury’s invitation to provide civilization funds to the Cherokees through missionary support

1817-1819 Last “voluntary” Cherokee land sale treaty

1824 January to April: Cherokee Nation argues for funds for the 1804 treaty March 29-30: President James Monroe and Secretary of War John Calhoun argue for “Indian Reservations in Georgia” May 17: Senate approves and Monroe ratifies Cherokee treaty.

1826 March: Virginia Senator John Randolph increases the vitriol in his anti-administration attacks March 30: Randolph calls Secretary of State Henry Clay “Black George” and a “blackleg” April 26: Duel between Randolph and Clay May to October: Patrick Henry/Onslow Debates

1828 November: Andrew Jackson elected President December: Vice President elect John Calhoun pens his Exposition and Protest

1829 March 4: Jackson’s Inauguration August to December: ABCFM Secretary Jeremiah Evarts published his “William Penn” essays on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty.

1830 January: Published: Documents and Proceedings Relating to the Formation and Progress of a Board in the City of New York, for the Emigration, Preservation, and Improvement, of the Aborigines of America on behalf of Indian Removal Debate over Connecticut Senator Samuel Foot’s Resolution on Public Lands, including Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster, South Carolina Senator Robert Hayne, Missouri Senator Robert Benton May 24: Pennsylvania Joseph Hemphill Proposed Indian Removal Bill Amendment May 26: Indian Removal Bill passed the House of Representatives May 27: Jackson vetoed Maysville Turnpike Bill May 28: Indian Removal Bill passed the Senate

1831 February: Evarts sent letter to Worcester suggesting his arrest to raise support for the Cherokees March 4: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia March 13: ABCFM Missionary Samuel A. Worcester first time arrested March 19: Worcester released by Georgia Justice Augustin Smith Clayton May: Evarts died May 23: Worcester received notice relieved of federal postmaster duties May 31: Worcester received letter from Georgia Governor George Gilmer urging Worcester to leave the state to avoid arrest July 7: Worcester arrested second time July 11-25: Worcester published letter: “Jail at Camp Gilmer” Worcester released September 9: Worcester and associate, Dr. Elizur Butler arrested November: Wilson Lumpkin elected governor of Georgia

1832 January 1: Charles Mills became principal prison keeper of the Georgia Penitentiary March 3: Worcester v. Georgia March 12: Worcester learned of court decision March 14: Mills reported to Worcester about dinner with Governor November 24: South Carolina passed Nullification Ordinance December 3-5: Worcester learned of Ordinance, made overtures to leave prison xi

December 10: Jackson issued Nullification Proclamation

1833 January 14: Worcester and Butler left Penitentiary January 16: Jackson requested Force authority from Congress March 1: Jackson signed Force Bill into Law and Compromise Tariff Legislation March 7: South Carolina declared Force Bill “null and void.”

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INTRODUCTION

The state militia, the Georgia Guard, arrested Rev. Samuel Austin Worcester, missionary for the Cherokees, three times in 1831. On September 29, 1831 Worcester and fellow missionary Dr. Elizur Butler entered the Georgia Penitentiary where they remained until January 1833. Georgia’s political leaders believed that missionaries thwarted their Indian removal efforts. Alternatively, Worcester and Butler believed that their principled stand on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty rights protected both the

Cherokees and the integrity of the United States. In March 1832, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the missionaries in their decision, Worcester v. Georgia. Writing for the 6-1 majority opinion, Chief Justice John Marshall explained that the Cherokee Nation’s sovereignty was protected by federal treaty law and could not be superseded by Georgia’s state laws. In accord with the United States Constitution, the U.S. treaties with the

Cherokee Nation “have been duly ratified by the Senate of the United States of America.”

These treaties acknowledged “the said Cherokee nation to be a sovereign nation,” able to govern itself and those who settled within its territory. The treaties protected the

Cherokees from “any right of legislative interference by the several states composing the

United States of America.”1

This landmark decision, Worcester v. Georgia (1832), was the first U.S. Supreme

Court opinion that affirmed explicitly congressional authority over state law in regard to

1 Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 6 Pet. 539 (1832). For discussion of the significance of Worcester v. Georgia, especially in relation to the earlier decision, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia see, Nancy Morgan, “Jeremiah Evarts: The Cherokees’ Forgotten Counsel,” ed. Tim Alan Garrison, “Our Cause Will Ultimately Triumph”: Profiles from the American Indian Sovereignty Movement (Durham: Carolina Academic Press), 27-38. xiii

Indian sovereignty rights. However, the state of Georgia and President Andrew Jackson ignored the court’s ruling. The Georgia Guard proceeded to distribute Cherokee territory to the state’s citizens through a lottery system, and the president neither stopped nor criticized the state’s actions. The Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, the mouthpiece of the

Cherokee Nation, stepped up its own pressure on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty. “It would seem to be quite evident, that all the agents of Georgia, who are concerned in retaining the Missionaries in gaol, are trespassers, and must, one day, answer for the false imprisonment.” The editor, Elias Boudinot appealed to the American public. “We have too much confidence in the love of country, and the common sense of the Georgians, to apprehend that the present collision between the Judicial authorities of that State, & of the United States, will terminate tragically. Let all the parties keep their temper as well as they can: let the friends of the Union stand firm.”2 The Cherokees were elated over the results of the court decision, anticipating that the United States would uphold it.

Recognizing the significance of his actions, Worcester kept a journal while imprisoned in the Georgia Penitentiary. “Surely it does appear to me that the United

States Courts ought to have the power, in such cases to issue writs of habeas corpus, to release prisoners unjustly confined. But if not, God grant us grace to wait the slow process of law with quiet resignation to his will.”3 As discussed in Chapter Five,

Worcester’s journal demonstrates that Georgia’s leaders and Jackson’s supporters worked

2 Cherokee Phoenix, May 5, 1832. 3 Samuel Austin Worcester, 1798-1859, Journals: 1831-1841, MF POS. 1247, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 20, 1832. There are two journals. The first is dated from 1831- 1833. The second is dated from 1835-1841. xiv feverishly to encourage the missionaries to leave prison voluntarily. Worcester was fully aware of the pressure brought upon the State of Georgia over the missionaries’ imprisonment for defending Cherokee sovereignty. As late as November 1832, their resolve to withstand that pressure remained firm. Because only one state challenged federal authority, the missionaries were convinced that Georgia would eventually back down. Yet in that same month, everything changed.

On November 24, 1832, with Jackson’s reelection affirmed, South Carolina publicized its Nullification Ordinance. The Ordinance declared the federal tariffs agreement, authorized by Congress in May and signed into law by the president in July

1832, were “unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State.”4

Suddenly two states, not one, challenged federal authority. On December 5, 1832,

Jackson’s supporters convinced the missionaries that if they remained in prison insisting that Georgia adhere to the Supreme Court’s decision while South Carolina engaged its own federal protests, they would bear the responsibility of bringing the United States into a violent civil war. Their imprisonment meant that “prosecuting the case farther would be fraught with disastrous consequences for our country, and that no good could possibly result from it. The apprehension that further collision with the Supreme Court would lead

Georgia to join with South Carolina.” Jackson supporters convinced the missionaries that their protest could lead to national dissolution.5 For this reason, Worcester and Butler

4 South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, November 24, 1832. 5 Worcester Journal, 1831-1833, December 5, 1832. My italics. xv chose to leave the Georgia State Penitentiary on January 14, 1833. Leaving prison did not rescind the Supreme Court decision on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty, but politically, it weakened the decision’s force.

The Worcester decision upheld Cherokee sovereignty, but the court’s ability to decide had depended upon the missionaries’ imprisonment as American citizens. In an earlier decision, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (March 1831), the chief justice declined to render an opinion over Cherokee sovereignty because the “Cherokee Nation is not a foreign state in the sense in which the terms “foreign state” is used in the Constitution of the United States” and therefore, the court “cannot interpose, at least in the form in which those matters are presented.”6 The imprisonment of the missionaries as American citizens gave the court the jurisdiction it sought. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme

Court recognized the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation through constitutionally defined federal treaty law. The justices understood that the case questioned “the validity of the treaties made by the United States with the Cherokee Indians.” Marshall explained that treaties between nations, Indian or otherwise, were “applied to all in the same sense.”7

The chief magistrate, however, did not agree with the federal judiciaries’ constitutional ruling.

With the support of Attorney General Roger Brooke Taney, Jackson applied a racial distinction to constitutional law. Commenting on the Choctaw Treaty of 1830,

Taney explained that the Indian “reserves in question are not made on the condition of

6 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. 5 Pet. 1 1 (1831). 7 Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 6 Pet. 539 (1832). xvi remaining and becoming citizens, but are absolute and made in favor of persons who may be expected to remove.”8 Neither Jackson nor Taney supported the Worcester decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. However, the court’s decision was easier to ignore after the missionaries left prison.

Although Jackson downplayed the importance of the Worcester decision, he still appeared to recognize its political significance. He waited to take decisive action against

South Carolina until after the missionaries left prison on January 14, 1833. Two days later on January 16, the president demanded congressional support to quell South

Carolina’s Nullification challenge with military force. He requested that Congress grant him the authority to enforce legislative and judicial decisions as if validating the opinions of each. Although Jackson unilaterally negated a Supreme Court decision, he justified his demands upon the importance of upholding the law. The president insisted “these principles [upholding national law] are acknowledged to create a sacred obligation; and in compacts of civil government, involving the liberties and happiness of millions of mankind, the obligation can not be less.”9 Jackson’s disregard for the Supreme Court decision against Georgia, while claiming constitutional authority to act against South

Carolina, significantly weakened the president’s credibility. South Carolinian State

Representative James L. Petigru supported Jackson’s efforts to protect the Union. Yet he

8 Roger Brooke Taney to Andrew Jackson, November 1, 1831, Papers of Andrew Jackson, microfilm supplement, 3426. 9 43 Niles’ Weekly Register 191 1832-1833, January 19, 1833, p. 342. xvii winced over Jackson’s methods, writing to Hugh Legaré, “The old man” [Jackson]

“seems to be more than half a Nullifier himself.”10

Likewise, Jackson’s supporters may have not supported the Worcester decision, but they recognized its political potency. Worcester’s journal demonstrates the lengths to which Jacksonians sought to remove the missionaries from their prison protest, indicating a significant influence of both debates over Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification upon one another. South Carolina’s Nullification Ordinance was the reason that the missionaries voluntarily left prison and removed the pressures against Georgia’s defiance against the U.S. Supreme Court. Further, the debates’ connection helped to transform

Nullification into the disunion threat it became. Without the concurrent debate over

Cherokee sovereignty, it was unlikely that Nullification would have created the crisis it did.

Worcester’s journal demonstrates how radically his position shifted before, during, and after the Nullification crisis. Originally, he endured prison on behalf of both the Cherokee Nation and the United States. Shortly before the Supreme Court’s

Worcester decision on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty rights, the plaintiff Worcester reflected over the common misconception that the interests of the Cherokee Nation and the United States were separate and distinct. “The question is not between interest and interest, but between fancied interest and justice.” If citizens or states could rob Indians of their treaty-protected properties without restitution, the act would weaken national

10Petigru to Hugh S. Legaré, October 29, 1832. As quoted in Merrill D. Peterson, Olive Branch and Sword: The Compromise of 1833 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), 43. xviii unity. It would be a “flagrant violation of national faith” and the United States would neglect its “most solemn obligations.”11 Shortly after the Worcester decision, yet before

South Carolina’s Nullification Ordinance, visitors vainly attempted to impress upon the missionary the likelihood of civil war if he refused to back down from insisting that

Georgia uphold the Supreme Court opinion. Worcester believed that as a single protesting state, Georgia would eventually submit to federal authority. Alone, “the state of Georgia may make a show of resistance, but not a drop of blood will be shed.”12 From

March to December 1832, Worcester and Butler remained convinced they held the upper hand. They would remain in prison until Georgia acquiesced to national authority.

However, the newly elected governor of Georgia, Wilson Lumpkin initiated plans to change the missionaries’ minds.

Shortly after the Worcester decision, Lumpkin held a dinner meeting at his home to consider the imprisoned missionaries’ problematic position for the state. One guest conceded that the missionaries would resist all pressure, yet a way existed to encourage compliance. “You may reason with these men, and convince them of what is right, and they will do it, but you cannot force them.”13 Eight months later, South Carolina’s

Nullification Ordinance of November 24, 1832 convinced them. An 1831exchange of letters between Nullification proponent James Hamilton, Jr. and President Jackson indicates that Nullification supporters sought to link their cause with Georgia’s claim against federal sovereignty. Lumpkin’s associates presented the news of South Carolina’s

11 Worcester Journal, 1831-1833, February 29, 1832. 12 Worcester Journal, March 20, 1832. 13 Worcester Journal, 1831-1833, March 14, 1832. xix

Ordinance to the missionaries in a such way that left no doubt that the missionaries connected both state’s protests and might cause civil war. The difference between one state and two states challenging federal authority cannot be overstated. In Worcester’s mind, Georgia alone would have eventually succumbed to national pressures, but when

South Carolina simultaneously protested federal tariffs, the threat of disunion emerged with a vengeance. Silenced to avoid civil war, but not forgotten, the debates over

Georgia’s resistance to Supreme Court recognition of Cherokee sovereignty contributed to the heightened national fear over disunion. Indeed Jackson’s support for Georgia’s resistance galvanized South Carolinians to stake their claim against the federal legislature.

Jackson’s militant stance against South Carolina actually heightened the crisis due to his constitutional inconsistencies. “The Constitution, which his oath of office obliges him to support, declares that the Executive “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”14 Ignoring all preceding presidential administrations that deemed otherwise,

Jackson was the first U.S. president to publicly regard federal treaties with Indian Nations as exercises in expediency not legally binding. Jackson’s Secretary of War John Eaton refused to acknowledge legal precedents established by previous administrations that protected Indians against white encroachment. Eaton’s arbitrary dismissal of precedent increased extralegal violence against Indians and the white citizens who supported them.

Neighboring whites and the local Georgia militia harassed missionaries who supported

Cherokee resistance by arresting them on spurious charges and then releasing them.

14 Ibid, p. 343. Italics in original. xx

Although race-based interpretations over constitutional law were promoted as protecting white citizens exclusively, these interpretations had the unintended effect of endangering citizens who dissented.

This project explores how the debates over Cherokee Sovereignty and South

Carolina’s Nullification in 1832-1833 contributed to the pattern of the emerging sectional crises, through conflicts over sovereign authority, the increased violence against U.S. citizens, and the unresolved debate over racial distinctions within constitutional law.

Indeed, it may be reasonable to suggest that without the debates over Cherokee sovereignty, legislators might have found ways to resolve the tariff crisis had they felt less threatened by Nullification. While imprisoned, Worcester believed that the general public wanted Jackson to enforce the Supreme Court decision. They reelected the president because, as Worcester related, “other considerations of a political nature, as the tariff etc. outweighed those which related to the case in which we are involved.”15 In other words, fear over disunion pressured Americans into accommodating Jackson, at least temporarily. The Cherokee crisis over Indian sovereignty through treaty law brings

Native American resistance to white expansion into the story of slavery, state-federal- tribal sovereignty, and the U.S. political and constitutional development. Although slavery became the central issue during the American Civil War, President-elect

15 Worcester journal, November 30, 1832. xxi

Abraham Lincoln made it clear that it was not slavery, but the crisis over slavery’s expansion that started it.16

Jackson did not see the Georgia and South Carolina crises as related. As indicated by Attorney General Taney’s November 1831 report to President Jackson, the purpose of

Indian treaties was pacification and eventual removal. Indian treaties were not to be taken seriously as federal law simply because the compact was made with Indians. In effect,

Jackson represented an American subset that begged a sectionally divisive race-based interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Southern politicians, planters and speculators, folk on the frontier, and white neighbors along the Cherokee borderlands were the dominant subsets that supported racial distinctions in constitutional law. The general public in the

Northeast, mid-Atlantic states, and Northwestern regions were as race-sensitive as its

Southern neighbors but resisted applying race to constitutional law.

American citizens generally supported Indian removal to vaguely defined

Western reserves. Sectional discord arose from embedding racial distinctions within the constitution. Genuinely surprised by the national public outcry demanding a Cherokee exception, Jackson backed down from ordering their immediate removal. Yet he refused to accept their Supreme Court-protected sovereignty. Five years later, Jackson’s hand- picked successor, the newly-elected Martin Van Buren took advantage of the financial

16 In December 1860 during secession winter, President-elect Abraham Lincoln wrote, “Entertain no proposition for a compromise in regard to the extension of slavery. The instant you do, they have us under again; all our labor is lost, and sooner or later must be done over. Douglas is sure to be again trying to bring in his “Pop. Sov.” Have none of it. The tug has to come & better now than later.” Abraham Lincoln to William Kellogg, December 11, 1860. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 4 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Digital Library Production Services, 2001). Italics in Collected Works. quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln4?view=toc. xxii panic in 1837-1838, and enforced the Cherokee removal with federal troops and the

Georgia militia. What made the Cherokees’ removal unique was not their removal itself, but the discord that resulted from the U.S. Supreme Court’s recognition of Cherokee sovereignty, which the federal executive explicitly ignored. The story of the battle over

Cherokee sovereignty places their resistance strategies firmly within studies of sectional discord and debates over federalism. Although Jackson believed that Indian removals would strengthen the nation, his refusal to support the Supreme Court decision on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty, while defending his military threats against South Carolina as constitutionally driven, had precisely the opposite effect. The recent discovery of

Worcester’s journals encourages future scholars to rethink the impact of these simultaneous debates upon each other. As sectional pressures increased, memories over

Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification changed significantly. While the Cherokee

Nation’s significance waned dramatically after their removal, national fears over South

Carolina’s Nullification crisis continued to escalate.

Historians have linked the debates over Cherokee sovereignty and the

Nullification Crisis, but mostly to underscore Jackson’s apparent hypocrisy or double standard when enforcing national power in one place (South Carolina) and not in the other (Georgia). Their point has been largely to demonstrate that Jackson was an “Indian hater,” committed expansionist, obsessively devoted to the Union and national security, or some combination of all three. But the intersections of Cherokee sovereignty and

Nullification have larger implications that provide insight into the nation’s emerging sectional crises that eventually led to civil war. Studying how these crises developed xxiii separately but then merged reveals significant components of the nation’s expansionist policies that contributed to American sectionalism.

Chapter One introduces the political arguments over Indian removals and federal tariffs as they appeared to the public before Jackson’s first term in office. Although separate debates, they were significant and heated, but not yet sectional, since most

American citizens abhorred taxation and supported Indian removals. This chapter also demonstrates how Cherokee leaders contributed to federal changes in U.S. Indian policy.

Until 1824, U.S. officials believed that education through missionary agents would prepare Native Americans for removal. When Cherokee delegates showed that their education enabled them to negotiate favorable land-rights treaties with the War

Department, it was Jackson’s predecessor, President John Quincy Adams who began to shift Indian policy by undermining federal financial support for missionary education.

Chapter Two is an ethnographic history that outlines the evolution of parallel uniqueness of South Carolina and the Cherokee Nation. The singularity of the Cherokee successes and the low-country’s investment in Nullification are deeply rooted in their respective geographies and locations. South Carolina’s political governance evolved through its founding as a military outpost and as a Proprietary colony. The Cherokee

Nation’s evolving understanding of its national sovereignty emerged as an Iroquoian culture separated from its northern cousins and surrounded by Muskogean tribes in the non-coastal southeast.17 Although divided according to clan loyalties and local customs,

17 Raymond D. Fogelson and Amelia Bell, “Cherokee Booger Mask Tradition,” N. R. and Halpin, M., eds. The Power of Symbols: Masks and Masquerade in the Americas. Vancouver: University of British xxiv the Cherokees shared a sense of nationhood long before their contact with European nations. This chapter also considers the significance of political economy as a justification for political authority in the late colonial era and early republic.

Chapter Three demonstrates how the Virginian planter/senator John Randolph popularized planter proslavery interests even as he connected issues over slavery and non-white republics in explosive ways. His long-winded anti-administration senatorial speeches provoked the “Patrick Henry-Onslow” debate over the meaning of republicanism. At first, political leaders avoided addressing publicly the slavery and non- white republic issues that Randolph connected. Yet Randolph provided the impetus for these debates over republicanism and later discussions involving slavery, tariffs, Indian removal and the meaning of republican government remained connected on the congressional floor and in the public mind. Further, Vice President John C. Calhoun, a

South Carolinian piedmont planter, noted the northeastern sectional critique over his support for John Randolph, which contributed to his public alignment with southern sectional interests.

Chapter Four demonstrates how congressional figures began connecting publicly the debates over Cherokee removal, tariffs, and slavery, especially through the Webster-

Hayne debates in the Senate, which embroiled the tariff disputes with violent Indian and slave imagery. The concurrent debates over President Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal bill reveal conflicting uses of democratic governance when defined as majority rule. It

Columbia, 1983, 48-69.

xxv explores how nullifiers effectively hijacked the Cherokee sovereignty debates for their own purposes to broaden their state’s rights claims beyond South Carolina. Additionally, citizens increasingly recognized a disturbing connection between majority rule and tyranny over political minorities.

Chapter Five illustrates the Georgia militia’s harassment of the missionaries who worked with the Cherokees, demonstrating the extra-legal violence against citizens who held minority opinions. It also tells the story of Worcester’s prison experience. Despite the public rhetoric otherwise, Jacksonians recognized the connection between Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification, and worked actively to divide these issues. Although the effort to re-separate these issues through race politics is reserved for the final chapter, the earlier chapters demonstrate how race politics contributed to their connection in the first place.

The Epilogue considers the significance of the changing public memory for the debates over Cherokee removal and Nullification. Although these debates remained connected in the public mind after the debate ended and removal was enforced, Cherokee removal, and Indian removals more generally, diminished in importance. Even key players of the conflict such as Worcester and Adams came to believe that Cherokee removal had been inevitable and concluded that their fight to protect them was insignificant. At the same time, the issues of Nullification as it related to slavery and the slave power conspiracy increased in importance in the public mind.

Even though Jackson’s supporters succeeded in averting a two-state showdown in the early 1830s, the conditions that led to the crisis remained unresolved. Historians have xxvi already explored the emerging sectional crisis, Jacksonian democracy, constitutional and federal Indian law, Cherokee sovereignty/removal and South Carolina’s Nullification crisis. The literature on Andrew Jackson is extensive, as a Southern planter, land speculator, Indian fighter, committed nationalist, and promoter—for good or ill—of popular sovereignty. In lesser detail, but still well-documented, historians have discussed the significance of the Cherokee missionaries, South Carolina’s Unionists, and American land policy. Finally, scholars have connected the debates over Cherokee sovereignty and

Nullification, but only incidentally insofar as the connection is repeatedly forgotten and rediscovered as an interesting aside, if not particularly significant. However, when reviewed together these separate studies indicate that the debates over sovereignty were more complicated than a polar federal-state conflict. The conflicts over federal and state sovereignties were imbued deeply with conflicts over citizens’ authority and Indian sovereignty.

Taking advantage of the demise of the caucus system that provided some ideological continuity between presidential administrations, Jackson developed a public following through the emerging convention system that connected federal authority more directly with popular sovereignty. In this way, he felt less beholden to previous administrations than his forbearers and was less likely to compromise for the sake of precedent. As a proverbial dark horse candidate with little uniting his political support beyond “something different,” Jackson’s leadership and the resulting Supreme Court’s challenge served to exacerbate the multiple and competing sovereignties through debates over Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification. The heightened fears over these xxvii controversies contribute to our understanding of the characteristics of Jackson’s particular

“regime change” that bridged the early republican and antebellum eras, and the crisis of each should be reconsidered together.

Scholars of South Carolina’s Nullification lend scant recognition to its simultaneous conflict with Cherokee sovereignty. For example, the political scientist

David Ericson’s discussion of Nullification and the Force Act of 1833 does not mention

Cherokee Removal. However, legal historian Joseph Burke suggests that the

Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster intentionally kept the Cherokee cases out of the congressional discussion of the Force Bill. If any public statement connected the Force

Bill with the Cherokee cases, Burke indicates, it would have prevented its passage.18 In this way, the silence surrounding Cherokee issues indicate a factor that historians need to take into account. To rediscover a historical influence studiously ignored after 1833, the significance of issues surrounding Indian sovereignty need to be explicitly delineated before that moment.

William W. Freehling spearheads histories that link Nullification with slavery and as evidence of significant divisions within the Southern regions.19 In his classic Prelude to the Civil War (1965), Freehling delineates Southern slavery using an economic model, in particular noting that geographical difference contributed to economic diversities among the upper and lower South, and coastal and inland regions. Therefore, efforts to

18 David F. Ericson, “The Nullification Crisis, American Republicanism, and the Force Bill Debate,” Journal of Southern History 61, no. 2 (May 1995): 249–270.Joseph C. Burke, “The Cherokee Cases: A Study in Law, Politics, and Morality,” Stanford Law Review 21, no. 3 (February 1, 1969): 531. 19 William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War; the Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836 (New York: Harper & Row, 1966); The Nullification Era: A Documentary Record (New York: Harper & Row, 1967); The Road to Disunion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). xxviii unify the “South” challenged attempts to differentiate itself from the rest of the nation. In the first volume of The Road to Disunion, Freehling focuses on the multiple false starts of a Southern Union—or even an emerging Southern nationalism—leaving one wondering at the end of his study, with the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, how the South managed to unify within the next ten years to attempt secession. That tenuous unification was precisely the point, as South Carolina historians Lacy Ford and Stephanie McCurry explain the efforts of that state to protect its unique one-party system.20 Yet this recognition of South Carolina’s unique place in American history compels other historians such as Richard Ellis to rethink whether South Carolina’s Nullification

Ordinance actually represented a genuine stepping stone to the southern justification for

Civil War.21

20 Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 29-56; Stephanie McCurry, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2010). Lacy Ford, Jennifer Morgan, Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, Alan Gallay, and Peter H. Wood demonstrate how unique components of South Carolina’s culture and history emanate from the low-country’s closer association with the Atlantic world island sugar plantations and less similarity to slave societies that evolved on the continental United States. Jennifer L. (Jennifer Lyle) Morgan, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 69-106; Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 58-80; Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The rise of the English Empire in the American South 1670-1717, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002; Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion Black Majority, 3rd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996). Through her significant case study, Sandra Rayser Ragonese’s Master’s thesis on Colonel William Drayton demonstrates the difficulty for moderate South Carolinians to maintain political authority in the politically paranoid environment. Ragonese, “‘A Drayton Leads Th’ Embattled Line’: Colonel William Drayton and the South Carolina Nullification Controversy,” Masters’ Thesis, Temple University, 2000. 21 Richard E Ellis, The Union at Risk: Jacksonian Democracy, States’ Rights, and the Nullification Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). xxix

The scholarship for Cherokee history, including sovereignty and removal, is predominantly delineated through Cherokee and legal historians.22 During the years of the emerging Indian sovereignty debate in the Jacksonian era, American citizens generally recognized the Cherokees as a uniquely civilized tribe. After George

Washington initiated his civilization program in 1789, various missionary groups worked with the federal government on behalf of pacification. The significant connection between missionary and Cherokee efforts to protect Indian sovereignty cannot be overstated. Therefore, it should be of no surprise that one of the most eminent historians of the Cherokees is the religious historian William G. McLoughlin who began his study

22 The principal Cherokee historians who have addressed Cherokee Removal are William L. Anderson, Andrew Denson, Michael D. Green, William McLoughlin, Theda Perdue, and Duane H. King. Anderson, McLoughlin, Perdue and Green in particular recognize that at first the nation predominantly supported the Cherokee’s claim, especially after the Supreme Court decision, Worcester v. Georgia (1832). The unfortunate timing of the Nullification controversy shifted public support away from the Cherokees because the public predominantly believed that Nullification was the more significant issue at hand. Denson’s focus differs although he does not dispute these earlier studies. He uses the Cherokee cases to explain how Cherokee leaders came to understand their responsibilities as good neighbors with the federal government. Jill Norgren exemplifies legal historians who generally focus on the principal concerns of the missionaries and the courts. While they could, they supported the Cherokees, but Jackson’s pressures and Nullification revealed that their dominant concern was for the court. For example, Norgren recognizes that the imprisoned missionaries, Rev. Samuel Austin Worcester and Dr. Elizur Butler decided their imprisonment had done the best they could for the Cherokees, and “for reasons unclear” had shifted their focus to be “chiefly concerned with whether the authority of the Supreme Court would be vindicated” The Cherokee Cases: Two Landmark Federal Decisions in the Fight for Sovereignty, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 127. Likewise, Joseph C. Burke, “The Cherokee Cases: A Study in Law, Politics, and Morality,” Stanford Law Review, 21 (Feb., 1969), believed that Marshall’s was sympathetic to the Cherokees, but unwilling to risk court authority. See also, G. Edward White, Marshall Court and Cultural Change, 1815-1835, vols. III and IV, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1988); volume 11 in The Papers of John Marshall, ed. Charles F. Hobson (12 vols., Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974-2006) and R. Kent Newmyer, John Marshall and the Heroic Age of the Supreme Court, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001). Tim Alan Garrison demonstrates how American Indian removal contributed to sectional pressures. See Tim Alan Garrison, The Legal Ideology of Removal: The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002; “United States Indian Policy in Sectional Crisis: Georgia’s Exploitation of the Compact of 1802.” xxx of the Cherokees through his earlier studies of mission history.23 Of course, government support for Indian “civilization and Christianization programs” is also political and military history. Francis Paul Prucha explains that American politicians and businessmen encouraged American and European missionaries in India, Africa, and the home frontier to Christianize the world in order to promote trade.24

While there are many writings about Nullification or Cherokee sovereignty/removal, few integrate the two debates in their studies. For example, both

Freehling and Ellis mention Marshall’s decision in Worcester v. Georgia, albeit in passing. Freehling minimizes the connection because “Georgia eschewed constitutional polemics and relied on crude defiance.”25 Ellis devotes more attention to the connections between Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification by noting political links between the two states involved in “nullifying.” There are two exceptions. In her masters’ thesis,

Charmaine L. Day correctly links the two debates over Cherokee sovereignty and

Nullification in great detail. Day perceives the simultaneity of the debates and the similarities of the conflicts.26 Edwin A. Miles also recognizes that while these two conflicts are generally studied separately, they were connected in the minds of the public

23 William Gerald McLoughlin, Cherokees and Missionaries, 1789-1839 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984). 24 Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in the Formative Years: The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1962), 220. Francis Paul Prucha, ed., Cherokee Removal: The “William Penn” Essays and Other Writings by Jeremiah Evarts, (Knoxville, 1981); Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); The Sword of the Republic; the United States Army on the Frontier, 1783-1846 (New York: Macmillan, 1968). 25 Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, 233. Ellis arrives at this conclusion through a report in the states’ rights Milledgeville, Georgia newspaper, Southern Recorder, that the American Board’s actions unfortunately lent undue protection to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ellis, The Union at Risk, 119-120. 26 Charmaine L. Day, “Worcester V. Georgia: Cherokees, the American Board and the Nullification Crisis” (Masters, California State University, Fullerton, 2006), 1-2. xxxi at the time, and he rightly credits significant “behind the scenes” activities to convince

Georgia’s “Governor Wilson Lumpkin to pardon the missionaries.”27 Yet the study of the debates over Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification are more than an interesting aside.

They are a critical step in the emerging antebellum crisis.

In Olive Branch and Sword, Merrill Peterson recognizes the Compromise of 1833 as an important signpost in antebellum historiography, generally passed over in the leap from the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to the 1850 Compromise. The crisis raised critical issues endemic in the antebellum era, including state vs. federal sovereignty, tariff disputes, and conflict over political economy divided by section. Although he did not follow through with his observation, Peterson understood that South Carolinians were deeply divided over Nullification and they saw their state’s connection to the president’s and Georgia’s resistance over Cherokee sovereignty.28

The effectiveness of Cherokee diplomacy depended upon proof of civilized living. The success of Cherokee delegates provides an important mirror into what nineteenth-century Americans viewed as civilized behavior and governance. The

Cherokees adopted the idea of being good neighbors, vested in the same interests prescribed as American ideals. For example, when white squatters invaded their territory,

Cherokee delegations argued that these white borderlands intruders were disreputable and disruptive to social order, an unfortunate problem that would be best dealt with through

27 Edwin A. Miles, “After John Marshall’s Decision: Worcester v. Georgia and the Nullification Crisis,” Journal of Southern History 39, no. 4 (November 1973): 520. 28 Merrill Peterson, Olive Branch and Sword: The Compromise of 1833 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982). xxxii mutual cooperation between both nations. By demonstrating its own citizens’ model behaviors, the Cherokee Council charged American leaders to demonstrate they could control their own less law-abiding populations. In 1831, missionary to the Cherokees

Daniel Sabin Butrick reflected in his journal, “It seems generally admitted at the present day that the Indians are better than the whites around and among them. Men in almost the highest standing in the United States, seem to admit this.” The Cherokee Nation willingly accepted its position as unique. In so doing, the Cherokees hoped to protect their own lands without curtailing America’s expansion interests over other Native tribes.29

The Cherokees’ effective resistance to removal may have contributed to the success of Jackson’s 1828 election campaign, in part, to solve the “Indian Problem.”30

One of his first actions after his inauguration was to present an Indian Removal Bill before Congress, which would grant the executive sole authority to organize Indian removals to the West. From long practice negotiating with federal officials, as evident of its successful 1824 re-negotiation of the 1804 treaty as described in Chapter One, the

Cherokee Nation took immediate action to prevent President Jackson’s bill from passing

Congress. Because South Carolina’s Exposition and Protest emerged simultaneously on

29 Daniel Sabin Butrick, “Butrick Journal, 1830-1832,” January 11, 1832, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions archives, Houghton Library. Butrick concluded this statement noting that even though American citizens recognize their superior stature when compared to neighboring whites, they “make it an argument in urging their removal to the West.” With this line of thinking, Native Peoples could not remain in their homelands because they were either too inferior or too superior. In short, no matter what they did, Native people could not choose where they could live. 30 Daniel Feller maintains that Indian removal was the “lead item” on Jackson’s presidential agenda. Jackson sought executive authority to remove Native Peoples and bypass congressional oversight. “Reassessing President Andrew Jackson,” April 10, 2010. Sponsored by CNN and OAH. http://wwww.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/222860 xxxiii the national stage with his Indian Removal Bill, in December 1829 Jackson discussed both albeit as separated issues in his first annual address. In a nod to South Carolina, he promised to reduce tariffs as soon as he retired the federal debt. He also promised to remove all Indian tribes remaining in the eastern regions of the United States to the west of the Mississippi. Yet, by 1830 when Congress and the public press discussed tariffs,

Nullification and Indian removal, these debates had become irrevocably linked in the public mind. Jackson’s Indian Removal bill passed into law in May of 1830, but only by a very close margin and with a significant amount of strong arming by the president.

In 2002, historian Daniel Feller reflected over the decreased historiographical interest that surrounds Jacksonian democracy. In political history, Jacksonian scholars once dominated the field with inventive systematic analyses by Arthur Schlesinger and Lee

Benson.31 Even Richard Hofstadter devoted two chapters in his American Political

31 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1945). Schlesinger’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book proclaims that Jackson breathed democratic liberalism into the American presidency, fostering the U.S. move toward universal suffrage and political egalitarianism. Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). Benson’s approach differed from Schlesinger in two ways. It was more particular in scope and it tore away at the “campaign claptrap” that historians have adopted, Benson claimed, at face value. Benson’s “ethnocultural thesis” defined social identities such as ethnic and religious differences as critical driving forces of American voting behaviors. (Daniel Feller, “Lee Benson and the Concept of Jacksonian Democracy,” Reviews in American History, 20:4 (December, 1992), 591-601.) Other studies that engaged the master narrative structure of Jacksonian Democracy includes historians who celebrated Jackson’s national vision such as Robert Vincent Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845, vol. 3, 3 vols. (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), and others who focus on his heavy-handed treatment of Native Americans, African Americans and the Constitution itself, such as Edward Pessen, Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics, 1st ed. (Homewood, Illinois: The Dorsey Press, 1969). Finally, but also important, Ronald Formisano cautions against reducing historiographical interventions into “schools” of thought. By coining phrases such as “ethnocultural interpretation” takes such interventions out the context of their era, thus “narrowing, reducing and distorting what was intended to be open, broad and flexible.” (Formisano, “The Invention of the Ethnocultural Interpretation,” The American Historical Review, 99:2 (April, 1994), 454.) xxxiv

Tradition to Jacksonian biographies, Jackson himself and John Calhoun.32 The lull in

Jacksonian democracy’s significance in American political history aligned with the fall of the master narrative, but the controversies over Andrew Jackson, American democracy, and the sectional debates are far from settled.

The literature on sectionalism encompasses regional differences between

East/West and North/South. Sectional divisions are explored through cultural differences, political dissention,33 and economic pressures from maintaining controls over wage labor and slave labor systems.34 Market irregularities, including financial panics contributed to

32 Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition: And the Men who Made It (New York: Random House, [1948] 1973). Other significant historians who view Jackson as integral to the larger political forces of the era are Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990) and Lawrence Kohl, The Politics of Individualism: Parties and the American Character in the Jacksonian Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 33Studies concerning regional differences over culture and politics explore various significant factors. For example, Elizabeth Varon shows how the rhetoric of disunion shed “a new perspective on Civil War causality” that helped to escalate sectional tensions. Varon, Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008). Matthew Mason explains that conflicts over national identity and slavery began early in the forming of the nation. Matthew Mason, Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Jonathan Wells demonstrates the significance of the southern middle class on sectional conflict, predominantly demonstrating a conflict over competition, not cultural incompatibility. Jonathan Daniel Wells, The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). Jean Baker suggests sectional differences were in part driven by national education systems. Northerners, with greater public access to education enabled them to develop their ideas of egalitarianism and political resistance that had been unavailable in the pre-Civil War South. Jean H Baker, Affairs of Party: The Political Culture of Northern Democrats in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983).Wyatt-Brown explores the significance of Southern honor systems in sectional contributing to sectional divisions. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). Drew Faust outlines the intellectual traditions of the Southern secession movement. Drew Gilpin Faust, A Sacred Circle: The Dilemma of the Intellectual in the Old South, 1840-1860 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977). 34 The explorations over slavery and economics are extensive. John Ashworth’s study is especially comprehensive. Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic (Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Historians have written extensively on the economic changes in the period after the War of 1812 to the close of the 1830s. Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), and Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). Like Howe, Larson perceives the power and promise of an industrialized world gone into a global economy, but, like Sellers, he cautions that deregulation hardens society into a xxxv the widening disparities between the rich and poor. There is more recent attention given to expansion pressures on sectionalism, although Feller’s classic study, The Public Lands in Jacksonian Politics has yet to be surpassed.35 Finally, studies in gendered politics

“worldwide dependency and exploitation.” John Lauritz Larson, The Market Revolution in America: Liberty, Ambition, and the Eclipse of the Common Good, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 184. Robin Einhorn American Taxation, American Slavery, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006) sees the antebellum moment differently, suggesting that greater freedom brought more democratic decision making. Thus she regionalizes the different economic perspectives in terms of taxation. Einhorn notes that more democratic decision making happened in the northeast anyway. While there were more complaints, largely these complaints were evident because the opportunity to complain was simply greater. Saul Cornell, The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999) believes that laissez-faire economic policies are the surviving ideological thread of the anti-federalists. First, he explains the ideology behind the anti-federalist traditions, largely noting that they were not a unified group, but overall, were concerned that the Constitution, as written, would create a central government that would be too remote from the influence of the average citizen. Secondly, Cornell demonstrates that the anti-federalists tradition has continued throughout American history, as explicated most obviously and recently by Ronald Reagan’s America. So although the anti-federalists were defeated in their effort to prevent the ratification of the Constitution, their ideas continued, and played out in the rise of political party politics, in “the emergence of Democratic- Republicanism,” (Cornell, 13) and further helped to define the variety of interpretations of the Constitution itself. Marc Egnal Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War, (New York: Hill and Wang, 2009) takes the economic model back to the Civil War. While he rejects the Beardian model as too simplistic, he also recognizes that slave vs. wage labor was, fundamentally, an economic issue. Right from the start of the constitutional convention, economic interests lay at the heart of mitigating sectionalism. Staughton Lynd, Class Conflict, Slavery, and the United States Constitution, Ten Essays, (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1967) believes that the original Founding Father’s condemned slavery, and the abolitionist resistance to its continuation was not exclusively conflated through support for wage labor. So that even as Hofstadter noticed that if Americans could be unified about anything, it was surrounding the hope that they could all become wealthy, Larson reminds us, that even though early citizens could not validate the humanity of non-whites, they believed in the ideals of republicanism, as well as the prosperity they thought it would bring. As Cathy Matson demonstrates in “Capitalizing Hope: Economic Thought and the Early National Economy,” women provided unrecorded economic responsibilities for the benefit of their families. They may have assisted their husbands’ ability to work for less pay, as they found ways to support their families without providing income, thus underwriting “the rise of free labor capitalism by permitting employers to pay lower wages to men” (Matson, 283). James L. Huston, in Calculating the Value of the Union, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003) demonstrates that as the north and south were increasingly viewing differently the laws defining property and property rights, that southern secession was inevitable. Concurring with Ashworth's analysis that the systems of government were fundamentally irreconcilable, Huston notes that “property rights were granted by the government”, (Huston, xiv) and the national government was increasing unsupportive of laws maintaining slaves as property, so that the South felt it was in its best financial interest to secede. 35 Daniel Feller, The Public Lands in Jacksonian Politics (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984) Elizabeth Varon and Michael Morrison explicitly link sectionalism with expansion. Elizabeth R. Varon, Disunion! mentioned earlier; Michael A. Morrison, Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). Reginald Horsman explains the relationship between whiteness and expansion. Reginald Horsman, Race xxxvi contribute important understandings to the increasingly rigid male power struggles that attributed conciliation with submission and political weakness.36

The study of Andrew Jackson encompasses both the man and this important era, which is couched between the Early Republic and the antebellum period. With the important exception of Daniel Walker Howe, Jackson’s period is usually labeled the

“Jacksonian Era,” connecting the General/President with the emergence of American democracy or Jacksonian Democracy.37 Many historians of this era combine all three: biographies of Andrew Jackson, discussions of the Jacksonian era, as well as studies of emerging American democracy. Yet Jackson as a promoter of common man ideology remains controversial. Andrew Jackson, his era and his politics have generated publications divided according to those who study Jackson’s impact on his time, those

and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1981) Studies of the United States’ acquisition of Texas and the Mexican war are also significant: Gary Clayton Anderson, The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820- 1875 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005).Joel H Silbey, Storm Over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 36 Elizabeth Varon, Ronald Zboray and Mary Zboray review women’s political involvement North and South moving into the antebellum era. Elizabeth R Varon, We Mean to Be Counted: White Women & Politics in Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill [N.C.]: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Elizabeth Varon, Ronald Zboray and Mary Zboray review women’s political involvement North and South moving into the antebellum era. Jonathan Wells explores the gender and the press in his study of female journalists: Jonathan Daniel Wells, Women Writers and Journalists in the Nineteenth-Century South (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). For a discussion of gender in Jacksonian political systems, see Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Amy Kaplan, “Manifest Domesticity,” American Literature, 70:3 (September 1998), 581-606; Amy S. Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Nancy Morgan, “‘She’s as Chaste as a Virgin!’: Gender, Political Platforms, and the Second American Party System,” ed. Sean Patrick Adams, A Companion to the Era of Andrew Jackson (Wiley- Blackwell, 2013), 298-327. 37 Howe explains that Jackson was controversial even in his era, and therefore did not define the era of his tenure as president. Howe believes that the fundamental agent for change in this period was information technology, such as the telegraph. Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). xxxvii who prefer to place him within the context of his time, those who like him, those who do not, and those who “respect” him.38 The Jacksonian era provides a critical bridge between the early republic and the antebellum eras respectively. Accordingly, studying Jackson’s

Indian policies encourages an initial review of Thomas Jefferson’s Indian policies.

In 1803 Jefferson’s public professions of friendship with Native Americans but private pressures for land sales created little ideological conflict among American citizens. Twenty-five years later, however, the Cherokees’ successful adaptation of

American republicanism prevented Jackson from maintaining Jefferson’s ruse. During his

1831 annual address Jackson encouraged Congress to reduce the tariff burdens as soon as possible and relieve the stress it has caused the states. He added, “In the exercise of that spirit of concession and conciliation which has distinguished the friends of our Union in all great emergencies, it is believed that this object may be effected [sic] without injury to

38 Two classic biographers of Jackson are Robert Vincent Remini and Edward Pessen, who fall neatly into the "like" "don't like" camps respectively. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr's account of Jacksonian American is a dated but important work that presents Jackson as a promoter of democratic liberalism. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1945). Jackson still has biographical supporters including Sean Wilentz and Jon Meacham. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: Norton, 2005). Controversial even in his own lifetime, Harry L. Watson argues that Jackson is often misunderstood by historians and consequently denigrated as the instigator of a “wide variety of partisan abuses.” Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 12. Jon Meacham, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (New York: Random House, 2008). In the "respect" category, Cheathem published the most recent biography, focusing on Jackson's southern influences and connections. Mark R. Cheathem, Andrew Jackson, Southerner (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2014).To keep track of all these differing presentations, historians periodically write synthetic accounts on Jackson and his times. The most recent anthology of the Jacksonian Era was edited by Sean Patrick Adams in 2013, and the most recent essay on Jacksonian monograph at the time of this writing is penned by Mark Renfred Cheathem, 2011. Sean Patrick Adams: Adams, ed., A Companion to the Era of Andrew Jackson, Blackwell Companions to American History: The American Presidents (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Mark Cheathem, "Andrew Jackson, Slavery, and Historians," History Compass, 9:4 (2011), 326-338. xxxviii any national interest.”39 In this same speech, Jackson as kindly as possible encouraged the Cherokees to leave their eastern lands or submit to Georgian laws. Yet the Cherokees had effectively promoted their adaptation of civilization to the American public. Few believed that Jackson’s paternal gestures toward the Cherokees were genuine, and the paternalism he demonstrated toward South Carolinians was likewise worrisome. Indeed, as Cherokee and South Carolina’s defiance continued, Jackson’s hoped for “spirit of concession and conciliation” did not last.

The debates over Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification, and by extension the

Cherokee Nation itself, helped shape the shifting political culture during Jackson’s first term as president. Also, because two states defied federal authority—Georgia over

Cherokee sovereignty rights and South Carolina over Nullification—these debates contributed to the emerging sectional crisis over state rights, federal authority, and the rightful claims to sovereign authority.

39 Andrew Jackson, “Third Annual Message to Congress,” ed. Harold D. Moser et al. (Scholarly Resources, Inc., University of Tennessee at Knoxville, December 6, 1831), University of Tennessee at Knoxville, The Papers of Andrew Jackson: A Microfilm Supplement. xxxix

CHAPTER 1 1803-1828: THE CHEROKEE NATION CHALLENGES THE DOUBLE STANDARD IN FEDERAL INDIAN POLICY

Introduction

Although Cherokee leaders had no intention of embroiling themselves in state sovereignty disputes, states’ rights advocates could not help but notice how successfully those Indians protected their land rights against the state of Georgia in the last year of the

Monroe Administration, 1824-1825. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams noted that federally funded civilization programs enabled the Cherokees’ resisting removal, rather than encouraging it. As president he began cutting back missionary funds for civilization programs to promote removal more effectively while maintaining the integrity of federal treaty law. The Cherokee Nation influenced the course of federal Indian policy in the

1820s and the subsequent political debate over Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification during the first term of Andrew Jackson’s presidency by demonstrating a masterful understanding of American political culture. This chapter introduces the principal architects of early nineteenth century federal Indian policy and demonstrates how

American political leaders responded to the Cherokee Nation’s efforts to protect their sovereignty and lands.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson articulated a new American Indian policy.

He linked Indian “civilization” programs with land sales. Acting ostensibly for the

Indian’s “greatest good,” Jefferson insisted that civilization would enable Native people

1 to live on significantly less land further west in the newly acquired Louisiana territory.40

By selling Indians’ lands, the government would provide them with American manufactured products supporting industry and agriculture. Educated native people would willingly remove to smaller parcels of land further west, away from troublesome white populations, and in this way prepare themselves for their ultimate assimilation into

American governance. While Jefferson publicly promoted Indian civilization, privately he supported ruthless removal policies based on intentionally overwhelming Native people with debt and then forcefully demanding their submission.

Jefferson operated under two federal Indian policies, one public and altruistic, and the other private and based on self-interest. Publicly, Jefferson encouraged farming over hunting, which required less land and would enable Indian societies to integrate with white societies. His private policies were blatantly ruthless, unilateral, and therefore heavily dependent upon the loyal support of those who would willingly execute them.

Jefferson wanted white traders to encourage extensive Indian debt and, in this way, force large land sales. Through this double-standard, Jefferson enabled reform-minded

Americans to believe that America still supported the “honorable” expansion programs initiated by Henry Knox and George Washington, while simultaneously facilitating the interests of land-hungry whites.41 Jefferson managed both policies through ambiguous

40 Thomas Jefferson to the Senate and the House of Representatives. Confidential. January 18, 1803. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 13 November 1802 to 3 March 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg, vol. 39 (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2012), 350–353. 41 “A system corresponding with the mild principles of religion and philanthropy toward an unenlightened race of men, whose happiness materially depends upon the conduct of the United States, would be as honorable to the national character as conformable to the dictates of sound policy.” Third Annual Message of George Washington, October 25, 1791, from A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the 2 rhetoric that was a critical component of his policies. Subsequent presidents James

Madison and James Monroe largely agreed with Jefferson that Native people were destined for cultural extinction. The kindest thing to do was to civilize them as much as possible, remove them from the dominant white population as far west as possible, and hope for the best. After Jefferson already inserted generally ruthless Indian agents to carry out his private plans, following presidents simply continued with the same, or like- minded, agents.

However, the Cherokee Nation made visible the federal government’s subterfuge.

Sequoyah’s timely invention of the Cherokee syllabary gave the Cherokees cultural control over written communication within the tribe.42 They focused missionary funds upon Western education and the Christian religion. As a Southeastern tribe, they embraced race-based plantation slavery. By adopting Western civilized standards, centralizing Cherokee governmental authority, and avoiding debt-exchanges for agricultural implements, the Cherokee Nation acquired the mark of a civilized nation without the vulnerability expected through debt. The Cherokee Nation had navigated

Jefferson’s ambiguity to their advantage.

Within the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the Cherokee Nation convinced many Americans and the U.S. Supreme Court that their evident civilization

Presidents, (Volume I, Part 1: George Washington), James D. Richardson, ed. Project Gutenberg, Release #11314. 42 At first, the Cherokee people resisted Sequoyah’s efforts to develop the Cherokee syllabary. James Mooney explained that in 1822, “some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with writing.” Mooney, James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (Asheville, N.C.: Historical Images, 1992), 352. Once adopted, Cherokee literacy developed quickly. 3 earned them the right to protect their homelands.43 The Cherokees exposed Jefferson’s efforts to link civilization with removal as the natural course of things as a myth. Yet removal had been an essential component of Jefferson’s civilization efforts. The

Cherokees brought to the public eye the ruthless methods of American citizens bent on

Indian removal. The Cherokees forced Americans to choose between Jefferson’s public or private methods, and in this way, the Cherokees helped to define the nature of the

“Indian problem.” Andrew Jackson’s popularity as an Indian fighter protected the

American citizenry’s belief in Indian savagery. For Jackson, the choice between

Jefferson’s public and private Indian policy was clear. He refused to equivocate and rejected Jefferson’s double standard. Jackson chose Jefferson’s unilateral and secret policies and brought them into full public view. Encouraged by Jackson’s popularity,

Georgia’s political leaders stepped up their rhetoric on behalf of Cherokee removal through explicit race-based justifications. Their efforts contributed to congressional disagreements aligned by regions.

Historians disagree over whether or not Andrew Jackson initiated the shift in federal Indian policy toward increasing Indian removals westward. Some argue that, as president, Jefferson initiated this shift in federal Indian policy to promote the 1803

Louisiana Purchase, and Jackson simply continued this policy. Others indicate that

Jackson’s tendency toward unilateralism represented a significant shift in Indian policy.

43 Mary Hershberger, “Mobilizing Women, Anticipating Abolition: The Struggle against Indian Removal in the 1830s,” The Journal of American History, 86:1 (1999), 15; E.C. Tracy, Memoir of the Life of Jeremiah Evarts, Esq., Late Corresponding Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1845), 376, 378, 379.

For example, in 1832 the U.S. Supreme Court questioned the constitutionality of

Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830, which wrested the responsibility of Indian removal from congressional oversight and placed it in the hands of the executive.44

Actually both perspectives are accurate. Jackson continued the removal policies initiated by Jefferson, but he altered their public visibility. The Cherokee Nation contributed significantly to this alteration when it pressed Jackson to uphold Jefferson’s publicly stated policies. Jackson maintained Jefferson’s rhetoric but refused to keep his private efforts private. The American newspapers that protested Jackson’s strong arm tactics were generally based in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions. In this way, supports for

Indian removals began to take on sectional distinctions. Southerners noticed, for example, that Northerners had already taken almost all available Indian lands. Cherokee supporters still supported westward expansion, but argued that the Cherokee Nation’s land claims should be an exception. Their unique stature as a civilized tribe would require the relatively small sacrifice of their remaining territory and, at the same time, continue to justify westward expansion.

Yet, Georgians felt singled out if their state alone could not claim Cherokee lands.

To justify Cherokee removal, the Georgia legislature developed race-based arguments to devalue federal treaty law established in the U.S. Constitution. Although willing to accept

44 Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 6 Pet. 596 (1832). For the change in policy perspective, see Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in the Formative Years: The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts, 1790- 1834 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1962), 1-4, 275-277. For the continuity perspective, see Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars (New York: Viking, 2001), Introduction. For an overview of the debate, see Stephen G. Bragaw, “Thomas Jefferson and the American Indian Nations: Native American Sovereignty and the Marshall Court,” Journal of Supreme Court History 31:2 (July 2006), 155-180. 5 racial distinctions as the natural order of things, many Americans rejected explicit barriers to legal rights based on race within the Constitution. However, Jackson wanted all Indians removed west of the Mississippi, without exception, and willingly accepted racial barriers to constitutional rights to achieve this goal. The Cherokee exception and

Jackson’s refusal to honor that exception exposed an unbridgeable wedge between ideologically divided Americans who were otherwise generally supporting removals and expansion. Georgians initiated an exclusively race-based justification for Cherokee

Removal, i.e., the Cherokees were Indians, and therefore they not entitled to privileges. It did not matter how civilized the Cherokees appeared to the rest of the nation, they did not have access to the constitutional rights of white citizens. Georgia justified this race- distinctive constitutional interpretation within their borders based on their sovereign state’s right to do so.

South Carolina’s low-country planters recognized this fracturing of public support over federal Indian policy as an opportunity to promote a constitutional amendment on behalf of Nullification, or their state’s right to refuse to pay federal taxes they deemed unjust. Nullification received little support outside of South Carolina and was extremely divisive within the state itself. Although South Carolina had been the only antebellum state that avoided two-party systems, it temporarily adopted one over Nullification. The two parties were the Nullification Party, officially named the Union and State Rights

Party, and the Unionist Party, which was against Nullification. Protests against federal tariffs were the rallying point behind both parties. The State Rights Party claimed an unprecedented right to nullify federal laws that state representatives believed to be 6 unconstitutional. The Unionist Party wanted to confront the tariffs through already established channels in Congress.

Thus, unintentionally, Andrew Jackson’s public avowal of Jefferson’s private

Indian policies connected the national debates over the Georgia legislature’s bared racial justification for Cherokee removal and South Carolinian Nullification. Once the

American public recognized the connections between the battles over Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification, they recoiled from deliberating over policies, and instead worried over the possibility of disunion. Jackson’s tactical preference for domination over conciliation brought the immediate concerns of both states to the national stage in an explosive combination that would exacerbate emerging sectional tensions. This was the crisis of federalism. The balance of state and federal authorities became additionally tenuous with the added impact of Cherokee sovereignty and South Carolina’s interest in

Nullification.

The 1804 Treaty in 1824: the Cherokee Council Introduces a Quandary

In January 1824, a Cherokee Delegation approached President James Monroe and his Secretary of War John C. Calhoun with an embarrassing discovery for the president and his cabinet. The delegation presented a copy of an 1804 treaty, which neither Monroe nor Calhoun knew existed, and asked why Congress had not yet ratified it. The document promised a lump sum of $5000 to the Cherokee Nation with annuity payments of $1000 in exchange for Cherokee lands already settled by white populations.45 Twenty years

45 Treaty with the Cherokee, 1804, Oct. 24, 1804. | 7 Stat., 288. | Proclamation, May 17, 1824, Digital Library of Oklahoma State University: http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/vol2/treaties/che0073.htm. 7 later, the federal government apparently owed the Cherokees $25,000. Calhoun recognized the treaty as genuine, but he found no record of it in his department.

At Monroe’s request Calhoun looked for corroborative verification of the 1804 treaty. Apologetically, he queried Jefferson who was president in 1804 during treaty negotiations. On April 19, 1824 Calhoun asked “with extreme reluctance, that I subject you to any trouble with any portion of the business of this Department,” he wondered,

“The President is desirous to know, whether the treaty was disapproved by the

Executive” or for some other reason not submitted to the Senate for ratification.46

Jefferson responded promptly on April 25th. He confirmed that the treaty was indeed genuine. The Cherokees had been reluctant to sell their land and soldiers were likewise reluctant to remove white squatters. Jefferson recalled that he assigned Indian

Commissioners Colonel Return J. Meigs and Daniel Smith to conclude the land sale, and then he forgot the matter, but since the squatters remained, the commissioners must have negotiated a treaty. Jefferson conjectured, “Either the treaty may have been lost by the way, or, if received by the War Office, it may have been mislaid there accidently and escaped subsequent recollection.” Jefferson took some responsibility for the mishap, concluding that he could “only say, in excuse, “homo sum.””47 He went on to suggest a

It is likely that both U.S. Commissioners and the Cherokee Nation went silent over this treaty for the same reason. A Cherokee vigilante group executed Chief Doublehead for having negotiated this treaty without consulting the Cherokee National Council. The circumstances behind this treaty are discussed in Chapter Two. 46 Thomas C. Cochran, ed., The New American State Papers, 1789-1860, vol. 6, Indian Affairs: Southeast (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1972), 275–276. J. C. Calhoun to Thomas Jefferson April 19, 1824. 47 Ibid., 6:277. Most likely, Jefferson’s Latin reference came from Publius Terentius Afer (circa 195 to 159, BCE) also known as Terence, the Roman playwright. Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto is a 8 solution in which he attempted to sound clear and reasonable, but in actuality, Jefferson’s response was ambiguous in a way that mirrored the two-tiered Indian policy he initiated.

The Indians will, doubtless, consent that their duplicate shall be laid before the Senate, which, being equally an original with that which should have been laid before their predecessors, can receive their ratification, nunc pro tunc.48 This will sanction all that has been done, on the principle that the confirmation of a proceeding supplies preceding defects. In this way may be repaired a slip of the Executive functionaries, unwittingly committed, and full justice be done to the other party.49

Jefferson’s advice could be construed in two conflicting ways. Nunc pro tunc means that the treaty should be enforced in 1824 as if it had been in force for the past twenty years. This treaty promised $1000 annually of goods or money, at the discretion of the Cherokees, as well as an initial sum of $5000. To follow the directive, “nunc pro tunc,” Calhoun should pay the Cherokees $25,000. At the same time, Jefferson stated that

“nunc pro tunc” would “sanction all that has been done.” Yet nothing had been done. The annuities had not been awarded. Was Jefferson sanctioning the treaty or the past twenty years of non-payment? Additionally, when Jefferson identified “the other party” that would gain “full justice,” did he mean the Cherokees, the settlers, or the state of Georgia? famous Terence quotation. It appeared in his play Heauton Timorumenos. Translation: “I am human; I consider nothing human [to be] unconnected to me.” (http://latinlanguagephrases.com/nothing-human- unconnected-to-me) 48 Nunc Pro Tunc [Latin, “Now for then.”] When courts take some action defined as nunc pro tunc, that action has retroactive legal effect, as though it had been performed at a particular, earlier date. The most common use of nunc pro tunc is to correct past clerical errors, or omissions made by the court, that may hinder the efficient operation of the legal system. For example, if the written record of a trial court's judgment failed to correctly recite the judgment as the court rendered it, the court has the inherent power to change the record at a later date to reflect what happened at trial. The decision, as corrected, would be given legal force from the time of the initial decision so that neither party is prejudiced, or harmed, by the error. The purpose of nunc pro tunc is to correct errors or omissions to achieve the results intended by the court at the earlier time. West’s Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/nunc+pro+tunc) 49 Cochran, The New American State Papers, 1789-1860, 1972, 6:276–277. TH to JCC, Monticello, April 25, 1824. 9

In short, Cherokee supporters could interpret Jefferson’s response to mean, “Pay them.”

Cherokee removers could interpret the same response to say, “Move them out.”

Civilization and Indian Removal: The Jeffersonian Complement

As president, Jefferson’s public statements professed axioms acceptable to reform-minded views about American Indians. However, his private activities were ruthless and effective. Therefore, by speaking as a peace-maker and simultaneously rigging the process, Jefferson managed to win the approbation of a diverse American citizenry with markedly divergent views of Native Americans. Indian tribes could either make or break Jefferson’s delicate balance of public and private policy, and they were a direct threat to the delicate federalism balance between state and federal authority. He needed Native Americans to be peaceable, cooperative, and vulnerable, and Jefferson’s

Indian policy almost worked. Mindful of federalist antipathy, President Jefferson’s public statements for his Indian policy professed axioms that would be acceptable to such divergent views on American Indians. His private statements were significantly more explicit and would have been controversial if publicized.50 This difference is illustrated

50 Generally, historians have recognized the complex relationship of Jefferson’s vision involving nation- building, land acquisition and the removal of Native peoples. Bernard Sheenan explained that Jefferson articulated a political consensus among federalists and republicans alike over the importance of “civilizing” Native Americans. Jefferson envisioned Indian removal as early as 1776, but such a plan was not feasible until the Louisiana Purchase. Sheenan, Seeds of Extinction: Jeffersonian Philanthropy and the American Indian (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973), 6,7. Peter Onuf recognizes that Jefferson explored dualistic views of Native Americans through gender differences. Native Americans could become civilized, Jefferson purported, if the Indian men would stop tyrannizing Indian women. Thus, it was the “proud independence of Indian men [that] constituted the most formidable obstacle to the assimilation of indigenous peoples in republican society.” Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire: The Language of American Nationhood (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000), 31. Of course, Native American women generally lived better tribally than under Western norms. Theda Perdue explains that Cherokee girls were reluctant to marry white men because they knew white women actually worked harder than they did. “Most female missionaries, however, worked very hard, and their example may well have aroused among 10 by comparing his “confidential” message to Congress, January 18, 1803 and his later confidential message, on February 27 to William Henry Harrison as governor of the

Indiana Territory. If Jefferson could achieve westward expansion successfully with republican frugality, it would cement his political ideology in the public mind.

In his January message to Congress, Jefferson promoted westward expansion by addressing the borderlands instability surrounding restive eastern tribal nations.51 These eastern tribes had been growing “more and more uneasy at the constant diminution of the

Cherokee girls serious misgivings about Anglo-American housewifery.” Perdue, Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835 (University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 109. Daniel Usner considers the willful ignorance that Western settlers held against understanding Native American societies. He asks rhetorically, “How could a generation of men who had witnessed, even contributed to, the destruction of bountiful Iroquois and Cherokee fields and orchards during the American Revolution fail to recognize the agricultural tradition of eastern North American Indians?” Usner explains that Jeffersonian agrarianism required the destruction of the forests, in part, to prevent white Americans from adopting subsistence lifestyles and therefore living too independently from commercial trade and land speculation interests. Usner, Jr. “Iroquois Livelihood and Jeffersonian Agrarianism: Reaching behind the Models and Metaphors,” Frederick E. Hoxie, et al, eds. Native Americans and the Early Republic (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999) 201, 210. Anthony Wallace considers the success of Jefferson’s public position of conciliation and ideals, and private position of ruthlessness operated during his presidency. For the sake of republican thrift and nodding to a general citizenry fear of a standing army, Jefferson significantly reduced the army’s surveillance of the American frontier. The unmanaged frontier was violent, but effective. The settlers who survived won valuable land. Wallace explains, “to defend Indians against a horde of intruding white settler families was unthinkable. The settlers were the militia, and woes betide any aspiring politician who attempted to set them against their own kind.” Anthony F. C. Wallace, Jefferson and the Indians: The Tragic Fate of the First Americans (Cambridge, Mass: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 218. 51 David A. Chang differentiates between the frontier and borderlands, recognizing that the term "borderland" privileges the authority of the nation-state. This project accepts that critique and still utilizes the nation-state privilege in the context that Chang writes against. Many American citizens and the U.S. Supreme Court (in Worcester v. Georgia, 1832) understood the Cherokees to be uniquely civilized. Because the American nation-state validated that national sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation, I justify the use of borderlands and frontier in this case to differentiate the Five "Civilized" Tribes "borderlands" experience in Georgia from the Plains tribal nations on the "frontier." I hope that this project itself does not reflect this early American nation-state presumption that the Cherokee Nation was civilized and the other tribes were not. It simply acknowledges the historical moment in which the Cherokees were differentiated in nation-state institutional ways. Chang, “Borderlands in a World at Sea: Concow Indians, Native Hawaiians, and South Chinese in Indigenous, Global, and National Spaces,” Journal of American History 98, no. 2 (September 2011): 384–403. 11 territory they occupy.”52 He explained that these tribes did not need all the land they encompassed once they shifted from hunting to farming. In this way, Native Americans could become good neighbors in a mutually beneficial reciprocation of land for agricultural implements, “exchanging what they can spare and we want, for what we can spare and they want.” Jefferson alluded to government-supported trading houses, in order to undersell foreign (i.e., British) traders and promote Indian loyalty to Americans instead. In a brief segue, Jefferson hoped that Congress would support an exploration of the territory “to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge” (Jefferson was, after all, a natural scientist). However, he quickly justified these explorations through republican precepts, explaining that this increased knowledge could give rise to independent enterprise and future commerce at minimal government expense.

Many American citizens and Native Americans accepted Jefferson’s public proposal at face value, but drew different conclusions. Some tribal groups recognized that agricultural development could enable them to find ways to protect what was left of their homeland territory so they could remain in the Southeast. Other Americans knew and supported Jefferson’s private methods, and helped to keep them privately employed.

52 Thomas Jefferson to the Senate and the House of Representatives. Confidential. January 18, 1803. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 13 November 1802 to 3 March 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg, vol. 39 (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2012), 350–353. 12

Jefferson outlined his private Indian policy in a confidential message, “unofficial,

& private” dated February 27, 1803 to William Henry Harrison, who was newly appointed governor of the Indiana territory.53 Jefferson explained:

I may with safety give you a more extensive view of our policy respecting the Indians, that you may the better comprehend the parts dealt out to you in detail through the official channel, and observing the system of which they make a part, conduct yourself in unison with it in case where you are obliged to act without instruction.

Jefferson encouraged “perpetual peace” with tribal nations and policies that would “draw them into agriculture.” Jefferson reiterated his Congressional message, “to promote this disposition to exchange lands which they have to spare & we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare & they want.” Then, Jefferson explained precisely how this exchange should occur. He wanted government traders to set up favorable conditions for Indian trading, hoping “to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop th[em off] by a cession of lands.”

Jefferson encouraged the establishment of trading conditions that would benefit settlers and simultaneously entrap influential Indians with insurmountable debts. While citizens profited, Native people would be held responsible to cede Indian land to clear such debt.

53 Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison, Washington, February 27, 1803. Ibid, 39:589–593. It is also likely that Jefferson’s Secretary of War, Henry Dearborn also understood Jefferson’s privately outlined methods. Indeed, in this same letter, TJ explained that “from the Secretary of War you receive from time to time information & instructions as to our Indian affairs.” (TJ to Harrison, 02-27-1803) Henry Dearborn, however, died on June 6, 1829, two months before Jeremiah Evarts’ published the first in a series of essays in defense of the Cherokee Nation’s right to their property, using Jefferson’s original intentions as a source of authority. The “William Penn Papers” were first published in the National Intelligencer, from August to December 1829. 13

More land cessions enabled American citizens to surround the targeted Native peoples who would then have to choose between full assimilation and westward removal.

Jefferson encouraged Harrison to “cultivate their love,” while at the same time making sure their weakness was evident to them, “…they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, & that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only.” Any Indian “fool-hardy” enough to attack American citizens would be made an

“example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation.”54

Harrison successfully upheld Jefferson’s private Indian policy and became enormously popular as a result.55 Jefferson’s public statements of friendship but private support for Indian removal and containment reinforced the ideologies of civility and expansion simultaneously. While most Americans convinced themselves that Native

Americans were a “vanishing race” because of their “innate weakness,” Jefferson’s cunning dual policy protected this view. The significance of Jefferson’s private Indian policy remaining private cannot be overemphasized. It survived every presidential administration through to John Quincy Adams’s in 1828. In borderland regions

Jeffersonian duplicity was especially evident, but some agencies involved in Indian civilization programs within these areas refused to support such duplicity.

The Significant Difference between Private and Public Policy

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, founded as an independent reform agency in 1817, garnered significant government funds toward

54 Ibid., 39:589–593. 55 Robert M. Owens, Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), xvi. 14

Indian pacification. Although eventual removal through pacification was a longstanding goal of the federal government, American Board members recognized that the Jackson administration intended to shift federal Indian policy toward more aggressive removal efforts. The organization’s secretary Jeremiah Evarts published the “William Penn” essays in 1829, in which he depicted Jefferson as a model of support for Native American sovereignty and rights.

Mr. Jefferson, the third President, having pursued the policy of Gen. Washington on this subject, with more undeviating zeal than on any other subject whatever— being about to retire from the chief magistracy—and standing mid-way between the era of 1789 and the present year, wrote a fatherly letter to the Cherokees, giving them his last political advice. This letter is preserved by them in their archives. A negotiation is held with them, on their own soil, or, as the title has it, “within the Cherokee nation,” under the direction of the fifth President of the United States [Monroe]. The letter of Mr. Jefferson is produced and incorporated into a treaty. It is therefore adopted by the people of our land, and approved as among the national muniments, erected for the defence of our weak neighbors.56

Jefferson had written to the Cherokee leaders in 1806, expressing his “satisfaction” over

Cherokee efforts to become successful farmers. The president encouraged them to continue in these efforts and establish laws to protect their improved properties so that

“these things shall go to his wife and children,” as family legacies. He encouraged them to continue “learning to cultivate the earth and to avoid war.” Indeed, in this letter,

Jefferson encouraged the Cherokees to pass laws that would protect their property, live peacefully and productively.57 In this public letter, Jefferson did not mention incurring debt and removing to the West. As the “father” of Jeffersonian republicanism, the

56 Jeremiah Evarts, Cherokee Removal: The “William Penn” Essays and Other Writings, ed. Francis Paul Prucha (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981), 112. 57 Thomas Jefferson to the Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation, January 10, 1806; “Voices from the Past,” www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com. 15

American Board secretary sought to remind Jackson of Jefferson’s promises to the

Cherokee Nation. Evarts intended to exert pressure on the new president, and remind the

American public, of republican principles and precedents.

Indeed, Evarts made much of Jefferson’s “fatherly” advice, claiming, “A good father, I suppose, does not tell lies to his children, nor break his promises to them; especially promises that have been often repeated during the lapse of many years, and in which they have confided in making all their arrangements for comfort and usefulness through life.”58 Evarts emphasized Jackson’s distance from Jefferson in terms of

American Indian policies to pressure the new president to conform to precedent, and it is therefore reasonable for historians to perceive Jackson’s policies as a definitive break from the past. Although the Cherokees managed to avoid the pitfalls that Jefferson’s private policies encouraged, Jackson refused to equivocate. Shifting from the double standard policy, he chose Jefferson’s unilateral and secret policies and brought them into full public view.

During the 1829-1830 Congressional debates over President Andrew Jackson’s

Indian Removal bill, New Jersey Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen and Connecticut

Representative William W. Ellsworth also upheld the importance of precedence. They invoked the honor of past presidents on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty rights. For example, Frelinghuysen claimed, “Mr. Jefferson, nearly thirty years ago, congratulates his fellow-citizens upon the hopeful indications furnished by the laudable efforts of the government to meliorate the condition of those, whom he was pleased to denominate “our

58 Ibid., 113. 16

Indian neighbors.””59 Finally, writing for the majority decision, in Worcester v. Georgia

(1832), United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall referred to Jefferson’s

1806 letter to the Cherokee chiefs encouraging them to adopt the American system of laws. Marshall explained that Jefferson recommended that the Cherokees establish an

American-styled government. The past president “recommended the appointment of judicial and executive agents, through whom the law might be enforced.”60 Virtually every proponent of Cherokee rights based the authority of their arguments, in part, on

Jefferson’s call for mutual exchange of civilization for land. Thomas Jefferson died in

1826, before anyone could ask for a clarification of his views. William Henry Harrison who lived until 1841 could have undermined Jefferson’s public stance but remained silent. Whether or not any Supreme Court justices were aware of Jefferson’s private policies, such duplicity could not withstand constitutional interpretation.

Calhoun Hires Missionaries as Federal Agents

During the War of 1812 the Cherokee Nation demonstrated its willingness to follow Jefferson’s admonitions. The Cherokees distanced themselves from their rebellious Indian neighbors by siding with Americans. Red Stick Creeks used the war to push back American settlements, but Cherokee soldiers helped Americans root out this last unified Indian rebellion in the Southeast through a brutal massacre at Horseshoe

Bend in March 1814.

59 Speeches on the Passage of the Bill for the Removal of the Indians, Delivered in the Congress of the United States, April and May, 1830 (Boston: Perkins and Marvin, 1830), 25. 60 Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 6 Pet. 596 (1832). 17

After the war, and toward the close of James Madison’s tenure as president in

1816, Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury initiated a partnership between the federal government and the reform organization, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, to promote Indian civilization. Kingsbury proposed that education for Native Americans would solidify a positive relationship between Native Americans and the United States.

Noting the extra expenses incurred through Native resistance during the war, such as

Tecumseh in the Ohio Valley and Redstick Creeks, Kingsbury suggested that the United

States develop further Jefferson’s public policy suggestions:

Kind and benevolent exertions to instruct the Indians have a most powerful influence to gain their confidence and secure their friendship. Probably no other means could be so successfully employed to prevent the recurrence of expensive and bloody Indian wars, and give permanent security to our frontier settlements.61

Within two weeks of receiving Kingsbury’s invitation, Secretary of War William

Crawford penned a reply with which President Madison concurred. Although Kingsbury had not specified any particular Indian nation, Crawford—a Georgian—had set his sights on the Cherokees. The American Board agent won permission from local Cherokees and the federal government to build a school house and a teacher’s residence for Brainerd mission in the Chattanooga area, two miles north of the Tennessee-Georgia border. The federal government provided additional funds for “two ploughs, six hoes, and as many axes, for the purpose of introducing the art of cultivation among the pupils.”62

61 Cyrus Kingsbury to William H. Crawford, May 2, 1816; 2 American State Papers Indian Affairs, 477- 478. 62 Crawford to Kingsbury, May 14, 1816; 2ASP Indian Affairs, 478. 18

As a post-war president who wanted to bridge sectional divides, Madison’s successor, James Monroe, invited John Quincy Adams from Massachusetts and the South

Carolinian John Calhoun into his cabinet. Secretary of State Adams was Monroe’s first choice as a highly skilled negotiator. Alternatively, Calhoun was Monroe’s fourth choice for a position no experienced politician wanted: Secretary of War overseeing peacetime attrition. With a nod to Jefferson’s Indian Policies and an eye to facilitating westward expansion as cheaply and peacefully as possible, Calhoun won congressional support for missionary stations, because the War of 1812 convinced him of their talent for pacification.63 To Calhoun, the Cherokees had adopted civilization due to the support of missionary efforts, and the Cherokees had been valuable allies during America’s time of need. In this way, the missionaries became a critical feature of Calhoun’s plan for Indian removals, frontier management and westward expansion, believing that “civilization” would make Native people more amendable to removal and land cession.

Although Kingsbury indicated that frontier citizens would be delighted with

Indian education in the name of “permanent security,” disagreement was immediate.

Western states protested the expenditures, but funding passed through Congress anyway.

Frontier political leaders were less interested in pacifying Indians and more interested in removing them even further west, by virtually any means short of a war. Yet the burgeoning frontier population of white citizens reduced Western fears of Indian military retaliation and increased their political influence in Washington.

63 “26 Niles’ Weekly Register 1824,” March 29, 1824, p. 102. 19

The missionaries were also a critical component for Cherokee resistance. To protect Cherokee sovereignty and land rights, Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross cultivated the missionaries as valuable advocates. Ross organized assistance for the

Washington delegation. He wrote several letters to Calhoun and Monroe to prepare them for treaty negotiations. He respected the authority, “magnanimity and fostering care” of the United States government and he expressed the “sincere desire of the Cherokee

Nation” that its people “should be fairly represented and correctly understood.” The

Cherokees gratefully emerged from “wretchedness and ignorance to comfort and civilized knowledge.” They wanted only “peace and friendship” with United States citizens.

Ross demonstrated exceptional shrewdness under his apparent obsequious gestures as he prepared for the upcoming treaty negotiations. For example he documented cases of “stolen property” that had accrued over several years. The Indian Agent had forwarded these claims for federal adjudication. The chief expressed hope that the claims could be disposed of expeditiously. Ross hoped a process by which any future claims might be resolved in a timely fashion. “We beg leave to request your attention to the subject.” Additionally, there had been “some extraordinary mismanagement” from earlier agents over the value of Cherokee improvements. Despite the “stipulation of the Treaty of 1819 [the Cherokees] never recd. any compensation.” With additional documentation,

Ross expressed concern over additional intruders on Cherokee property, causing “much complaint” and “serious injury to the Cherokees” including loss of “timber & soil.” These intruders stole property and engaged in “evil practices of demoralizing habits” which the 20

Cherokees hoped to avoid. Ross suggested resolutions such as additional funds and agents friendly to their concerns. The list of detailed and verified complaints continued.

Ross demonstrated an impressive familiarity with the state of the Cherokee Nation and its inhabitants. He elucidated the particular treaty clauses that served to protect his people, and indicated that the misbehaving white population was costing the United States significant funds, demonstrating a need for heightened regulation. Having established an exceptionally well-run Tribal Council, Ross effectively challenged the United States to manage its own government equally effectively. It would certainly embarrass the United

States if the Cherokees established a superior governing body.64

Ross also exerted pressure on missionary support. He sent word to the American

Board Secretary Jeremiah Evarts on behalf of the Cherokee delegation. Ross hoped that

David Brown, a missionary representative, would meet with the delegation once it arrived. After reviewing the commanding detail that the chief demonstrated in his earlier letter to Calhoun, it is almost comical to read Ross’s supplication regarding the American

Board advocate, “especially as he is more competent of transacting business of that nature.” Ross expressed perfect faith in Evarts’s support, claiming that “your sincere desire is to promote the general interest and happiness of the Cherokees as well as other

Nations, we doubt not you will weigh the subject deliberately and determine as may seem most proper.”65 Ross provided detailed arguments and documentation to government and

64 John Ross to John C. Calhoun, January 13, 1824; Papers of Chief John Ross, vol. 1, Gary E. Moulton, ed., (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), I:57. 65 John Ross to Jeremiah Evarts, February 12, 1824, from The Papers of Chief John Ross, vol. 1, Gary E. Moulton, ed. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 68. 21 missionary leaders responsible for protecting Cherokee rights. He offered explicit advice for the safeguards he expected. His arguments left these leaders with basically two choices: either follow through or break past agreements. Since Ross inserted republican precepts into his demands, American leaders felt hard-pressed to decline their assistance.

Missionary societies became especially willing supporters. The Cherokee Nation’s self- presentation of heightened moral virtue indicated that the missionaries’ vision of a virtuous republic was attainable.

The Cherokee Nation encouraged American Board missionary schools and churches to protect their sovereignty. While residing at the Brainerd Mission in

Tennessee, missionaries found that Native American and white children had equal capacities for instruction and civilization, and they proudly promoted their “discovery.”

The missionaries warmed quickly to their work and the people they served. When visitors from North Carolina expressed surprise over evidence of Cherokee civilization, these missionaries-turned-federal agents excitedly professed their new-found knowledge of the essential sameness of Indians and white Americans. Rev. Ard Hoyt explained that most

Americans, North and South believed “that the Indian is by nature radically different from all other men, & that this difference presents an insurmountable barrier to his civilization.” True to reformer idealism, missionaries believed that they only needed to demonstrate their new-found knowledge for the world to change its ways. On June 24,

1818 Hoyt explained that he heard this sentiment often expressed, but countered:

We wish those who make the above objections to all endeavors to Christianize & civilize the Indians, might be reminded that the Indians are men; and their children, education alone excepted, like the children of other men. Considering 22

the advantages of the children under our care, we think they are bright & promising as any children of equal number we ever saw collected.66

Calhoun was eminently satisfied with these reports and the civilizing successes of the Brainerd mission near Chattanooga, Tennessee. In October 1821, Brainerd missionaries submitted their annual report, claiming “The Cherokees, we think, are fast advancing toward civilized life. They, generally, manifest an ardent desire for literary and religious instruction.”67 The Brainerd report detailed expense accounts and the

Cherokees’ enthusiasm for Western civilization. Calhoun responded:

The report is very satisfactory. The prosperity of the establishment at Brainerd which has already enabled it to extend its advantages to the other parts of the Cherokee Nation, affords the most cheering prospect of complete success, and should it continue will entitle it to additional aid from the Government.68

The mode in which Calhoun operated as Secretary of War during military cutbacks was to keep the peace as cheaply as possible. Therefore, the missionaries were ideal federal agents. Their religious passions encouraged a self-regulating and therefore an economizing integrity for this work. Their integrity, however, meant that they genuinely believed in their humanitarian efforts. Yet Calhoun’s enthusiasm for the missionary successes did not mean that he wanted the Cherokees to remain in the

Southeast. He had no doubt that eventually all tribal groups would remove to the West.

66 Joyce B. Philips and Paul Gary Philips, eds., The Brainerd Journal: A Mission to the Cherokees, 1817- 1823 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 66. 67 Thomas C. Cochran, ed., The New American State Papers, 1789-1860, vol. 2, Indian Affairs: General (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1972), 589. 68 John C. Calhoun, “Copy of the Letter from the Sec. of War, Dated December 12th 1821,” December 12, 1821, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions archives, Houghton Library. 23

At the same time, he was reluctant to push for new land cessions too quickly as too costly.

Adams reflected over Calhoun’s Indian policies, indicating that the Secretary of

War believed that slow, persistent pressure would remove eastern Indians most economically. Calhoun did not keep a journal, but John Quincy Adams did. As fellow cabinet members, Adams and Calhoun frequently dined together, and Adams recorded some of their conversations, providing insight into Calhoun’s reasoning. Calhoun believed that regulated expansion would minimize costs and prevent Indian upset. As soon as General Jackson concluded the 1819 land cessation treaty with the Cherokees and

Creeks, Georgia’s Governor Clark pushed for more. Adams wrote that “Calhoun is strongly averse to this: says that very large cessions have lately been obtained by two

Treaties, from the Creeks and Cherokees—That it would be very difficult if not impossible to obtain more from them now; and certainly not without paying more than the worth of the Lands.”69 Calhoun agreed with Clark’s removal goals; however, he cautioned patience.

In April 1820, Calhoun and Cherokee Agent Colonel Return J. Meigs exchanged letters over the remarkable success of the government’s assistance program through

Calhoun’s missionary program. Meigs explained that the Cherokees were well established with all the necessary materials for agriculture, and they did not need any more help. Convinced that the Cherokees were permanently “pacified,” and with the

69 John Quincy Adams, February 24, 1820, p. 271, Massachusetts Historical Society. Online: http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/ 24

1819 market collapse in mind, Calhoun agreed to cut back on Cherokee financial support.70 Undaunted, the missionaries continued their work, proselytized their successes through their paper, the Missionary Herald. They convinced more American citizens to contribute to their worthy endeavors. In this way, Calhoun’s cutbacks inadvertently contributed to increasing numbers of American citizens learning of Cherokee civilization.

The government’s ultimate goal for Indian civilization was removal. The interests of the missionaries and reform-minded citizens stopped at civilization. Supporters of Jefferson’s public Indian policy became increasingly interested in its success.

The Cherokee National Council made excellent use of this public good will. At the close of the 1819 treaty negotiations, the Cherokee Council voiced its enthusiasm for

Western civilization as well as its refusal to sell any more land. The Council requested advanced notice when Washington called for negotiations. McLoughlin notes that the

Cherokees also learned how to mobilize public opinion to their advantage: “through the missionaries, through white churchgoers, through philanthropists” the Cherokees found support for “their demands for Christian philanthropy, American justice, and fair play.”71

Their public letters to the American representatives and citizenry follow a strategic assimilation pattern delineated by the historian Andrew Denson. The Cherokee Nation advanced diplomatic policies of friendly resistance to United States’ policies against its interests. The Cherokees developed skills in lobbying and public relations. They hired attorneys and learned how to address government officials, newspaper editors, and

70 William Gerald McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1986), 280–283. 71 Ibid., 279. 25

“friends of the Indian.” Finally, the Cherokee Nation recognized the value of “constantly informing non-Indians of the Cherokees’ rights and desires.”72 The Cherokee Council promoted the idea that its sovereignty benefited whites and Cherokees alike. Their governance helped Cherokees become less needy than they would be without the

Cherokee Council. The Cherokees encouraged white neighbors to live up to their pledges and professed ideals.

The Cherokee Council generally expressed optimism and good will when making its requests. They suggested that any attack on native interests was due to misunderstandings that would clear up with better communication. When miscommunications were rectified the United States and the Cherokee Nation would both benefit from the results. The Cherokee Nation councilors were expert negotiators and consistently caught unwary U.S. commissioners off guard. For example, James

Meriwether and Duncan Campbell complained over their inability to wrest land from the

Cherokees in particular: “There is too much truth in their arguments to be easily combated, and so long as they are recognized as having equal share in the contractual arrangements [i.e. the right to say no], negotiations will be difficult.”73

The Cherokees strategically adopted most of the trappings of Western civilization, including Christianity, education, Western agriculture, and race-based chattel slavery.

They made one notable exception, however, to prevent removal. The Cherokee Nation

72 Andrew Denson, Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy and American Culture, 1830-1900 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 15. 73 Duncan Campbell to John Calhoun, February 28, 1823. As quoted in McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic, 306. 26 protected native land as community property. Cherokees avoided individual allotments and were explicit about their reasoning. Communal land prevented the Cherokees from losing it piece by piece through individual land sales. Land was “the foundation of the people’s collective existence. Cherokees came to define common landholding as essential to the nation’s survival, a principle to which they adhered long after removal.”74 The

Cherokees argued that Georgians’ trespasses on their land were illegal according to

America’s own laws. The Cherokees were, by U.S. treaties, a sovereign nation, “and federal authorities would be duty-bound to help the tribe hold Georgia and its citizens at bay.”75 Cherokee leaders presented themselves to the U.S. government as supplicants of a vulnerable nation, but also presented themselves “as the best possible experts on Indian affairs.”76 When the Cherokee Nation demonstrated republican virtue, and Americans protected that virtue, both the Cherokee Nation and the United States would benefit. In short, to protect their borders, the Cherokees developed the public image of an idealized republic and friend to the United States.

When the United States cut back on military funding, the Cherokee Nation stepped up and began protecting its own borders with exemplary military authority and diplomacy. Under the auspices of Principal Chief Path Killer and Assistant Chief Charles

R. Hicks, President of the Cherokee Council John Ross policed Cherokee borders as a member of the Cherokee Light Horse militia and reported to General Jackson. The Light

Horse patrols demonstrated judicious restraint with white squatters on Cherokee territory.

74 Denson, Demanding the Cherokee Nation, 24. 75 Ibid, 27. 76 Ibid, 31. 27

Their diplomatic militia efforts saved the U.S. government borderland expenses and protected Cherokee boundaries. Ross reported to General Jackson as if he were a United

States officer following orders:

The first object presented itself was a place occupied by a man (Atkinson) who had officially threatened opposition to Mr. {James G.} Williams, the Sub-Agent. Mr. Williams being absent, Mr. {Thomas C.} Hindman was deputized by the Agent to accompany the detachment. On our arrival to the spot, it was found evacuated. The crop was ordered to be distroyed. Whilst executing this order, Atkinson came across the river with his wife & family to defend it, not by the force of powder & lead, but by the sheding of tears, this unexpected weapon of defence had more effect on the minds of the men, than if he had resorted to the measures threatened in his letter to Mr. Williams. His conviction of error & pitiful acknowledgements& c &c induced me to permit him to recross the river to the whiteside unmolested with a few sheep & geese -- his crop was all distroyed. I have intrusted the command to Lieut. {Elijah} Hicks with much confidence, notwithstanding there has been threats of opposition breathed almost from every quarter, I am induced to believe they will mostly cooperate like Mr. Atkinson. I expect the detachment here in a few days. On their arrival I will resume the command until we cooperate with the detachment of regulars.77

Ross played a dangerous game with Jackson and most likely knew it. He patrolled the

Cherokee borders to remove white squatters, but Jackson preferred the rights of the white squatters over the Indians’ claim to their land. With only a nominal support from his commanding officer in this endeavor, Ross’s gentle treatment of the squatters may have been as political as it had been a compassionate gesture. There is no evidence that

Jackson responded to Ross’s report, but three months later, Jackson made his wishes known to Calhoun after his southern tour.

Jackson wanted to remove the Cherokees from the Georgia lands that Ross was guarding. “I have now but little doubt, that a large portion of the real Indians wish to pass

77 Ibid, 41. John Ross to AJ, Rossville Cherokee Nation, June 19, 1820. The Papers of Chief John Ross, vol. 1. Gary E. Moulton, ed. (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 40. 28 to the Arkansa [sic] if they had the means.”78 The Cherokees were surrounded by whites who wanted their land. Georgia citizens and political leaders wanted them removed.

United States’ political leaders: General Jackson, John Calhoun and President Monroe wanted Cherokee removal as well. Yet the Cherokee Nation kept them at bay and

Thomas Jefferson’s double standard was coming unraveled. Eighteen years earlier, in

1802 Thomas Jefferson promised Indian removal. He signed a compact with Georgia to promote the removal of all Indian tribes within their designated state borders by

“reasonable and peaceable” means. One year later in 1803, Jefferson outlined his double standard in separate letters to congress and William Henry Harrison. Then three years later in 1806, Jefferson complimented Cherokee civilization and efforts to establish land legacies for “wife and children.”79 In 1824, Calhoun and Monroe believed that steady and relentless pressure would gradually wear the Cherokees down and encourage them to choose removal, “reasonably and peaceably,” as stated in the Georgia Compact of 1802.

But Georgian leaders became increasingly impatient as their state’s population increased.

78 Andrew Jackson, The Papers of Andrew Jackson, 1816-1820, ed. Harold D. Moser, David R. Hoth, and George H. Hoemann, vol. IV (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994), 388. Andrew Jackson to John C. Calhoun, Nashville, TN, September 2, 1820. In Jackson’s letter, he referred to “real Indians” indicating that he differentiated them from acculturated Indians, such as John Ross. However, Cherokees did not always differentiate themselves as either "traditional" or "acculturated." For example, John Ross was able to support the interests of both. He came from an elite Cherokee family and was raised with a solid Western education. His family heritage, however, was an additional and critical feature of his success as a remarkably effective Cherokee Principal Chief. According to white standards, John Ross was hardly Cherokee; seven-eighths of his parentage was Scots-Irish. Indeed, the highest compliment that Georgia’s Governor Wilson Lumpkin could extend to Ross was to acknowledge his intelligence through his non- Indian heritage. For traditional Cherokees, however, Ross was fully Cherokee. Ross’s white heritage came from his fathers. His matrilineal parentage remained unbroken through the Bird Clan; his Cherokee name was Koo-wi-s-gu-wi, which was a mythological, or rare migratory, bird. (http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/History/Chiefs/24531/Information.aspx) Although he lost his familiarity with the Cherokee language as he grew older and immersed in Western education, traditional Cherokees, the “real Indians” that Jackson referred to, recognized him as one of their own as well. 79 Thomas Jefferson to the Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation, January 10, 1806; “Voices from the Past,” www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com. 29

As Jefferson had hoped, republican civilizing policies had encouraged Cherokee peacefulness and cooperation; however, unexpectedly, the Cherokees used education to protect themselves against vulnerability. Wielded effectively by an oppressed people,

Cherokee delegates demonstrated how education became a powerful tool against hegemonic authority.

The Cherokee Nation Wins a Round: Exposing the Importance of Federal Executive Authority over Individual States Interests

The Cherokee Council moved to cement its relationship with Washington, shortly after Cherokee Agent Return J. Meigs died in January 1823. Calhoun replaced Meigs with Joseph McMinn the retired Governor of Tennessee. Meigs had facilitated the U.S. government’s goals for Cherokee land sales and removals of some Cherokee factions, but eventually, Meigs came around to respecting the Cherokees and began acting as their advocate. The Cherokee Council found McMinn less responsive than Meigs to its welfare, indicating Calhoun’s investment in the Cherokees’ ultimate removal. McMinn alerted Calhoun on November 27, 1823 that the Cherokee Council was on route to

Washington. The delegates did not confide in McMinn as to the purpose for their visit.

McMinn conjectured, “possibly because they plan to finance the trip themselves.”80

Thus, during the last year of James Monroe’s tenure as president, four members of the Cherokee Council visited Washington in January 1824. It was a politically sensitive year even without the Cherokee appearance. The caucus system of electing presidents was fast disintegrating and a nationally untested convention system was in the

80 Joseph McMinn to John Calhoun, November 27, 1823. As quoted in The Papers of John C. Calhoun, ed. W. Edwin Hemphill, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1977), VIII:382. 30 works to take its place. Writing to a Yale law school friend, Micah Sterling, in

Watertown, New York, Calhoun expressed his worry over the caucus system. “There can be no caucus,” he wrote, “In the present state of the publick mind, it would distract, rather than unite the publick sentiment. In fact it could not fail to divide the Republican party permanently. It is said that 19 States will not in any event go into caucus. I believe the calculation may be relied on.”81 The political winds were changing, and Calhoun wanted to ride them well. Andrew Jackson’s bid for the presidency benefitted from the collapse of the caucus system and the rise of state conventions.82 With his own eye on national office, Calhoun was principally concerned with the upcoming elections.

When they first visited Washington in January 1824 the Cherokee Council made a favorable presentation. They often came across as uniquely civilized, and this case was no exception. Also important, they demonstrated a consummate skill in high level negotiations. It is remarkable to consider that they understood Washington politics so well that they convinced both Monroe and Calhoun that the United States would be better served if the Cherokees remained in their homelands, at least for the time being. However the people that the Cherokees could not convince were those who refused to swerve from inviolate race-based distinctions. For example, they convinced Adams, Monroe and

Calhoun, but the Cherokees never convinced Andrew Jackson to relinquish his rigid white supremacy.

81 Micah Sterling to John Calhoun, January 5, 1824; As quoted in Ibid., VIII:447. 82 Thomas M. Coens, “The Formation of the Jackson Party, 1822-1825” (Dissertation, Harvard University, 2004), 21. 31

John Quincy Adams was visiting Monroe when Calhoun brought the Cherokee delegation to meet with the president. Like other American leaders and citizens, Adams perceived the Cherokees as somehow different from other Indian tribes. In his diary he wrote:

I called at the President’s, and while I was there Mr Calhoun came with a delegation of five Cherokee Indians—This is the most civilized of all the tribes of North American Indians. They have abandoned altogether the life of Hunters, and betaken themselves to tillage—Those men were dressed entirely according to our manner—Two of them spoke English, with good pronunciation, and one with grammatical accuracy—This was a young man of 23 who has passed three or four years at a missionary school in Connecticut—He interpreted for his father83, who made a speech to the President in the figurative Style of Savage Oratory; with frequent recurrence to the idea of the Great Spirit above—They gave us some account of their present Institutions, which are incipient.84

Shortly after this meeting, the Cherokee delegation sent word to Monroe about the not- yet-ratified 1804 land sale treaty. They did not mention that they had their own copy. In the game of high-level diplomatic negotiations, the Cherokees’ copy of the treaty was their strongest move, and they did not want to play it too early. Monroe and Calhoun must have communicated immediately thereafter, for Calhoun sent word to the Cherokees that he was their contact, not the president. In response, the Cherokees started goading the secretary of war. On January 19th they remarked dryly to Calhoun, “We were not sensible that a communication requiring the consideration of the President, should in all cases be submitted thro’ one of the Departments.”85 Calhoun did not realize that the

83 The references are most likely John Ross, John Ridge and his father Major Ridge. George Lowrey and Elijah Hicks were also present. 84 John Quincy Adams, January 8, 1824, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/doc.cfm?id=jqad34_204. 85 John Ross, George Lowrey, Major Ridge, and Elijah Hicks, to J. C. Calhoun, January 20, 1824. The Papers of John C. Calhoun, 1975, VIII:491. In actuality, as nation to nation, the Cherokee delegation 32

Cherokee delegates were setting him up by appearing ignorant of federal protocol. Like

Commissioners Meriwether and Campbell before him, Calhoun underestimated the

Cherokees’ uncanny ability to catch unwary negotiators off guard.

Paternalistically and firmly, Calhoun responded twice to the January 19th letter listing his own counterclaims. In this moment, he most likely believed that he finally could meet Georgia’s demands and push for removal. On January 30th, he encouraged the

Cherokees to remove to the west of the Mississippi. On February 6th, he explained that after diligent search, he could find no evidence of an 1804 treaty. Consequently he made clear that, “[a]s no such treaty nor any information respecting it can be found, it is not in the power of the President, to comply with your request.”86 Gathering steam, Calhoun listed new demands. He insisted that the Cherokees adhere to all their treaty obligations, stop applying taxes to traders, and be more cooperative with the agent he assigned to them, Governor McMinn. On February 11th, the Cherokee delegation reiterated their refusal to sell more land and provoked Calhoun still further. They raised a politically sensitive issue over unclear state borders by suggesting that the federal government should give Georgia some of the Florida territory instead.87 Two days later they played their trump card.

should have approached John Quincy Adams as secretary of state, not the president, nor the secretary of war. 86 Ibid., VIII:523. To John Ross, George Lowrey, Major Ridge, and Elijah Hicks [Eastern] Cherokee Delegation, [Washington] February 6, 1824. 87 The Cherokee delegation had touched upon an embarrassing boundary dispute between Georgia and Florida. The boundary between these two states remained uncertain until 1872, when an Act of Congress finally settled the matter. The territorial dispute began in 1795 when Spain and Great Britain negotiated the Florida borders. The matter reemerged when the United States acquired the Florida territory from Spain in 1822. President John Quincy Adams tried to negotiate the boundary line in 1826 to no avail. Therefore the 33

They sent Calhoun their copy of the 1804 treaty with supporting documents. The

Cherokees were extremely solicitous with their presentation and confident that the Senate would ratify it. They demonstrated their friendship by having been generous with the intruders, “and actually gave 40 extra square miles of land to the U.S.”88 Shocked that the

Cherokees kept better records than his own War Department, Calhoun immediately backed down from the removal pressures he was mounting. He sent copies of the 1804 treaty to an impatient George Troup, the new governor of Georgia, explaining that he was working with the Cherokee delegation in Washington and they were “very adverse to making any additional cession of land to the U[nited] States.”89 The Cherokees’ diplomatic strategy worked perfectly on federal executives Monroe and Calhoun. When

Calhoun claimed that the Cherokees could not make demands because they had no treaty, he established criteria that he believed the Cherokees could not meet. When the

Cherokees met his criteria, they had effectively maneuvered the Secretary of War into a quid pro quo corner. Indeed, the Cherokees had the treaty, and so the U.S. government had to take responsibility for it.

Georgia’s legislators, however, remained unmoved. The state legislators reacted vehemently against the president’s Indian policy. On March 10, 1824, writing to the president of the United States, they argued their position through explicitly racial distinctions:

territory was actively in dispute at the time of the Cherokee delegation. Fred Cubberly, “Florida against Georgia: A Story of the Boundary Dispute,” Publications of the Florida Historical Society 3:2 (October 1924), 20-28. 88 Ibid., VIII:540. From John Ross, George Lowrey, Major Ridge, and Elijah Hicks, February 13, 1824. 89 Ibid., VIII:545. To George M. Troup, Governor of Georgia, Milledgeville, February 17, 1824. 34

The secretary of war has addressed to the gentlemen composing the Georgia delegation to congress, copies of the extraordinary documents furnished by persons who are called the Cherokee delegation. As this is believed to be the first instance in which a diplomatic correspondence has been held with Indian chiefs, and in which they have been addressed by the department of war in the same terms with those used to the representation of a state, it becomes a subject of inquiry in what light the Cherokees are at present viewed by the government of the United States.90

For Indians, according to the Georgians, government agreements did not matter. The

Cherokees were Indians and therefore they had no rights that the United States was required to respect.

On the congressional floor the Georgia legislators queried their fellow delegates: how, precisely, does the United States view the Cherokees Indians? Are the Cherokees an

“independent nation,” they asked incredulously, or are they “viewed as other Indians,” unfortunate enough to reside within United States’ jurisdictional boundaries? The racial demarcation was explicit. No amount of civilization or education would change the fact that the Cherokees were Indians. The Georgian representatives felt unfairly singled out.

In a precise example of zero-sum thinking that justifies absolute distinctions of difference, the Georgians noted that while the United States Indian policy was “just and generous to the Indians,” it was unfair that their state would be singled out to bear the nation’s expense.

Monroe and Calhoun resisted the bared racial categorization of the Cherokees promoted by the Georgia legislature, and Monroe explicitly renounced it. Capable of recognizing that Cherokees and Americans could align their interests, they had been

90 “26 Niles’ Weekly Register 1824,” April 17, 1824, 103. Italics in the original. 35 genuinely impressed by the Cherokee delegates’ political sophistication. They urged

Congress to re-think American Indian policy and considered this matter critical to resolve. They believed that no one person should make this decision of such import.

Calhoun and Monroe realized that the Cherokee successes required a careful reassessment of federal Indian policies. If the United States intended to uphold the

Washingtonian creed of expansion with honor, and if the federal government intended to remove all tribal nations from the eastern states, then the Cherokee dilemma had to be resolved in some new fashion requiring a congressional deliberative process to establish a national agreement. They addressed congress over this issue, which they considered critical to national policy.

On March 29, 1824, John C. Calhoun spoke before Congress on the logistical components of the Cherokees situation, concentrating on the expenses incurred by all parties. He noted the costs incurred in 1802 by the United States to Georgia regarding the

Yazoo claims of $1.25 million. Although it was likely remembered by Georgia and congressional legislators, Calhoun did not mention the additional $5 million that congress paid in 1814 to Northern speculators who also had stakes in the lands claimed by

Georgia. The Yazoo land fraud had been an expensive lesson for congress and a source of contention between Georgia and Washington. Thus, Calhoun cautioned Georgians to exert more patience for the sake of national interest. The United States had made several treaties with the Cherokees and gradually extended land ownership to the corresponding states with vested interests. By delineating the costs and acreage purchased for the state benefits, “the United States have ever been solicitous to fulfil [sic] at the earliest period, 36 the obligation of the convention, by the extinguishment of the Indian titles within the limits of Georgia,” made evident already by the number of treaties made and land purchased for their interest.91 Calhoun addressed Georgia’s impatience with diplomatic firmness. “I feel satisfied that it may be asserted with confidence,” Calhoun insisted, “that no opportunity of extinguishing the Indian titles, “on reasonable terms,” has been neglected to be embraced by the United States.” Calhoun mentioned the other states involved in land acquisitions as well: Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

Certainly, he intimated, the federal government was doing what it could to be fair to the interests of all the states involved.

Calhoun reminded Congress of the importance of good relations with Native

Americans. During the War of 1812 the Creeks, for example, diverted many critical resources due to their hostilities toward the United States. In his address to the Senate,

Calhoun did not mention specifically that the Cherokees helped Jackson subdue the

Creeks. More generally, he reminded Congress that during the late war, America’s borders had been vulnerable, and peaceful Indian populations had been critical to protect national security. Calhoun also expounded upon the Republican vision of a controlled federal government. The United States could not dictate to the states, Calhoun explained.

It was the federal government’s duty and responsibility “only to the purchase of the lands within the limits of Georgia, so soon as it could be done,” he repeated, “upon “peaceable and reasonable terms.”” Lands acquired through the Redstick War were “acquired by conquest,” Calhoun explained. For the Cherokees, he encouraged emigration.

91 Ibid., March 29, 1824, p. 102. 37

Calhoun also urged Congress to re-assess its civilization policies:

It cannot be doubted, that much of the difficulty of acquiring additional cessions from the Cherokee nation, and the other southern tribes, results from their growing civilization and knowledge, by which they have learned to place a higher value upon their lands than more rude and savage tribes. Many causes have contributed to place them higher in the scale of civilization than other Indians without our limits.—Lying in large masses, they do not feel that depression, which is invariably felt by small and detached tribes in the neighborhood of the whites. In addition to which, we may add the genial nature of their climate, which enables them to pass more readily from the hunter to the herdsman state; and the fertility of their soil, and the value of their staple articles, particularly cotton. To these, however, must be added the humane and benevolent policy of the government, which has ever directed a fostering care to the Indians within our limits. This policy is as old as the government itself; and has been habitually and strongly extended to the Cherokee nation.92

Calhoun ascribed the Cherokees’ civilization to American benevolence and a particular set of “many causes” or lucky circumstances that enabled the Cherokee Nation to be

“higher in the scale of civilization than other Indians,” and the Cherokees did not contradict their unique stature. With patient and consistent pressure, however, Calhoun was convinced that the Cherokees would eventually succumb to Jefferson’s double standard removal policy that would still protect the public image of the “humane and benevolent policy of the government.”

President Monroe followed Calhoun with a statement for Congress entitled

“Indian Reservations in Georgia,” on March 30. He explained that the Georgia Compact of 1802 required that the Cherokees be removed, he emphasized, “peaceably and on reasonable conditions.”93 Monroe resolved that he had every intention to remove the

Cherokees from the land promised to Georgia, but the Cherokee delegates have made “an

92 Ibid. March 29, 1824. As quoted in Niles’ Register, April 17, 1824. 93 “26 Niles’ Weekly Register 1824,” April 17, 1824, p. 101. Italics in the original. 38 unqualified refusal.” Monroe did not equivocate when he explained his conclusions over the Cherokee position. “By this it is manifest that, at the present time and in their present temper, they can be removed only by force, to which, should it be deemed proper, the power of the executive is incompetent.”94 Monroe judged that the Indian title to their land had not been “affected in the slightest circumstance by the compact with Georgia, and that there was no obligation on the United States to remove the Indians by force.”

Further, Monroe declared that to remove the Cherokees forcibly would be “unjust.”

Predominantly, Monroe felt that the United States needed to accept simply that the

Cherokees outmaneuvered them and make the best of it. “In future measures” he counseled, “the United States have duties to perform and a character to sustain, to which they ought not to be indifferent.” The civilization policy initiated by the first president of the United States, supported by congress through treaty law had been both an expedient and humanitarian gesture.

Monroe still supported removal. “My impression is equally strong,” he explained, that they should “be prevailed on to retire west and north of our states and territories on lands to be procured for them by the United States.” Otherwise, their government would be under constant pressure to “lose its authority, until it is annihilated.” While Monroe believed that removal was in the Cherokees’ best interests, he also believed in reciprocity. The United States should provide good land of equal or even more fertility for their use. Finally, Monroe admonished Congress to place this conflict between white

94 Ibid. 39

America and the Indian nations “under a high sense of its importance, and of the propriety of an early decision on it,” and resolve it with “perfect good faith.”

In summation, Calhoun and Monroe connected American national honor with upholding previous policies of civilization and removal. The civilization program worked for the Cherokee Nation and they believed that the United States would ultimately benefit from treating them respectfully, demonstrating, as Calhoun concluded, “humanity, kindness and justice” which was the hallmark of a civilized people.

Treaty law, federal Indian law, and race law

On April 16, 1824, when the Cherokee delegates submitted a communication to congress, Georgia’s Senator John Elliott requested that Congress table that communication. The Cherokees, he claimed, were not a delegation. Elliott “knew them only as other Indians, and to be treated with as such.”95 The Cherokee course of action was “novel and inadmissible” and he successfully had the communication tabled without further review.

Georgia’s Senator John Forsyth led a “select committee” to respond to President

Monroe’s message. It was unlikely a surprise to the Senate that the committee’s recommendations favored the interests of the state of Georgia significantly over the interests of the Cherokees, and thus over the interests of the federal government. Forsyth engaged in extensive public speeches concerning the Cherokees. Dissenters were not nearly as vocal. Yet at the close of the first session of the 18th Congress, the Senate approved the treaty and the president ratified it. On the last day of the second session of

95 42 Annals of Congress 2087-2088 1823-1824, April 16, 1824, p. 2395. 40 the 18th Congress, the House approved $21,000 for the Cherokees. As recorded in the

“Annals of Congress,” Cherokee supporters were significantly less vocal than Georgia’s support, but the treaty passed and was ultimately funded.

Forsyth’s committee’s message was explicit, even if its resolutions were less so. It was the federal government’s responsibility to remove the Cherokees. The committee understood the treaty of Hopewell, 1785, as the “sanction of Indian acquiescence,” not nationhood. Through this treaty, the Cherokees accepted “the United States as their sovereign.”96 After reviewing the treaties and documents presented to them, the committee concluded that Cherokee position was incompatible with the State of

Georgia’s interests. The Cherokees should be encouraged to comply with the Compact of

1802, but in “consequence of the perverseness of the Cherokees,” if they will not remove,

“the United States may be under the fatal necessity of seeing the Cherokees annihilated, or of defending them against their own citizens.” After this explicit lecture against

Cherokee sovereignty, the committee offered three resolutions:

Resolved, That the United States are bound, by their obligations to Georgia, to take, immediately, the necessary measures for the removal of the Cherokee Indians beyond the limits of that State. Resolved, That such an arrangement with the State of Georgia should be made, as may lead to the final adjustment of the claims of that State, under the compact of 1802, with the least possible inconvenience to the Cherokee and Creek Indians, within the boundary of the State. Resolved, That the sum of ----- dollars should be appropriated for the purposes expressed in the above resolutions.97

96 Ibid, April 7, 1824, p. 2351. 97 Ibid., p. 2356. 41

The resolutions were vague enough to satisfy the interests of Georgians who wanted to expedite Cherokee removal, and those who wanted to do so through constitutional means, indicating that Forsyth had to compromise with his fellow committee members. On April 8, the Senate approved the committee’s resolutions. On

May 17, 1824, the Senate also approved the 1804 treaty against Forsyth’s personal recommendations and Monroe ratified it. Congress still needed to approve the funds, which carried the deliberations into the second session of the 18th Congress. Senator

Forsyth worked the House floor as well. He presented the ratified treaty to the House of

Representatives for appropriation of funds, which he claimed to be unnecessary.

Representatives wondered if Thomas Jefferson had been senile for having lost the treaty.

Others found suspicious motives among the Cherokees for having waited so long to claim annuities. The debates over appropriations demonstrated a marked east/west division.

The two views expressed were: (East): The treaties rest on constitutional ground, therefore Congress has to support it, and (West): The Cherokees are Indians, and therefore, their treaties do not count. On February 10, 1825, Delaware Representative

Louis McLane remarked that “it might be considered a matter of just surprise, that it should be asked whether this House will appropriate a sum of money, solemnly and explicitly pledged in a treaty, solemnly and deliberately ratified.”98 Alexander Campbell of Ohio countered, expressing his thought that the particular history of this treaty was unusual and therefore suspicious. For Campbell, the Cherokee’s extraordinary example of civilization counted against them. Campbell knew that “there are a good many scholars

98 “Register of the Debates in Congress: 18th Congress, 2nd Session,” February 10, 1835, p. 539. 42 among” the Cherokees, “who understand composition as well as any white men. Would these have been so sluggish if they knew they had a right to the annuity? It was incredible.”99 Rev. John Culpeper from North Carolina thought that non-race-based logic dictated the appropriation of funds:

The first question was, Has the treaty been made? The second have we received the land? The third, Have we paid the money? To the first question, we must reply, Yes, the treaty has been made. To the second, we must also reply, Yes, we have received the land. And to the third, there could be but one answer. We have not paid the money. If we suppose we have, then, it is for us to prove we have. He did not profess to be acquainted with law, but this seemed to be the dictate of common sense.100

In short, state representatives who approved appropriation of funds focused on the dictate of the law without shifting its interpretation based on race. It did not matter to them who made the treaty. If the treaty was genuine, and if the other party upheld its part in the treaty, it behooved the United States to meet its responsibilities. For those who argued both against the treaty and against appropriating funds, the argument centered exclusively on race. The Cherokees were Indians. The United States held Indians to different standards. These opposing views conflicted fundamentally and both sides had adherents who would not alter their opinions. Both sides sought to sway the moderate center, those who validated racist understandings of people but could also be swayed by a race-blind rationality, particularly when applied to constitutional law. Finally, state representatives reflected constituent interests that varied by state and were beginning to consolidate by region.

99 Ibid., p. 545. 100 Ibid. 43

On March 3, 1825, the last day of the 18th Congressional session, the House of

Representatives approved funding of $21,000 for the Cherokee Nation. Perhaps as a compromise gesture, the funding was approved as payment for the military service of the

Cherokee Light Horse militia and not treaty funds alone:

AN ACT in making further appropriations for the Military Service for the year 1825. Be it enacted, &c. That the following sums be, and the same are hereby appropriated, to wit: For payment of the amount of the annuity due to the Cherokee nation under the treaty of twenty-fourth October, one thousand eight hundred and four, which was ratified during the last session of Congress, and for which no payment or appropriation has heretofore been made, twenty thousand dollars. For payment of said annuity for the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty- five, according to the stipulations of said treaty, one thousand dollars. Approved-March 3, 1825.101

Tariffs, Sectionalism, and the resulting invisibility of local conflicts: “Pockets of Poverty” in New York and South Carolina

Congressional deliberations over the Cherokee Nation were interspersed with deliberations over tariffs. In 1824, as Congress see-sawed back and forth between tariffs and the Cherokees, the debates over both issues remained separate. The explicit separation of these important political debates would falter six years later. At this time,

Indian removal and taxation were both given considerable time on the congressional floor, but remained distinctly considered. Importantly, taxation disputes indicate a lively fear over citizen poverty and the effort to manage that poverty through tariff-applied political economy. Tariffs were the principal tax revenue for the government, and the conflicts over appropriate taxation were fiercely debated and sectional.

101 “Appendix to the Register of Debates in Congress: 18th Congress--Second Session,” March 3, 1825, p. 105. 44

The historian Robin Einhorn delineates how Pennsylvanians led the “charge for protective duties, Southerners objecting to taxes that would force their constituents to subsidize the development of northern industry, New Englanders balancing the competing claims of import merchants (who preferred low tariffs) and manufacturers

(who preferred high tariffs).”102 Tariff disputes that dominated congressional sessions in

1824 were especially sensitive due to the changing election process. For the first session only of the 18th Congress, tariffs were deliberated extensively on over eight separate occasions, and duties on imports (considered, referred, reported, amended, committee appointed, among other delineations) were discussed thirty-nine times. In his diary, John

Quincy Adams reflected over one of Senator Daniel Webster’s speeches on the tariff,

April 1 and 2, 1824. Adams only heard the closing of Webster’s tariff discussion, which lasted an hour, “but the principal part of his speech was delivered yesterday.”103 Tariff legislation, which was predominantly a conflict-laden process of oppositional interest groups, took a considerable amount of congressional attention.

The following discussion over a proposed woolen tariff amendment is illustrative of the detail accorded such tariff discussions, the economic anxieties they revealed, and the entrenched distrust of someone else’s possible sectional advantage. It also suggests the persistent concern over poverty among the voting public. Pennsylvania House

Representative John Tod, Chair of the Committee on Manufactures, introduced a

102 Robin L. Einhorn, American Taxation American Slavery, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 150–151. 103 John Quincy Adams diary 35, "Rubbish III," diary and miscellaneous entries, 1803 - 1845, April 2, 1824, p. 147. Massachusetts Historical Society. 45 proposal for a reduced tariff amendment on woolen cloths from eighty to forty cents, and fixed the minimum for unmilled imported woolens at forty cents. Henry C. Martindale of

New York expressed shock over this amendment proposal, believing that this amendment would further impoverish wage laborers in his state. “No manufacture aids the farmer more than those the staple of which consists of wool,” he claimed.104 Farmers that were unprotected by the higher tariff would be less likely to hire laborers who were desperate for work. Martindale was suspicious of Pennsylvania’s motives and wondered if some other interest had influenced the committee to sacrifice Northern industry. This proposal, he claimed, jeopardized “the most valuable parts of the system of protection.” Tod demurred, explaining that no one could know how other representatives felt about a tariff proposal until it was put to a vote. Francis Baylies of Massachusetts supported the amendment, suggesting that the change would be high enough to curtail imports.

Maryland’s Isaac McKim concurred, predicting that although lowered, the reduced tariff would still significantly “diminish the importation of woolen goods one-half; that the revenue would lose at least eight hundred thousand dollars; the minimum at forty cents was equal to seventy-three per cent; what more was wanted for a protection?”105 James

Buchanan of Pennsylvania also approved the amendment believing that the lowered tariff would “promote a spirit of mutual conciliation.” Buchanan continued, reflecting, “cotton was abundant—wool was not.” America imported over one and a half million pounds of wool during the previous year and the local market was not yet ready to raise its

104 “42 Annals of Congress 18th Congress, Session 1,” March 4, 1824, p. 1741. 105 Ibid., p. 1742. 46 production too quickly. Tod emphasized the importance of this support, breaking in at this point to explain that his committee had consulted with many people over this proposed amendment. He appeared innocently surprised that it was so controversial. As a conciliatory gesture he suggested that they table the proposal for a few days to give the council more time to consider the matter. He explained that the tariff amendment was intended to increase the import of coarser woolens “negro cloths” which could be purchased from abroad at six cents a pound, while it still cost Americans at least twenty- five cents to produce.

At first, Pennsylvania representatives Samuel D. Ingham and Walter Forward supported the amendment, while New York representatives demurred. Arthur Livermore of New Hampshire then spoke to what he believed was the underlying issue at hand. This tariff reduction, he declared, protected manufacturers not farmers. “Gentlemen, who understand manufactures,” he caustically queried, “tell us that the amendment will benefit the farmer, because he cannot make wool mean enough; but if you will only protect the growth of wool by duties, any quantity of it can be raised.”106 John C. Wright from Ohio concurred and carried Livermore’s logic further. Wright recalled production during the War of 1812:

Look at our experience during the last war—we did then raise enough to meet the whole demand our flocks were multiplied to a vast extent; but peace came-the Government refused protection to the wool growers—foreign wool was poured into the country-the flocks were dissipated—they disappeared; part were exported to other and wiser countries, part were sent to the shambles. And now we are told we can’t raise enough.107

106 Ibid., p. 1743. 107 Ibid., p. 1746. 47

Churchill C. Cambreleng, from New York raised the issue of hemp, a predominantly Western crop. “The Navy Commissioners cannot use the American hemp, because it is bad.” He considered the connections between the markets for hemp, linen and cotton. Albert H. Tracy, also from New York, “moved to amend the amendment, by substituting eight for ten cents.” McKim countered this suggestion, believing that this amended amendment was out of order. Delaware’s Louis McLane discussed the nature of

American sheep and compared them to the sheep of Buenos Aires and Sweden.

New York’s Martindale brought the discussion back to wool, farmers and manufacturers. He spoke to the underlying economic anxieties within his state.

Martindale railed over the economic anxiety across goods and across sections masking an underlying local competition among wool producers and manufacturers themselves:

But, whose voice is it, that speaks on this floor for the poor? The voice of the capitalist, who owns large flocks and large factories. He fears the poor—the poor farmer and the poor manufacturer may come in competition with himself; it is for himself he speaks. Mr. M[artindale] considered it as a principle of universal truth and application, that where the producing power exists, protecting duties will cause the article to be produced cheaper than before.108

Martindale worried over the unfair advantages given to the wealthier farmers and manufacturers within the same woolen industry through this tariff reduction. He did not debate sectional differences comparing Western hemp, Southern cotton and Northeastern wool. Martindale’s concern indicates how the poverty from the Panic of 1819 still lingered in pocketed areas similar to the pocketed areas of poverty in the South Carolina low-country. In 1824 New York and South Carolina limited voting through the

108 Ibid., p. 1747. 48 legislature, but both states’ representatives recognized an increasing and restless poor voting public that needed a reason to believe their representatives were actually working for them. Martindale spoke directly to the local class differences, recognizing the interior problem within the state. The Southern planters looked elsewhere.

James Hamilton Jr. of South Carolina weighed in at this point, explicitly remarking on the sectional nature of the debate. He saw a collusion of “a certain class of agriculturalists with their old friends, the manufacturers.”109 He pointed out the increased complexity given to this once simple amendment, “according to the principles of the compromise of the bill, by which equivalents in different quarters were to be arranged and modified, why the Northern and Western agriculturalists were not also entitled, in the general distribution of the booty, to their golden fleece.” Hamilton then discussed his growing disillusionment with the debate, indicating his belief that the South needed to become more independent. He claimed:

[I]f the duty on the manufactured fabric was retained, the planters of the South would make their own clothing for their slaves, for the manufacture of which, the materials, consisting partly of wool and partly of cotton, were to be found in abundance in the interior economy of most of their plantations—a necessity to which grievous duties would unquestionably drive them.110

The City Gazette, a Charleston paper, voiced its frustration over federal tariffs. In

Chili, the editor claimed, “New Tariffs and regulations are so frequent, that there can be no correct calculations made.” As a result, the country was “in a very impoverished and

109 Ibid., p. 1749. 110 Ibid., p. 1750. 49 unsettled state.”111 Further, the debate was essentially pointless. Quebec watched the debates carefully, and was convinced if tariffs were set too high, Canada would benefit through a lucrative re-exportation trade. “[F]rom the waters of the St. Lawrence, fully one half of the population of the United States may be supplied with British Goods, at as cheap a rate of conveyance as by the sea ports of the United States.”112 At the end of the discussion, Congress made no agreement on the tariff amendment in question. The next day, the debate continued. The congressional gridlock over tariffs indicated their divisions. The same proved true for the congressional debates over the Cherokee treaty.

Georgia’s leaders applied their own pressures, sowing seeds of their discontent, even as they continued to be thwarted. The discussions over tariffs and Cherokee removal remained separate events on the congressional floor. They remained heated and stultifying, but neither influenced the outcome of the other at this time.

Conclusion: Separate issues over Cherokee Removal and Nullification merge together

Andrew Jackson did not initiate the executive efforts to dislodge the Cherokees from their homelands. Recognizing how effectively the Cherokees used their Western education to protect their land claims, President John Quincy Adams quietly began cutting back on the missionaries’ federal funding. Like his predecessors, Adams supported the integrity of federal treaty law, but at the same time, in all cases, the same presidents promoted Indian removal. Bribes, factional dissent within the tribes, and settler

111 City Gazette, Charleston, South Carolina, May 5, 1824, p. 2. Early American Newspapers Online. 112 City Gazette, Charleston, South Carolina, May 17, 1824, p. 2. (Italics in original). Early American Newspapers Online. 50 borderland pressures were remarkably successful. But the presidents understood that constitutionally protected treaty law prevented forced removals and protected American sensibilities over constitutional integrity.

Alternatively, President Andrew Jackson circumvented treaty law by applying controversial race-based distinctions. He effectively elevated Jefferson’s private policies to a publicized national standard which made them embarrassing to many Americans at this time, including the U.S. Supreme Court justices. The Cherokee Nation’s resistance in the face of these changes was remarkably effective. Indeed Jackson dismantled the federal banking system more readily than he removed the Cherokee Nation.

In 1803 Jefferson’s policy linking removal and civilization seemed sensible and assured. Twenty-six years after Jefferson penned his private vision to Harrison, Andrew

Jackson brought the earlier president’s private intentions into the public realm. In so doing, Jackson exacerbated sectional tensions and denied majority preference. Jackson made it official executive policy to remove all Indian tribes east of the Mississippi, no exceptions. In 1829 in a moment of incredible irony, Cherokee supporters used

Jefferson’s public statements against Jackson’s Indian policy.

In 1823 in his bid for the presidency, Jackson and his friend John Eaton published a series of essays they called Letters of Wyoming.113 Jackson wove together a populist vision of helpless women and virile white men, savage Indians, degenerate slaves, corrupt banks, and the glory of the Constitution and importance of militarism to protect it.

113 Andrew Jackson and John Eaton, The Letters of Wyoming, to the People of the United States, on the Presidential Election, and in Favour of Andrew Jackson. Originally Published in the Columbian Observer. (Philadelphia: S. Simpson & J. Conrad, 1824). 51

Jackson’s Letters inspired a people’s party, building Jackson’s national image as a champion for the “common man.” Importantly, Jackson’s Letters combined once separated images of savage Indians, passive women and slaves, tariffs, corruption and the

Constitution. Like the political leaders he intended to replace, Jackson promoted his consolidating vision by employing the new party-system tactics of state conventions. He secured administrative support through promises of government patronage for his promoters and controlled his popular image through the press by advancing his vision and vilifying opponents.

Although Calhoun also eyed the presidency for the 1824 election, he realized early on that he was unlikely to win. He threw his support behind Jackson, which temporarily strained his relationship with Adams. In March 1825 John Quincy Adams was sworn in as president of the United States by the tie-breaking vote of one representative. Andrew Jackson had won plurality, but not the majority giving Congress the right to choose. Once they settled their electioneering differences, Adams invited

Calhoun to be his vice president. Always distrustful of Northeastern interests, Calhoun sought ways to protect low-country planter interests and remain part of the Union. In this election Calhoun targeted flaws in the constitutional system itself and he began to envision amendments that would protect the minority interests of the power elite more explicitly against the elective majorities as described in Article I.114

114 Scholars divide over Calhoun’s nationalism and separatism, looking for evidence to pinpoint when and why he changes from one to the other. However his biographer John Niven insists that Calhoun’s political views remained consistent throughout his career. Niven suggests that Calhoun was always nationalist in his vision, while at the same time he believed that the Southern aristocracy should be a primary influence. John 52

With the election of John Quincy Adams as a Northern, non-slaveholding president, Calhoun recognized an increased interest in a rising Southern secessionist movement. Writing again to Micah Sterling, Calhoun believed that the problem was too much federal authority. “If we examine attentively the structure of our government, we will see how easy it is for it to slide into monarchy.” Calhoun’s image of republican governance reveals his essential elitism as he continued, “It has ever been the object dearest to me to procure the ascendancy of the popular voice in our system; and next to it, to give a wise direction to its movements.”115 Like Adams and Jackson, Calhoun’s democracy meant service to the public by directing their political will.

As late as 1824, congressional debates over Indian removal, tariffs and slavery’s expansion remained separate issues. Not worried over race-based issues of African colonization and Indian removal, the 1824 presidential race focused on ideological differences over federalism and the East/West divides over republicanism. Coens explains that “Republican factionalism in the Southern states was governed in large part by the sectional divide of East and West, with calls for constitutional revision and internal improvements” as the principal concerns.116 Adams understood the importance of this East-West divide when he picked the Kentuckian Henry Clay as his secretary of

Niven, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988). Perhaps it is useful to remember that Calhoun was quintessentially South Carolinian (this idea is further explored in Chapter Two) with its peculiar practice of feigned obedience as either a colony or a state. For South Carolina’s low-country planters, obedience to either Parliament or Congress meant the same thing. They praised the value of unified visions and simultaneously demanded the freedom to live as they chose. It was an odd sort of investment in either being a colony or one of the United States, but they made it work for most of the region’s history, so it is difficult to argue against its evident inconsistencies. 115 John C. Calhoun to Micah Sterling, May 31, 1826, from The Papers of John C. Calhoun, p. X:108–109. 116 Thomas M. Coens, “The Formation of the Jackson Party, 1822-1825” (Dissertation, Harvard University, 2004), 46. 53 state. But Calhoun preferred the slaveholding interests of Andrew Jackson. He switched sides even as he held the vice presidency under Adams, hoping that Jackson would support the sectional interests of low-country planters.

Devoted to business and record keeping in Charleston, the up-and-coming South

Carolinian politician William Drayton remained unconcerned. A dedicated Unionist,

Drayton would soon turn his federalist leanings toward Andrew Jackson to protect his state against Nullification advocates. As late as 1828, however, he wrote to a friend about local politics. Some were calling for Charleston to be designated as a “free port” and proclaim South Carolina to be “an independent sovereignty.” However, Drayton believed it was empty rhetoric that would come to nothing. He soon discovered how wrong he was.

The crisis in South Carolina over Nullification almost created a two party system in a state that uniquely avoided such explicit political competition within its leadership.

What, precisely, was so unique about South Carolina’s politics that the state became embattled over Nullification? How did the uniquely civilized status of the Cherokee

Nation sway Americans to become especially frightened of South Carolina’s lone-state

Nullification ideology? The next chapter considers the co-evolution of South Carolina and the Cherokee Nation in the colonial era and the early republican era.

CHAPTER 2 CHEROKEE SOVEREIGNTY AND SOUTH CAROLINA NULLIFICATION: COMPLEMENTARY VISIONS OF EXCEPTIONALISM

Introduction

The Cherokee Nation convinced many Americans and the U.S. Supreme Court that they were uniquely civilized among Native American tribal nations. South Carolina was the only state to avoid successfully the competition of party politics until the close of the Civil War. In the end, the irregularities of both cost them dearly. They gambled on behalf of their respective sovereignties and lost their immediate goals. Their comparative histories led to the Cherokee Nation’s post-contact sovereignty of the modern era and

South Carolina’s doctrine of Nullification, and further, the United States contributed to these respective crises. America’s investment in political economy while the gap between rich and poor citizens increased was an important source of anxiety for all the states in the Union and the Cherokee Nation.

For example, to be recognized as having achieved Western civilization standards, the Cherokees needed to prove their industry and prosperity to be widely manifested among their nation’s people. Their success became a two-edged sword for the United

States, because the student surpassed the teacher. For the Cherokees, such a comparison was no cliché. Frequently investigated by government officials, ordinary American citizens and missionary agents, the Cherokees proudly displayed widespread industry and prosperity among its citizenry. While the expanding United States developed significant

55 pockets of poverty, historian Rennard Strickland documents that many “Cherokee families, even the poor ones, had slaves” to assist them in their labors.117

Wealth and productivity were important for South Carolina’s influence as well.

Low-country planters were among the richest in the nation because they held the largest slave concentration in the country. Losing control over their dominance in the federal government was no small matter toward a national anxiety over a possible race war.

Although the histories of both the Cherokee Nation and South Carolina are well documented and explored separately, the complementary aspects of their histories led

American citizens to link their respective efforts into an explosive combination that threatened disunion. The Cherokee Nation’s successful representation of civilization questioned Georgia’s right to follow heretofore rights by any state to take Indian lands without impunity. Meanwhile, South Carolinian low-country planters demanded their right to overturn federal tariff legislation they deemed unfair. Neither Georgia’s nor

South Carolina’s leaders were willing to wait for national consensus on these issues.

They demanded immediate national validation of their grievances. In this way, two issues ostensibly over state sovereignty rights impinged upon national interests.

As the nation unified around a vision of widespread prosperity, the financial successes of the Cherokee Nation and the South Carolina low-country pressed Americans to consider seriously the claims of each. Additionally, the elite political culture of

117 Rennard Strickland, Fire and the Spirits: Cherokee Law from Clan to Court (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975), 80. For growing poverty in the early republican era, see John Lauritz Larson, The Market Revolution in America: Liberty, Ambition, and the Eclipse of the Common Good, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), and Seth Rockman, Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). 56 planters and land speculators contributed to a sustained parochialism, an investment in extra-legal authority, and finally, infused protections for them into state constitutions and legislatures. By establishing state legal systems that protected the interests of planters and land speculators, this frontier development sustained itself through codified statehood.

Essentially, the Cherokee Nation and South Carolina played opposite sides of the same coin. The Cherokee Nation had to expose the anti-republican nature of these state legislatures, while South Carolina relied upon them. Linked together, they exposed an uncomfortable realization that the American political economy was rigged for the benefit of the national elite. Before exploring the histories of Cherokee Nation sovereignty and

South Carolina’s distinctiveness, this chapter begins with a review of American political economy in the early republican era and follows with a study of the emergence of planter and speculator hegemony.

Political Economy One: Sectional Discord and International Business

Richard Hofstadter famously recognized that certain tenets drove American politics and remained steadfast across the bloody sectional conflicts, ideological differences, and even across time periods. These tenets include the “sanctity of private property, the right of the individual to dispose of and invest it, the value of opportunity, and the natural evolution of self-interest and self-assertion.” This “business of politics” protects competition and, at the same time, is supported by a commonality based on mutual self-interest. American democracy ostensibly aligns itself with equality, but too often, he observed, it became a “democracy in cupidity rather than a democracy of

57 fraternity.”118 Hofstadter understood that shared philosophy did not eliminate conflict.

Prosperity became an American requirement for political power, even as it became increasingly difficult to acquire.119 As the gaps between rich and poor American citizens widened, some well-educated elites sought to define and defend political economy as if it were a hard science: knowable, explainable, consistent, and accessible to anyone who studied it. On the congressional floor, South Carolina’s Representative John Carter offered a generally accepted definition of political economy and its significance for the young republic. “[T]he science of political economy,” he explained, secured for this country, “the most unbounded private happiness and public prosperity.” It required “the judicious application” of the “resources of their country,” resulting in “commercial prosperity and national industry,” and as a result, would command the admiration and

“induce the imitation of the whole world.”120 Disputes over how to achieve this scientific ideal arose from ideological and sectional differences and the politics of racial distinctions and parochial access to wealth.

The original Cherokee lands dominated the interior Southeastern region of the

North American continent, including territory in states now known as Tennessee,

118 Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition: And the Men who Made It (New York: Random House, [1948] 1973), xxxvi. 119 For example, Major Wilson explains that American nationality was based on liberty, and the resulting conflict that “the advance of larger liberty came at last to define, by its opposition to expansion-minded slaveholders, an irrepressible conflict within the nation.” Wilson, Space, Time and Freedom: The Quest for Nationality and the Irrepressible Conflict, 1815-1861 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1975), viii. In Hofstadter and Wilson’s view, then, the nation’s leaders agreed about the national importance of “prosperity” and “liberty.” They disagreed over how it should be achieved and who should have access. Further, both argue, in effect, in terms of a “zero-sum” game, explicitly separating themselves into sectional distinctions. Giving into others meant less for one’s self, which raised the conflicts to violence. 120 John Carter, Camden Journal, June 14, 1828. 58

Kentucky, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.121 As demonstrated in

Chapter One, the Cherokee Nation repeatedly impressed Americans as civilized through demonstrations of prosperity, industry, and its adaptation of republican governance. For example, Colonel Benjamin Gold and his wife Eleanor visited their daughter Harriet, in

New Echota, Georgia. Harriet recently married Elias Boudinot, a Cherokee and editor of the Cherokee Phoenix. The parental visit lasted eight months, and their daughter’s surroundings impressed them greatly.122 Colonel Gold remarked, “[C]ivilization has made a most unexampled progress in the nation. The great body of the Cherokees live in comfort, and many of them in affluence and splendor.” Cherokee society supported widespread education, piety, and industry. Many Cherokee families manufactured wool and cotton cloths for their own use and for the market. “[T]he wheel of the loom meet your eye in almost every house.” The Golds brought back examples of Cherokee handiwork that the Sentinel’s reporter commended as “really excellent, and will bear comparison with those manufactured here.” Cherokee roads were well kept, and the

Golds could “travel in his carriage through every part of the nation.” Col. Gold attended a meeting of the Cherokee General Council and was “astonished at the order and regularity of their business, and the talent displayed by their members.” This evident prosperity,

121 John Swanton, anthropologist with the Bureau of American Ethnology, described the Cherokees in the Southeast as “the only distinctly mountain tribe in the whole area.” Swanton, The Indians of the Southeastern United States (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, [1946] 1979), 11. 122 At first, Col. Gold opposed the marriage. Once Gold relented, the townspeople of Cornwall, Connecticut, Harriet Gold’s birthplace, raised their concerns. John Demos describes that criticism was widespread, and carried outside the township itself. Considering all the violent threats that attended the upcoming wedding, the family hired armed guards to protect the participants. In the end, how it “passed without major incident,” John Demos maintains, “in view of all that had come before, something of a puzzle.” Demos, The Heathen School: A Story of Hope and Betrayal in the Age of the Early Republic (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), 193. 59 industry, and orderly governance disclosed by a distinguished American citizen convinced the reporter that the Cherokees had successfully shifted from “wandering

Indian” to “industrious husbandman.” The Cherokees had exchanged “tomahawk and rifle” for the “plough, the hone, the wheel, and the loom.” They achieved a “degree of civilization that was entirely unexpected.”123 In short, the Cherokees had demonstrated the widespread prosperity, industry, and orderly governance that the greater American public imagined for itself. The Cherokees’ success gave them an unprecedented political authority to protect their sovereignty and homelands.

Likewise, the political authority of South Carolina’s low-country planters, and their eventual threat to the nation, was closely linked with their unique prosperity. Social and economic power determined South Carolina’s founding, and the success of transplanted Barbadian planters contributed to their heightened level of political influence. From 1720 to 1760, the per capita wealth of the South Carolinian low- country’s white population grew at an unprecedented annual compound rate of 2.0 to 2.2 percent, worth £2,337.7. Comparatively, Anne Arundel County, Maryland held the second highest regional value of £660.124 Just as Cherokee prosperity enhanced their unique stature as civilized Indians in the minds of American citizens, South Carolina low- country planter’s unparalleled wealth gave them stature and political influence.

123 The Sentinel, Gettysburg, PA, July 6 [1830]; As quoted in 38 Niles' Wkly. Reg. 391 1830, July 24, 1830, p. 394-395. 124 Peter Coclanis, “The Rise and Fall of the South Carolina Low-Country: An Essay in Economic Interpretation,” Southern Studies, 24 (Summer 1985), 151. 60

Americans generally agreed upon the tenets of political economy. However, westward expansion, driven especially by cotton, exposed increasingly disparate mindsets over how to achieve and protect various forms of political economy. For instance, Northern merchants benefitted from re-exportation between the West Indies and the warring European nations—including Great Britain—during the first term of

Jefferson’s presidency. As a result, Britain became less enamored over its trade agreements with the United States. Its navy began harassing unarmed American ships, impressing seamen to augment their own maritime ventures. When the relationship between Southern cotton producers and England grew increasingly strained, the South turned a wary eye toward Northern merchant re-exportation profits. As Southern planters increased cotton production and expanded their fields inland and into Western states,

Great Britain’s purchasing power became more important to Southern planters than their political alliances with the rest of the nation. One historian notes that “The cotton trade re-energized the very colonial ties to the former mother country that Jefferson desired to break” and Southerners’ “neo-colonial economic dependency” loosened their economic loyalties to the United States and especially to the North.125

Southerners sought to recapture their astronomical financial gains early in the eighteenth century, which made Southern planters especially vulnerable to European market forces and the good will of their dominant customer, Great Britain. Northerners promoted the re-export trade as patriotic acts similar to the Revolutionary Generation’s

125 Brian Schoen, “Calculating the Price of Union: Republican Economic Nationalism and the Origins of Southern Sectionalism, 1790-1828,” Journal of the Early Republic, 23:2 (Summer, 2003), 181. 61 profitable re-export trade during the Revolutionary War. Southern agriculturalists wondered why they should risk “the danger of total stagnation” toward a hopeless battle against the naval power of Great Britain.126 Why should they suffer financially when they would get no financial benefit in return?

Trying to navigate differing visions of patriotic sacrifice and prosperity, congress became stymied over appropriate retaliation because the costs varied by sections.

Northern republicans felt they were unfairly singled out with the embargo. When

Northerners suggested complete non-importation as an appropriate response, Southern planters balked over what they were convinced would be the greater cost to them. As economic suffering became equated with patriotic republican virtue, the American response focused on employing tactics that would equalize suffering. Thus congress compromised with an ineffective partial non-importation policy. At this point, republicans began considering the costs borne across the nation by declaring war.127

Judiciously applied political economy promised private happiness and public prosperity. To command international envy and imitation, agricultural sectors believed that their economy should flourish alongside the industrial sectors. The close alignment of prosperity, republican/patriotic virtue, and the cost and benefits of sacrifice defined the congressional debates over appropriate international retaliations and contributed to sectional differences over political economy. Meanwhile, the Cherokee Nation enabled widespread prosperity for its citizens, while America’s poor and wealth disparities

126 Schoen, JER (2003), 184. 127 Ibid, 185-186. 62 increased among its citizenry. Land speculation may have been a significant factor in

America’s increasing wealth disparity. Sectarian controls over access to land protected extraordinary profits for a few at the expense of many American citizens.

Political Economy Two: Sectional Discord and Westward Expansion

While the Cherokee Nation actively resisted expansion onto its lands, South

Carolina’s planters sought slavery’s expansion westward to protect their national political authority. Expansion increased dramatically through the early nineteenth century and required significant frontier fighting.128 Native Americans may not have succeeded in their efforts to protect their rights to their ancestral lands, but their resistance was significant and violent. Their successful resistance encouraged President George

Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox to develop a policy of “expansion with honor,” which essentially codified land hunger as natural white superiority. Couched in moral terminology, like slavery, westward expansion was ruthless, and most profitably pursued through extra-legal means. Driven to acquire their own piece of land profits,

128 Reginald Horsman studied the effect of westward expansion on American racial identity in Horsman, Expansion and American Indian Policy, 1783-1812 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1967and Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981). Virtually any study of Native American history grapples with Native American efforts to protect their homelands against rapacious whites. Specific to the Cherokees includes studies by William G. McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986) and After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees’ Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993); Theda Perdue, “Mixed Blood” Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2003); Andrew Denson, Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy and American Culture, 1830-1900 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004). Robert Berkhofer and Brian Dippie explore how Americans developed a “vanishing Indian” mythology to justify their loss of life and lands. Robert F. Berkhofer Jr., The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (New York: Vintage Books, 1979) and Brian W. Dippie, The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1982). For frontier experiences, Peter Silver explores historiographical understandings of race-formation in Silver, Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008) and Craig Thompson Friend considers the gendered constructions of frontier identity in Kentucke’s Frontiers (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2010). 63 every frontiersman entered the military at some point in his life. Yet few frontiersmen had the funds and political clout for speculating over vast tracts of quasi-available Indian land. Politically connected land speculators were close-knit and self-protective. Their wealth and authority depended upon rapid Indian removals and plantation prosperity, and almost without exception, Old Southwestern speculators led the Indian campaigns.129

Speculators developed their wealth and personal networks by living on the edges of legality in terms of land grabs. Successful speculators were those first able to target excellent parcels of land not yet purchased by the government. They harassed Native peoples to leave the land, used their legal contacts to lay claim to choice lands, and protected these claims until they were officially legal to purchase. Land speculators’ successes bred a ruthless competition and a cadre of followers whose support depended upon their belief that wealth would someday come their way as well.

The cadre of planters and land speculators who benefitted from this form of westward expansion had the wealth, power, and connections to protect their interests, and they took care of like-minded individuals whom they invited into their powerful political network. They spun state constitutions that suited their purposes and became trustees of townships to continue protecting their interests and the interests of their friends.130 If they had followed the letter of the law and waited for government contracts to be confirmed,

129 Gordon Thomas Chappell, “The Life and Activities of John Coffee” (dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1941), 128. 130 Edward Baptist shows that even when state constitutions officially inhibited slavery, such laws were readily circumvented. For example, according to Kentucky’s 1792 state constitution, it was illegal to bring slaves into the state just to sell them, “but this ban proved as porous as dozens of similar ones that would follow it.” Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 15. 64 they would have less access to choice lands and profits. Therefore their power and authority were dependent upon the quasi-lawlessness of the frontier regions.

Mark Cheathem’s biography of Andrew Jackson demonstrates the importance of his southern planter identity to his presidency. Cheathem illustrates the alignment of land speculation with planter culture and Jackson’s own engagement in both. For example,

Alexander Martin helped “Jackson make the transition from a poor, backcountry youth into an accepted member of upper-class society.”131 Martin was a planter and land speculator, and he served as governor and senator in North Carolina. Jackson’s law practice helped him to develop connections among other planters, land speculators, frontiersmen and politicians who would help further his career. “Land speculation was one important avenue to making money, and Jackson took full advantage of it.”132

Jackson engaged in over one hundred land transactions. From one investment of one- hundred dollars, he eventually garnered over fifty-five hundred dollars.

Land speculation was a family business that included close and long-lasting friendships. The rise of General John Coffee, Andrew Jackson’s longtime friend and political supporter, demonstrates how planters and land speculator elites protected and benefited from their tightly woven networks and widespread influence. As a surveyor and

131 Mark R. Cheathem, Andrew Jackson, Southerner (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013), 16. Although not as fully developed, earlier analyses of Andrew Jackson’s southern identity include Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: Viking Books, 1955), 45-67, and William W. Freehling, “Andrew Jackson, Great President (?),” in Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon, eds., Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008), 143-161. Daniel Walker Howe indicates Jackson’s Southern identity through his association with the ideas of Spencer Roane, a prominent jurist that supported strict constructionist ideology and states’ rights. Howe, What Hath God Wrought, The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 122-124. 132 Ibid, 24. 65 locator of prime property, Coffee interacted with influential leaders in Tennessee and

North Carolina, including George Washington Campbell, Andrew Jackson, Judge John

Overton and John Donelson. They shared the same political views, looked out for one another, and intermarried.

The wealth of land speculators and planters depended upon a network of multiple supporters who likewise hoped to prosper through their political connections. Eastern speculators who were prominent leaders in their own states used trustworthy frontier surveyors such as Coffee to recommend choice Western lands for investment, thereby protecting their wealth and influence. Prospective buyers followed the advice of eastern speculators because they had insider information. The frontiersmen benefitted by acquiring good land. The speculators benefitted through land sales and political capital.

For example, land speculators targeted Tennessee’s Cumberland basin for new plantations, and “so great were the economic advantages of the Cumberland basin that it soon passed almost exclusively into the possession of wealthy investors and speculators.”

In 1809 when Coffee married Rachel Jackson’s niece, Mary Donelson, her father John gave the young couple a plantation in the rich lands of the Cumberland Valley of

Tennessee, which Coffee dubbed, “Sugar Tree Forest.”133

Speculators protected their interests in multiple ways. For example, they helped write state constitutions with speculator prerogatives in mind. These constitutions protected speculator investments by taxing land without regard to location or productivity. Speculators benefitted because they held the choicest lands even as they

133 Chappell, 199. 66 were taxed at the same rate shared by all landowners. Speculators were significantly more than real estate agents. To succeed they needed political, legal and financial connections and a considerable dose of ruthlessness. For instance, speculators and surveyors would intoxicate Indians in order to acquire their lands and use slave labor to control larger land tracts and make them quickly profitable. They found ways to “corrupt a state legislature” through intimidation and bribes. They pushed to “create a new state which might be property organized to serve his purpose.”134

Serving under General Jackson, Coffee joined the military during the War of 1812 and retired a general. Well connected, a respected planter, a victorious Indian fighter and an experienced surveyor, Coffee was well positioned for that most lucrative of frontier government posts: a surveyor generalship. Jackson was determined to win such a powerful and prosperous career for his friend. In 1816 Thomas Freeman was the surveyor general for the Mississippi territory, but the influx of settlers into the Old Southwest increased rapidly enough to justify a division of territorial management. From 1812 to

1821, Louisiana’s population increased by forty-one percent, Tennessee increased by sixty-one percent, Mississippi increased by eighty-one percent and Alabama increased by one hundred forty-two percent.135 Jackson encouraged James Monroe as Secretary of

State to create an entirely new district for a rapid conversion of Indian Territory to public lands available to new settlers. Jackson argued on behalf of Coffee, “Should the government decide the surveyor’s district, as proposed, and appoint General Coffee

134 Ibid, 10, 12. 135 Chappell, 151. 67 surveyor of the Northern, his energy and industry will bring it into market in all June next.”136 The government garnered huge profits from the Old Southwest in land sales.

With his friend Coffee at the helm, Jackson knew that he would be on the inside track for the best lands available. On his last day in office, President James Madison confirmed

Coffee’s position as surveyor general. The new president James Monroe continued

Coffee at that post. The Panic of 1819 prevented both Coffee and Jackson from becoming extraordinarily wealthy, but despite the severely depressed market, these two friends did very well.

As general surveyor, Coffee was responsible for multiple hires, and he supported friends and like-minded individuals for various positions as deputies, clerks, chain carriers, and axe men.137 He controlled access to the surveyor’s field notes and map divisions, sold the information at a profit and provided his associates with the best opportunities. By the time Jackson decided to run for political office, Coffee was financially secure enough to bankroll much of Jackson’s campaign strategies. He used his political authority to make sure that only Jackson’s men would run for political office in various states such as Alabama, Virginia and Kentucky.138 Anti-Jackson men could not stand against Coffee’s determined political pressure and well-developed connections.139

Planters and land speculators inserted their political authority into the very foundations of

136 Andrew Jackson to James Monroe, November 12, 1816. 137 Chappell, 155. 138 John Coffee to Andrew Jackson, September 11, 1831. Papers of Andrew Jackson, Volume IX, 568-570. 139 Chappell, 245. 68 law, politics and American society, circumventing the caucus system that planters increasingly suspected would act against their interests.

As noted in Chapter One, and discussed further in Chapter Five, American citizens generally supported westward expansion, but predominantly Northeastern reform-minded citizens far from the frontier preferred to believe that Native American losses were due to their inherent “weaknesses.” Indian societies failed under the natural

“superiority” of Western republican society. To survive this concerted onslaught against them, the Cherokee Nation needed to attract the attentions of these potentially powerful

American allies and convince them that the Cherokees were indeed “civilized.” Realizing that even the most reform-minded Americans held tenaciously to the manifest destiny of westward expansion, the Cherokee Nation needed to convince their white allies that their

Indian nation was “uniquely” civilized. By recognizing Cherokee sovereignty apart from other Native Americans, reform-minded Americans could imagine sacrificing a relatively small amount of territory left to the Cherokee Nation and continue to expand westward against every other Indian nation.

Cherokee Nation, Civilization, and Sovereignty

Like their Iroquoian cousins in the Northeast, the Cherokees originally dominated the noncoastal region of the Southeast.140 Muskogeans tribes competed with the

Cherokees to their South and Western borders. Linguistically Iroquoian, the Cherokees separated from their Northeastern cousins, moving southward for currently unknown

140 Raymond Fogelman and Amelia Bell made the Cherokee-Iroquois connection through their study of the Cherokee Booger mask in Fogelson and Bell, “Cherokee Booger Mask Tradition,” The Power of Symbols, N. R. Crumrine and Marjorie Halpin, eds. (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983), 48-69. 69 reasons approximately 1000 C.E. As a singular tribe, the Cherokees maintained their distinct language and culture from their southern neighbors of Muskogean dialects: the

Creeks, Choctaws, Seminoles and Chickasaws.141 (see figure 1)

141 William G. McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 7. I am indebted to Julia Coates and Cathy Monholland for their insights into Cherokee history. In 2005 I studied with Coates who taught the Cherokee Nation History Course in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Monholland also teaches the Cherokee Nation History Course and has encouraged my research in subsequent years. 70

Figure 1: Pre-Contact Tribes Demarcated Linguistically: Cherokees Encircled Note that the Cherokees and the Iroquoians are separated, but linguistically similar. University of Louisiana, Pre-contact Tribes by language http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~ras2777/indianlaw/indianlanguages.jpg

Although the Cherokees were divided by various localities and clans, they shared a sense of nationhood for many generations. Before contact, Cherokee leaders met as a national council approximately every ten years.

The culture of the Cherokee Nation was, and is, complex, and the subject of multiple excellent studies.142 For the sake of this project, I will restrict my outline to the flexibility and tenacity of Clan Law in Cherokee culture and the shifts in political authority to protect Cherokee sovereignty. Clan Law pervaded all aspects of Cherokee society. It remains a potent tradition that many Cherokees continue to apply in their lives today. The pre-contact Cherokee legal system was inextricably connected with Clan Law, and Clan Law was based on the mother’s identity. Cherokees were matrilineal, and their social distinctions were based on one of seven clan identities. All clan members were family, and men and women looked outside their respective clan for procreative partners.

142 The principle Cherokee historians who have addressed Cherokee Removal are William L. Anderson, Andrew Denson, William McLoughlin, Theda Perdue, Duane H. King, and Charles C. Royce. John Howard Payne, Payne-Butrick Papers, edited and annotated by William L. Anderson, Jane L. Brown, and Anne F. Rogers, 2 volumes (Lincoln, Neb..: University of Nebraska Press, 2010). Although the Payne Butrick Papers are an annotated volume, the annotations themselves provide an incomparable collection of information for Cherokee history. Denson, Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy and American Culture, 1830-1900 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004). McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees’ Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839-1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993); Cherokees and Missionaries, 1789-1839 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, [1984] 1995. Perdue, Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998); Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, 1540–1866, (Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1979). King, The Cherokee Indian Nation: A Troubled History. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979). Royce, The Cherokee Nation (Smithsonian Institution Press, [1975], 2007). Clan Law sustained itself through the Cherokee political upheavals. Theda Perdue considers how women protected cultural traditions in Perdue, Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998). Juliana Barr and Cynthia Cumfer discuss how women used their gendered roles to promote their nation’s sovereignty protections. Barr, Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007) and Cumfer, Separate Peoples, One Land: The Minds of Cherokees, Blacks, and Whites on the Tennessee Frontier (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007). 72

They practiced serial monogamy, and the children remained under the care of the mother and her clan. Her brother, the children’s uncle, took the adult male responsibilities for the children, or the “father’s” role. Clan Law principles were based on a balance between the upper and lower worlds, not the justice of immutable rights and wrongs associated with

European societal norms.

Shifting the Cherokee balance code toward the American justice code became a critical feature of the Cherokee’s ability to adapt to Western civilization. Although

Cherokee law adopted the strictures of American jurisprudence, Clan Law continued as a vibrant part of Cherokee society. Therefore, a fuller understanding of Clan Law is useful to delineate its continuing influence in Cherokee society.

Clan Law is a moral and spiritual code. Pre-contact Cherokees developed a belief system with three tiers of existence. Above their human existence, pure harmony existed, which was peaceful, predictable and even-tempered. Below their human existence, chaos reigned with turmoil, unpredictability, and erratic temperaments. Humans lived in the

Middle world, and it was the Cherokees’ responsibility to preserve the balance between the world above and the world below. Balance was critical. For pre-contact Cherokees the above and below worlds were neither good nor evil. The harmony of the above world might be peaceful, but pure harmony could be boring. The chaos of the below world might be erratic, but it could also be exciting and interesting. Humanity was at its best when harmony and chaos were kept in balance, neither fully in control of the other, and that balance required constant human attention. Cherokees protected that balance by living good lives, being good people, and playing their roles as expected in society and 73 clan system. Cherokees brought good into the world when they lived in proper balance, and evil came into the world from an imbalance between above and below worlds. Evil disappeared when human action restored balance.143

Clan Law held individuals responsible every day for the safety and well-being of anyone around them. Since people within a clan were family, accidental deaths among clan members were understood as accidents and did not interrupt the balance of life.

However, when Cherokees interacted with Cherokees from different clans, personal responsibility was not presumed and was critical to maintain. For example, if two friends from different clans went hunting together, and one accidently died in the process, the life of the surviving partner would be forfeit. In American jurisprudence, accidental death might be forgiven. But in Clan Law, intentions held little credibility. If a Cherokee died unexpectedly, and another Cherokee from a different clan was considered in any way culpable, the perpetrating Cherokee had caused the world to go out of balance. The spirit of the deceased could not enter into the next life until the responsible person was killed.

Because of this unforgiving aspect of culpability, Cherokees also called Clan Law,

“Blood law,” which Americans misunderstood as a tendency toward violence.144

However, the strictness of Clan Law actually prevented more accidental deaths, due to the responsibilities that Cherokees felt for one another.

143 Rennard Strickland, Fire and the Spirits: Cherokee Law From Clan to Courts (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1975), 10-39. Cynthia Cumfer equates “balance” with “harmony,” although the intention is the same. Cumfer, Separate Peoples, One Land: The Minds of Cherokees, Blacks, and Whites on the Tennessee Frontier (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 25. 144 For example, John Phillip Reid’s classic study, A Law of Blood: The Primitive Law of the Cherokee Nation (New York: New York University Press, 1970) is based on legal reports from British military, merchants and colonial officials who explained Cherokee law from their perspective in Western jurisprudence. 74

Family connections mattered in Clan Law. If perpetrators ran away, another family member’s life could be forfeited instead. Clan identification meant that all clan members could be held responsible for anyone within their family Clan. Perpetrators understood that their kinsfolk’s lives would be forfeit if they tried to escape penalty.

Therefore, Cherokees generally returned on their own recognizance to face their sentence. Occasionally, the wider community would recognize the innocence of the perpetrator, and Clan Law provided for such a possibility. Under such circumstances, the perpetrator could find protection in a “Chota,” or a Sanctuary Village, but this protection required widespread agreement over the perpetrator’s innocence. If the perpetrator could make it to a Chota without getting caught, he could remain there for a while and his family would remain unmolested if the community already forgave him. According to

The Payne-Butrick Papers:

Yet they had four towns of refuge for the protection of those who unintentionally slew some of their people. And beside these four towns, the door year of every priest was a refuge; and if the supposed criminal only came in sight of the high priest, the avenger of blood could not touch him. In case a man fled to a priest, he blew his trumpet . . . . and called the town together & in their presence declared the man acquitted.145

Balance was then restored. Of course, such a feat would require the approval of many people in an unspoken act of consensus. The perpetrator could only succeed at making his escape if every Cherokee with a concern over the incident believed the perpetrator should be absolved.146

145 John Howard Payne, The Payne-Butrick Papers, edited and annotated by William L. Anderson, Jane L. Brown, and Anne F. Rogers (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), II:207. 146 Cumfer, Separate Peoples, One Land, 25-26. 75

Clan Law governed all aspects of Cherokee society. Without lawyers, judges, prisons or sheriffs, the principles of Clan Law made everyone responsible for one another, and Cherokee society for its Clan members was reasonably well-ordered and stable. However, American colonists and citizens of the republic could not fathom Clan

Law, and it became increasingly obvious to the Cherokees that American opinions mattered greatly to the survival of their Nation.

Shifting power from Clan-oriented town councils to national councils involved integrating both traditional Cherokee and Euro American influences. Acceptance of racial distinctions (as opposed to clan-based identities), and coercive authority were radical changes in Cherokee governance. In the interest of harmony and balance, pre-contact

Cherokees expected their leaders to promote peaceful resolutions and avoid discord.

“Harmony,” according to historian Richard Persico, “and the avoidance of open conflict were highly valued in interpersonal relationships.”147 Unanimous opinions in council meetings were critical because councils had no coercive authority. Leaders of war parties did have coercive authority, but that authority was restricted to events surrounding raiding parties and did not carry over into daily life.

Clan Law weakened during the eighteenth-century epidemics. From 1738-1783, small pox devastated the Cherokees, reducing the population to one-third its former size in less than fifty years. At this critical juncture, Moytoy of Tellico and his successor

Ammonscossittee emerged as two Cherokee leaders who held significant political

147 V. Richard Persico, Jr., “Early Nineteenth-Century Cherokee Political Organization,” The Cherokee Indian Nation: A Troubled History,” Duane H. King, ed. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979), 94. 76 authority over the whole tribe. English negotiators regarded these two men as Cherokee

“kings.”148 Although they did not have the legal authority of a British monarch, given the debilitating times, they had significantly more authority among a tragedy-torn people needing guidance. They likely held greater authority than they might have held in the previous century. Moytoy and Ammoscossittee’s guidance during this difficult time may have contributed to an increasing centralized power and the coercive authority of the

Tribal Council.

The original purpose of the central tribal council had been one of foreign affairs, and certainly, the Cherokee’s negotiations with the British, Spanish and Americans upheld that original purpose. Pre-contact Cherokees were accustomed to being surrounded by non-Cherokee neighbors. Indeed, evidence suggests that the Creeks regularly decimated the Cherokees in battle skirmishes, and therefore the Cherokees were accustomed to military losses. As local Clans lost governing authority due to rapid population reduction, the Tribal Council became an important unifying thread protecting the ideological traditions of Cherokee society.

Indeed, late in the eighteenth century, the decentralized clan-based townships relinquished increasing amounts of authority to the central tribal government. The problems associated with the lack of coercive central authority became especially apparent during the American Revolution, when the traditional, older tribal leaders could not restrain the war leaders and young warriors. The Chickamauga townships consolidated their authority in the Southern townships and carried on warfare with white

148 Persico, “Early Nineteenth-Century Cherokee Political Organization,” p. 96. 77 settlers as late as 1794. Yet, the victorious Americans blamed all Cherokees for the

Chickamauga-related violence. Until the Cherokee townships relinquished their authority to the national tribal council, the central authority remained through voluntary compliance.

The Cherokees consolidated the authority of the National Council shortly before they signed the Treaty of 1817-1819, which was their last treaty under which they willingly relinquished lands.149 The articles in their agreement established the tribal council as a standing committee, no longer dissolved once foreign affairs conflicts ended.

The articles upheld the council’s prerogative to negotiate with foreign nations exclusively and the United States in particular. The council codified its jurisdiction over property rights and created a system to increase its authority and adopt amendments.150 Not yet officially a constitution, this series of articles provided the foundation of the Tribal

Council’s Constitution, which was formally adopted on the politically savvy date of July

4, 1828. To help heal rifts among the Nation, younger warriors were included in the council’s inner circle of decision makers.151 Despite these innovations and established coercive authority of the Tribal Council, traditional Cherokee values of representation and transparency were still evident. For example, Elias Cornelius, a representative of the

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions began his negotiations with the

Cherokee Nation on behalf of the American “civilization” programs. The Ridge

(Kunnataclagee) offered the council’s acceptance of Cornelius’s offer on behalf of the

149 Ibid, 100. 150 Ibid. 151 Ibid, 98. 78

American Board. When The Ridge spoke, he recognized the authority of the council members, and at the same time, the active input of the various local townships. He declared, “I am going to address the council of the Cherokee nation; and each representative will inform his own town of our deliberations on the subject.” The council understood that its coercive authority depended significantly upon the acceptance of the

Cherokee majority.152

After the successful negotiation of the 1817-1819 treaty, the United States continued to press the Cherokees for territory, despite the Tribal Council’s repeated stipulation that they would concede no more land sales. In 1824-1825, after successfully negotiating payment for the 1804 treaty in Washington, the Cherokee councilors adopted further jurisdictions and responsibilities. They declared that the Cherokee land and resulting annuities were commonly owned by all Cherokee citizens and overseen by the council, thereby interrupting any outsider effort to take Cherokee land by isolating individual Cherokees. The council declared its authority over tribal courts and established itself as the supreme governing national body. The Cherokee Constitution of 1828 upheld the earlier articles of 1817 and 1825, but redesigned the articles in the formula of the

United States Constitution. It also gave the Principal Chief veto power over council actions.153 Indeed, even though the National Council established a high court to oversee multiple cases, many Cherokees still brought their suits directly to the Council for

152 Robert S. Walker, Torchlights to the Cherokees: The Brainerd Mission (New York: Macmillan, 1931), 66-67. As quoted in Persico, 99, 109n15. 153 Persico, “Early Nineteenth-Century Cherokee Political Organization,” 101. 79 deliberation and decisions. This use of the National Council as a court aligned with the traditional function of the pre-contact tribal council.

As the Cherokees adopted agricultural farming methods in accord with their white neighbors, the Cherokee towns shifted from densely populated homes surrounded by communally owned farm fields to more dispersed families and towns that lacked their previous cohesive social networks. In this way, the people were more likely to turn to the

National Council to resolve interpersonal differences. In 1775 James Adair noted the changing social structure of the Cherokee people, commenting that earlier relationships based on trust and transparency began to give way to their increasingly isolated living situations. He predicted accurately that the Cherokees would need to write significantly more laws to cope with these changes, and the National Council continued to consolidate its authority over Cherokee culture and society.154

English traders intentionally sowed discord among the Cherokees, increasing warfare and consequently its profitable slave trade. Traders married into the Cherokee

Nation and build lavish homes that Cherokees began to covet. Wealth and wealth disparities increased dramatically within the Cherokee Nation, although these disparities were curtailed by the community-owned property. Home-owners owned their land improvements and could build and sell them at will, but they could not claim property that they did not work for themselves or through their enslaved workers. No matter how poor, any Cherokee family could find vacant property, build a home, till the soil, and provide for themselves. Certainly slave-owning families could claim significantly more

154 Ibid, 103. 80 land than families without slaves, but no Cherokee planter could garner wealth through land speculation. The desire for wealth encouraged the Cherokees to value slave ownership, and their adaptation of race-based slavery.155 Theda Perdue argues that the emerging desire for wealth, and wealth from slaves in particular, contributed to the consolidation of power by the Cherokee National Council.156 Communally owned property did not prevent slavery, but it did prevent the planter and land speculator cartels from developing. The wealth disparity between the richest and poorest citizens of the

Cherokee Nation was significantly less than the wealth disparity between the richest and poorest U.S. citizens. The ability for even the poorest Cherokees to provide for themselves protected their national cohesion.

In the midst of burgeoning poverty within white America, the Cherokee example tended to sooth moralizing white American reformers who increasingly saw poverty as an

155 The Cherokee adaptation of race-based slavery has been well studied and analyzed. Theda Perdue delineated the Cherokee shift from indigenous clan-based slavery to the profit motive behind race-based slavery in Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society 1540-1866 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979; “Cherokee Planters, Black Slaves, and African Colonization,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 60:3, 1982, 322-331; “Mixed Blood” Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2003). William McLoughlin integrates his study of class, race and gender in his work, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 326-349. More recently, historians have delineated the tenacity of racism in the Cherokee Nation that maintains a volatile political debate over sovereignty and Cherokee freedmen suffrage in the Cherokee Nation. Circe Dawn Sturm, Blood Politics: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Tiya Miles, Ties that Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006) and The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Claudio Saunt, Black, White and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Celia E. Naylor, African Cherokees in Indian Territory: From Chattel to Citizenship (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Fay A. Yarbrough, Race and the Cherokee Nation: Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). 156 Theda Perdue, “Cherokee Planters: The Development of Plantation Slavery Before Removal,” Cherokee Indian Nation, King, ed., 110-128. 81 individual affliction.157 At the same time it frightened others who preferred social hierarchy of success according to racial difference. Many whites convinced themselves that Cherokee ingenuity and social order came from white American sources and that all

Native Americans would have remained “savage” without the guidance and bloodlines of

American republicans. Yet the emerging debate over Cherokee sovereignty rights and abolition was firmly located within the growing poverty and resulting unrest in white

America. Americans who supported Cherokee sovereignty rights also tended to support abolition. They pointed fingers at slave owners who lived lazy and immoral lives at the expense of slave laborers. Southern planters pointed their own fingers at Northern reformers who professed humanitarianism for Southern slaves, in the midst of Northern impoverished white and black laborers. Meanwhile, American white poverty increased and its resulting societal unrest predominantly encouraged sectional anger, not self- introspection.

There is a growing body of excellent work on emerging white poverty in the early republican era. These works tend to focus on the slavery-antislavery debates.158 While

157 Bruce Dorsey argues that an emerging middle-class comprised of northern cosmopolitan Protestants redefined benevolence that “quickly superseded eighteenth-century models of humanitarianism.” In 1820s decade in Philadelphia, reformers became increasingly hostile toward the burgeoning impoverished populations, shifting away from extending largess, toward holding the poor responsible for their situation. “Under the pressure of economic distress and resign public tax burdens, the city’s affluent white middle classes shifted their loyalties away from private efforts to relieve and educate the indigent.” Dorsey, Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 51. 158 Seth Rockman looks at the early nineteenth century in Baltimore, focusing on the working poor below the artisans, the “unskilled” labor market. He explores the relationships between slave and free wage labor. Part of the implication of Rockman’s work is that these largely invisible voices were essential to capitalistic growth of Baltimore, since they did the low paid dirty work that kept the city growing. Rockman, Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). John Larson explains that the conflict between “virtue and self interest—an ethical conundrum at the core of republicanism,” lay “at the heart of people’s experience of the market revolution.” During the 82 this study does not justify Cherokee use of slavery and its resulting investment in racism, it does encourage a closer look at the successful resolution of Cherokee citizens’ poverty in the midst of growing American poverty. The impact of the Cherokee successes in the midst of America’s own class-based failures should be studied further. The principal feature to consider here is the remarkable unity among the Cherokee people, which they sustained until their removal in the late 1830s. In 1835, despite considerable pressure to convince Cherokee citizens to sign the New Echota treaty and remove to the West, their opposition to removal remained virtually unanimous.159

antebellum era, Americans came to believe that “impersonal market forces had disabled the fabric of personal, familial, and cultural connections by which people earlier had tried to mitigate the hard facts of material life.” Larson, The Market Revolution in America: Liberty, Ambition, and the Eclipse of the Common Good, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 8, 9. John Ashworth considers the Jeffersonian legacy, a republican support for both market driven infrastructure, and democratic independence, which helped to define antebellum politics, even as these two ideologies split apart. He explores the sectional disputes over slavery/antislavery, and the focus on each on the others hypocrisy. John Ashworth, Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic, 1820-1850, 2 volumes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), I:73. Bruce Laurie initiated this study of nineteenth-century labor, indicating that the triumph of “individualism” cemented economic conservatism among the working poor. Laurie, Artisans into Workers: Labor in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989). Jeanne Boydston explored how the invisible domestic and productive labor of women contributed to industrial growth and family poverty. Boydston, Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). Bruce Dorsey considers how gender and ideology protected the reforming sensibilities of wealthy Americans amidst the burgeoning poverty. Reformers shifted from eighteenth-century donations of largess to the poor to attempts to lecturing the poor out of their poverty. “These three developments—the end of bound labor, the rise of a market-driven and wage-labor economy, and conflicts over the nature of the citizenry—provide the backdrop for nearly all the reform movements that appeared in the North before the Civil War.” Bruce Dorsey, Reforming Men and Women: Gender in the Antebellum City, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 8. 159 “The actual number of Cherokees present in December 1835 for the signing of the New Echota Treaty is unclear, but generally understood to be small in number and devoid of authoritative Cherokee officials. Therefore, because the treaty’s signers were self-appointed and numbered a mere three hundred out of fourteen thousand citizens, they represented neither the official nor the popular will of the Cherokee Nation necessary for a legitimate treaty. The New Echota Treaty of 1835 lists John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, Archilla Smith, S. W. Bell, John West, Wm. A. Davis and Ezekiel West as “a certain other delegation who represented that portion of the nation in favor of emigration” (Treaty of New Echota, December 29, 1835). General John Wool appointed John Mason, Jr., as a confidential agent for the War Department. In July 1837, Mason reported that the Cherokee Nation’s “opposition to the treaty was unanimous.” The Cherokees claimed that the New Echota Treaty “cannot bind them because they did not make it; that it was made by a 83

Like any nation, the Cherokees had their share of self-serving political leaders.

The land sale treaty of 1804, which was mysteriously lost by the United States’ War

Department and “unaccountably” forgotten by the Cherokee National Council, had been negotiated on the Cherokees’ side by Chief Doublehead.160 On the American side, federal

Cherokee agent Return J. Meigs and Secretary of War Henry Dearborn negotiated the treaty. Meigs was an ardent Jeffersonian republican—honest, efficient, and convinced that the best recourse for the Cherokees was westward removal, as far from white society as possible. Meigs adopted Jefferson’s private vision of land acquisition and, to this end, found the most compliant Cherokees to designate as official chiefs and press for land sale agreements. Doublehead was one such chief. Believing that the Cherokee Nation would give way to American settlement, he resolved to make the best deal possible for himself and his personal associates. In a way, Doublehead was acting upon his understanding of

Clan Law. In Clan Law, all people were not equal. They had different levels of access to rights, and they held different responsibilities. Doublehead wanted to protect his own and

few unauthorized individuals; that the nation is not a party to it.” Mason continued to report that the Cherokee Nation, comprised of eighteen thousand citizens, supported Chief John Ross, while “the few, about three hundred, who made the treaty having left the country.” Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1887), 286, 287.” From C. S. Monholland and Nancy Morgan, ““Considerable Capacity for Self-Deception”: Robert Anderson letter, Cherokee Agency, August 28, 1838,” Journal of Cherokee Studies, 39 (2014), 25- 26n.4. Daniel Cohen, Thomas Piketty, and Gilles Saint-Paul created the edited volume, The Economies of Rising Inequalities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). These essays focus on wage disparities in Western industrialized nations, recognizing institutional factors, the relationship between unemployment and wage disparity, and education. However, the nineteenth-century Cherokee example demonstrates that expecting every citizen to hold a job providing a family wage may be an unreasonable expectation. Without a political elite controlling land use, Cherokee citizens could engage in the market economy or not, as they saw fit. Indeed, Adam Smith recognized that the efficiency in factory labor is dependent upon talent and self-interest, which included the right to maintain a rude, if livable homestead without market-based conveniences. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London: W. Strahan, 1776), 18-25. 160 McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence, 128-145. 84 he felt more responsibility for his personal Cherokee associates than for other Cherokees.

Yet not all Cherokees reinterpreted Clan Law as Doublehead had. Indeed, a younger set of Cherokee leaders found new ways to assert their authority, masculinity, and militarism and resolved to stop Doublehead.

In 1797, the Cherokee National Council, in their efforts to shift Cherokee men away from warfare, established a “lighthorse force,” which became an important prop to order in Cherokee society.161 The Lighthorse Guard legitimized male law enforcers by requiring their loyalty to the Nation through the council, not individual clans. The companies functioned as local police forces that confronted horse stealing and facilitated punishments through disfigurement and whippings. Though not written down, Clan Law still influenced the punishments meted out by the Lighthorse Guard. As wealth disparities developed among the Cherokees themselves, the Guard’s principal responsibilities rested upon property protection. Thus the younger members of the Lighthorse Guard tended to come from wealthy and influential Cherokee families. Unlike Chief Doublehead, they recognized that their families’ wealth and their own futures were tied to protecting

Cherokee Nation sovereignty. Cherokee sovereignty was tied to prosperity, because only sovereignty would protect that prosperity. Prosperous Cherokee families were more likely to produce leaders for the Cherokee National Council.

James Vann became the wealthiest Cherokee in the Nation at that time. His patriotism on behalf of the Cherokee Nation was due to his recognition that white

161 Susan Marie Abram, ““Souls in the Treetops:” Cherokee War, Masculinity, and Community, 1760- 1820,” (Dissertation, Auburn University, 2009), 68. 85

America would never recognize his property rights, no matter how wealthy he became.

Vann acted ruthlessly toward elder Cherokee leaders who succumbed to Meig’s land sale pressures. William McLoughlin succinctly explains Vann’s version of Cherokee patriotism:

Thoroughly acculturated, Vann had no objection to the government’s civilization policy, but he realized sooner than most [Cherokees] that whites in the frontier would never treat Indians as equals; his own wealth and position did not protect him from insults as a “halfbreed.” His patriotism sprang less from any concern to protect tribal traditions or to win approval from the conservative full bloods than it did from his determination to keep the Cherokee Nation strong enough to thwart the efforts of whites to take its land and its sovereignty. He was firmly opposed to a policy that would lead to detribalization.162

When Vann led a Lighthorse Guard company against white settlements on Cherokee lands, it involved threats and violence as well. Although Meigs repeatedly tried to bring

Vann to justice, he never managed to bring the young Cherokee leader to court because

Vann successfully silenced witnesses through a combination of bribes and threats.

Vann and his friends executed Doublehead for signing a land sale treaty with

Meigs. Shot in the face and left for dead, Doublehead survived only long enough for his executioners to rediscover and kill him with a combination of gunshots and blows from knives and hatchets. According to Clan Law, Doublehead’s brothers should have taken revenge, but they recognized the murder as a political assassination on behalf of the

Cherokee Nation, and therefore beyond the authority of Clan Law.163

Vann owned approximately 100 African slaves to work his plantation. While many Cherokee families owned slaves, few held so many. Traditionally minded

162 McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence, 125. 163 McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence, 120-121. 86

Cherokee families with slaves predominantly treated them as family members who would help Cherokees navigate the complicated world of white society. Pre-contact slavery existed comfortably with Clan Law with pre-contact slaves having no clan identity. They were, in effect, non-entities with no social rights, not unlike indigenous African slavery.

Indigenous slavery differed from race-based plantation slavery insofar as children born to slaves in captivity were never enslaved, but rather adopted into the clan. Enslaved

Africans could become Cherokee citizens, if a family wanted it to be so. An enslaved person could receive clan status through a ceremony called, “Changing of blood.” This ceremony changed the non-entity slave to a person with all Clan protections and responsibilities. Prospects of manumission for slaves and guaranteed freedoms for progeny stabilized Indigenous slavery over the millennia it was practiced, but experiences of trauma, personal isolation, violence, and threats were still endemic to its practice.

Indigenous slavery was neither kinder nor gentler than race-based slavery; these were simply different forms of slavery.

James Vann acquired an unsavory reputation as a slave owner and ruthless mostly because he held more bonded blacks than any other Cherokee. In important ways, Vann may have acted upon his own understanding of Clan Law. Slaves existed for Vann’s political aggrandizement, which in the emerging capitalist society meant acquiring wealth, and Vann exerted tight controls over their lives and productivity. He did not relegate the execution of punishments to his overseers, but personally tortured to death any slave that he caught running away from his plantation. None were known to have successfully escaped Vann’s custody. 87

The cultural comparisons between Southern slave owners and Cherokee slave owners needs further study.164 The Cherokee Nation never felt compelled to defend slavery as a positive good, which may have represented a surviving principle of Clan

Law. Clan Law established a moral basis for both insider and outsider statuses, with various responsibilities and privileges. These statuses could be altered according to behavior. Indeed, for the Cherokees “whiteness” denoted behavior, not skin color. Unlike

Western Enlightenment theories that promoted universal and hierarchal attributes on the human condition, from which emerged the positive good argument that defended slavery.

In Clan Law, there was no reason to establish such absolute hereditary distinctions within a moral hierarchy.165

164 At this time, the principal comparisons between Cherokee and Southern slavery revolve around the relative “kindness” of masters and the tenacity of slavery and racism in Cherokee society. Generally, Cherokees had a reputation among enslaved Africans as being more humane than white masters. As Theda Perdue noted succinctly, that humanity was based on the wealth accumulation interests of a particular Cherokee owner. “Slaves [of the Cherokees] were at the mercy of their owners and the treatment they received depended on their master’s disposition and the extent to which he was willing to go in order to increase his profits. Most slaves saw a direct correlation between the treatment they received and the results their masters hoped to obtain.” Perdue, Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society 1540-1866 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979), 118. For cultural histories of slavery and subsequent racism in Cherokee society see, Circe Dawn Sturm, Blood Politics: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Tiya Miles, Ties that Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006) and The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); Claudio Saunt, Black, White and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Celia E. Naylor, African Cherokees in Indian Territory: From Chattel to Citizenship (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Fay A. Yarbrough, Race and the Cherokee Nation: Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). 165 Cumfer, Separate Peoples, One Land, 114. See also Mia Bay, The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). In a similar representation, Bay demonstrates that nineteenth-century African Americans distinguished “whiteness” according to behavior over skin color. Although whites maintained a corporally based racial demarcation, blacks never wholly focused on corporal characteristics of whites. Mostly, they decried being treated as less than human. 88

The Cherokee Nation defined Cherokee sovereignty according to what best protected the Cherokee people. The new leaders of the Cherokee National Council focused their masculine authority upon protecting the support of a strong federal U.S. government. Their success would be determined through holding states and individual whites at bay from abusing treaty agreements. The women of the tribe protected elements of Clan Law through domestic and interpersonal relationships and out of the codified tenets of political governance.

Under the scrutiny of American governance, the Cherokee leadership offered a patterned response of resistance to cultural assimilation and land loss. Over borderland violence, they blamed corrupted individuals who blinded well-meaning public and national officials. Tribal council leaders divided white America “into an anti-Indian minority and a much larger majority sympathetic to the tribes.”166 Evil, self-interested individuals violated American republican ideals. To protect Cherokee sovereignty, the

Cherokee tribal council adopted the republican values that would protect their land.

Despite the pressure of the federal government to insist that individual land allotments were required for full civilization, the Cherokee National Council never accepted it.

Cherokee territory remained communally owned to protect it from encroachment from individual land sales. The Cherokee Nation Council imitated U.S. systems of jurisprudence and culture because these systems protected Cherokee sovereignty and land rights. If an American system did not preserve sovereignty, such as land allotment, then

166 Andrew Denson, Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy and American Culture, 1830-1900 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 186. 89 the National Council refused to adopt it. The Cherokee Nation’s leadership believed that their sovereignty would be best protected through a strong federal government, not at the mercy of local state interests, and they worked to present themselves as one unified nation to another.

Alternatively, Georgia’s Governor Wilson Lumpkin insisted that the conflict over

Cherokee sovereignty was a sectional, not a unified national concern. He expressed his criticism through racial distinctions and sectional conflict. First, the Cherokee leaders were either white or mostly white due to racial mixing, which explained their advancement in “all the various arts of civilization.” Second, he blamed missionaries and

Bostonians as well-meaning busybodies who should “mind their own business.” Just as the Cherokee Nation’s promoters represented their naysayers as a few self-centered individuals, Lumpkin likewise believed that the Cherokee supporters were few in number and causing trouble for everyone. These “Boston writers” were “canting fanatics,” who proclaimed that “the Cherokee Indians are the most prosperous, enlightened, and religious nation of people on earth—except, indeed, the nation of New England.” On the other hand, Cherokee supporters considered Georgians to be “the worst of all savages; that they can neither read nor write; that they are infidels, deists, and atheists; and they never hear a Gospel sermon except from a New England missionary.”167 In effect, the

Cherokee Nation actually won this debate. Evident in Chapter Five and despite

Lumpkin’s efforts to claim otherwise, the crisis over Indian sovereignty, as a component

167 Wilson Lumpkin, The Removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia (Wormsloe, GA: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1907), 42, 76-77. Italics in original. 90 of the federalism debates over state and federal sovereignty, was indeed a national concern.

The remarkable story of the Cherokees’ cultural survival also indicates a considerable amount of luck. Their location at the time of contact was critical, because the coastal tribes were among those most decimated by disease and disorder. The Creeks, further south were unfortunate enough to live precisely where Thomas Jefferson intended to run the federal road in 1805. As the American alliance with Spain deteriorated, making water routes unreliable, Jefferson intended to establish accessible roads through Southern states and Western territories.168 (See figure 2)

168 Angela Pulley Hudson, Creek Paths and Federal Roads: Indian, Settlers, and Slaves and the Making of the American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 60. 91

Figure 2: Pre-Removal Territory of the Creek Nation: Note that the Federal Road cut the territory of the Creek Nation in half. National Park Service: http://www.nps.gov/stories/treaty-of-fort-jackson.htm

While Georgians wanted Cherokee lands for their state’s benefit, the federal government required the Creek territory for national security. Cherokee territory was fortunately out of the way of national security.

South Carolina: Transplanted Atlantic Islanders and Nullification

Historians studying South Carolina devote some time to explaining its unique characteristics, particularly its fiercely independent militarism, which established antipathy to either internal dissent or compromises with outsiders.169 There are four

169 William W. Freehling recognizes that the unique climate of the South Carolinian low-country’s “rice and sea-island cotton plantations were worked most efficiently by large gangs of slaves.” The culture of South Carolina coastal regions was inhospitable, profitable, and fear-laden. Freehling, Prelude to Civil 92 principal factors that contributed to South Carolina’s heightened militancy—geography, the founders and their governing structures, unremitting fear of attack, and the American

Revolution. The results of these features are neatly illustrated in a conversation between

Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun during the

Missouri crisis, which redefined state ratification as dependent upon protecting the balance of equal numbers of free or slave states, and further polarized the interests of the

North and South.

On February 24, 1820, in the midst of the Missouri debates, Adams and Calhoun reflected over the heightened public crisis over slavery. Calhoun explained that while he stated publicly that southern slavery did not threaten the Union, privately he equivocated.

He said that if the rest of the nation veered away from protecting slavery, the South would be compelled to align with Great Britain. Surprised by this turn in the conversation, Adams countered that such an alliance would return the South to colonial

War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina 1816-1836 (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1965), 10. Richard Ellis believes that South Carolina’s obstinacy won more southern states’ support because President Andrew Jackson was obstinate against South Carolina in return. Ellis, The Union at Risk: Jacksonian Democracy, States’ Rights, and the Nullification Crisis, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 139. Manisha Sinha argues that “South Carolina’s unique political heritage and long-standing commitment to the politics of slavery and separatism” enabled the state leaders to develop separatist doctrine and prepare the rest of the Southern states to align with them. Sinha, The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 220. Stephanie McCurry explains that her study of the South Carolina Low-country engaged “relations of power” within households and the “domestic dependencies [that] had critical public meanings, if only we could discern them.” McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low-country (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), vii-viii. Lacy Ford notes the politics follows geography. The Lower South restricted manumission, favoring foreign trade because more slaves meant more wealth. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 54. Jonathan Mercantini is one important exception, believing that the politics in South Carolina was similar to that of other colonies before the American Revolution, only “especially intense.” Mercantini, Who Shall Rule at Home?: The Evolution of South Carolina Political Culture, 1748-1776 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 25. 93 statehood. Instead of backing down Calhoun conceded the point. Fascinated, Adams pushed on. He suggested that Northerners might feel threatened by such an alliance and insist upon protecting “its powers of locomotion to move southward by land.” Calhoun countered that if the South needed to protect itself from Northern invasion, “they would find it necessary to make their communities all military.” At this point, Adams had enough and “pressed the conversation no further.” Adams’s reflections over the conversation sent him into a reverie over emancipation.

Calhoun’s Fort Hill Plantation was located in the Piedmont area, but he identified with the interests of low-country planters. Calhoun’s almost flippant disregard for the

Union if it threatened slavery demonstrates the fragile investment that low-country planters felt toward their nation’s governance. South Carolina was founded as a military colony constantly under threat due to the highest concentration of enslaved Africans on the continent, exasperated tribal nations, and Spanish competition. As a state, South

Carolina preserved its militancy. In Calhoun’s eyes, it could have seemed perfectly reasonable to expect other slave states to adopt similar military codes. Further, it was unlikely that Calhoun understood colonial statehood in the same way that Adams did.

Throughout the colonial era, local planters came to dominate South Carolina’s legislature. They resisted the intrusion of British authority through the governor and council by consolidating the interests of the lower House of Commons. South Carolina joined the American Revolution because the distant royal authority attempted to re-assert itself over local control. For Calhoun, and likely the low-country planters, the best outsider governing authorities were those most distant and least likely to meddle. While 94

Calhoun did not represent all of the disparate voices in South Carolina, he was a potent force in that state, and his opinion in this regard is useful to consider.

Carolina Colony: The Failure of Proprietary Governance

While it may be too much to claim that John Locke initiated South Carolina’s confused governance structure, in 1669 the great political philosopher offered little useful guidance to help the new Carolina colony to operate effectively. Locke helped to write the Fundamental Constitutions for South Carolina. The document was an unfortunate mishmash of conflicting political authority that essentially required freemen to relinquish their citizens’ rights voluntarily to a governing board of proprietors. Locke revised the document several times, but as Daniel Richter pointedly observes, South Carolina “was a society with politics too disorganized even to permit a proper Glorious Revolution in

1689.”170 The end result became a dominant local House of Commons that consolidated its power over the territory, and held little regard for either distant official authorities or the immediate public they represented.

The Carolinas were the third British colony established in the seventeenth century. Charles II intended the Southern colony to solidify Britain’s claim on the

American continent and protect the Northern colonies of Jamestown and Plymouth. The earliest British colonies were Charter governments, Jamestown and Plymouth established

170 David Armitage concludes that Lockean liberalism and English colonialism complemented each other in his thinking. Locke wrote chapter V, Second Treatise, around the same time as the Fundamental Constitution of 1669, and further, Locke continued to edit the constitution as late as 1682. Although he may not have written every word, the opening paragraphs are in his handwriting, and “Locke was clearly an equal partner in the discussions around the revision of the Fundamental Constitutions.” Armitage, “John Locke, Carolina, and the Two Treatises of Government,” Political Theory, 32:5 (October 2004), 615; Daniel K. Richter, Before the Revolution: America’s Ancient Pasts (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 319. 95

1609 and 1620 respectively. Alternatively, Charles Town171 was a Proprietary government, envisioned as a military garrison to prevent the northward expansion of

Spanish Florida. Charter governments were civil corporations “with the power of making by-laws for their own interior regulation.” Proprietary governments were feudal establishments “with all the inferior regalities and subordinate power of legislation.”172 In

1627, Charles I established a British presence in the Caribbean through Barbados as a

Proprietary government. After Britain’s Civil War, disgruntled Barbadian sugar planters wanted to begin anew in the Carolinas. Charles II established Carolina as a County

Palatine according to the Proprietary structure of strict hierarchy. However, Parliament added a requirement that Carolina laws have the “advice, assent and approbation of the

Freemen of the said Province or of the greater part of them or of their delegates or deputies.”173 Precisely how or why Carolina freemen would willingly relinquish their political rights under a Proprietary structure is unclear, and Carolina’s governance was impossible to manage from the outset.

Lord Ashley, soon to become the First Earl of Shaftesbury, was a principal supporter of the Carolina territory and a friend of John Locke. Parliament wanted to encourage a mirror of its own governing structure. The Lord Proprietors would be similar to the House of Lords, and the freemen would have access to the House of Commons.

Ashley asked Locke to devise a constitution, dubbed the Fundamental Constitutions in

171 “Charles Town” became “Charleston” after the American Revolution. 172 Blackstone’s Commentary, I:107-109. As quoted in Edward McCrady, The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, 1670-1719 (New York: Russell & Russell, [1897] 1969), I:52. 173 Statutes of South Carolina, I:24;Colonial Records of North Carolina, I:23; Charters and Constitutions (Poor), II:1384. As quoted in McCrady, The History of South Carolina, 65. (Comma added for clarification.) 96

1669. Under favor of the King and expecting to reap huge profits from the enterprise, the appointed Proprietors approved Locke’s vision of an idealized English country rising out of the Carolinian low-country marshes, worked by appreciative freemen and slaves under their enlightened governance:

Our Sovereign Lord the King having out of his royal grace and bounty granted unto us the Province of Carolina with all the royalties, properties, jurisdictions and privileges of a County Palatine, as large and ample as the County Palatine of Durham with other great Privileges for the better settlement of the government of the said place, and establishing the interest of the Lords Proprietors with equality, and without confusion; and that the government of the Province may be made most agreeable to the Monarchy under which we live and of which this Province is a part, and that we may avoid a numerous democracy; we the Lords Proprietors of the Province aforesaid have agreed to the follow form of governments to be perpetually established amongst us, and unto which we do oblige ourselves, our heirs and successors in the most binding ways that can be devised.174

The Fundamental Constitutions are absurd in hindsight, but should be understood in the context of earlier garrisons established for English Atlantic World security and prosperity. The first migration of colonists went to Ireland. Its success led to a second wave, which initial settlements in mainland America were less profitable. The third migration integrated mainland and island communities, with an evolving British expatriate thinking. Parliament focused on “the mobilization of labor” among various colonial enterprises that were significantly more difficult to control on the American continent than on the islands.175

174 Statutes of South Carolina, I:43. As quoted in McCrady, The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, I:95. Italics in McCrady. 175 Alison Games, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 75. 97

In addition to the Proprietor-driven Fundamental Constitutions, Parliament gave the Carolina governor a chartered guideline insisting that while the Proprietors had sole authority to make and enact laws, they could do so only “by and with the advice assent and approbation of the Freemen of the Province.”176 The resulting House of Commons made full use of this caveat against Proprietor authority, ultimately rendering powerless the Britain-aligned councils by 1755.177

South Carolina’s geography contributed to its isolation from the rest of the

American continent. The reefs of Hattaras in North Carolina kept ships from hugging the coast for safety, which isolated the Southern colony from its Northern neighbors by sea.

Settler density on the mainland also mattered. The coastal region connecting Jamestown to Plymouth had a significantly higher colonial population, “forming a chain of colonies linked together by neighboring influences and conveniences.”178 Although Jamestown was geographically closer to Charles Town, their connecting coastal region was sparsely populated with colonists. Indian trails, not colonial roadways, connected Jamestown and

Charles Town. Constant warfare, disease, and the general greed of colonials kept shifting

Indian alliances. Therefore both inland and coastal communications remained uncertain well into the eighteenth century. As late as the American Revolution, Charles Town received communications from Europe at approximately the same speed as it did from

Philadelphia.

176 McCrady, The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, I:120. 177 Jonathan Mercantini, Who Shall Rule at Home?: The Evolution of South Carolina Political Culture, 1748-1776 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2007), 87-119. 178 McCrady, The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, I:2. 98

Additionally, Southern tribes were more resistant to the virgin soil epidemics that rapidly decimated coastal tribes further north. Tribal borders were especially fluid in the

Southeastern region, leaving little in the way of empty space. Already decimated by smallpox, the Catawba, Santee, Westoes, and Yamassees became embroiled in their own territorial disputes. They saw the fragile Carolina outposts as trading opportunities, warfare partners or enemies, depending upon their relations with the Spanish. On the coastline, the Spanish frequently tested the Carolina settlers, especially South Carolina because the North Carolina coast was protected by the Hattaras island reefs. Although

South Carolina intended to become a planter colony, it depended upon Indian trade as much, if not more, than rice until the mid-eighteenth century. Harassed on all borders all year round, the Spanish by sea, Spanish-allied tribes inland, and independent tribes simply frustrated with Carolinian traders, South Carolina was founded as an isolated outpost and military colony. Its militarism remained intact and became more entrenched than militarism in the Northern colonies. Not quite an island, and not quite mainland,

South Carolina’s geography contributed significantly to its unique stature in the Atlantic world. South Carolina’s low-country planters were not as independent of British interests as other American planters. Held hostage to slavery, Calhoun suggested that any authority they would need to respond to should be as far away as possible, and interfere as little as possible, so that they could remain masters in their increasingly smaller plantation-centered world.

Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy is correct to note the close alliance between

Barbados of the British West Indies and Charleston, but the latter’s continental inland 99 location meant that South Carolina needed more than the British navy to control slave insurrections and maintain its lucrative Indian trade. O’Shaughnessy revisits the

American Revolution with the influence of the British Caribbean in mind, shifting the perspectives of the war won and lost, and offering insight over how the British, continental European nations, islanders and Americans understood their colonial identity.

British America consisted of twenty-six colonies, combining thirteen island territories and thirteen mainland colonies. The British West Indies bristled over Britain’s heavy- handed policies as much as the continental colonies did, but they also remained loyal to

British authority. Unlike continent colonials, West Indian whites remained uncommitted to settlement. The main objective on the islands was to earn enough money in order to settle comfortably back in England. “Only in Barbados did the British come close to developing a creole society of committed settlers in the Caribbean.”179 Barbados and low- country South Carolina had the same slave population ratio. However Barbados was surrounded by Atlantic islands, which kept it loyal to the mother country. Meanwhile

South Carolina was attached to the American continent. All the reasons that

O’Shaughnessy offers for British West Indies influenced Charleston’s culture as well, but its continental location mattered.

While historians correctly recognize that South Carolina’s planter culture was not as “British” as they claimed, and certainly the South Carolinian House of Commons exerted considerable more authority in local governance than its British namesake,

179 Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 6. 100

O’Shaughnessy’s geographical and slave-cultural observations should not be disregarded.

Indeed, South Carolina’s apparent independence from its sister states may have reflected its closer alliance with Great Britain, albeit emphatically independent of this alliance as well.

Despite the enormous wealth accrued by low-country planters through the

Atlantic trade, the South Carolinian House of Commons protected its dominant local authority. The Commons legislators vehemently opposed the Royal Stamp Tax in Charles

Town. The American Revolution in South Carolina was indeed a civil war, exacerbated by loyalist forces augmented by Chickamauga Cherokees in the Western regions of the state. South Carolina fought more battles than any other colony during the war. Through disease, battles and partisan violence, South Carolina’s losses in human capital and infrastructure matched similarly high levels of the state’s experience in the Civil War fought eighty years later.180

Recognizing the dependence of South Carolina on British trade during the war,

Britain focused its military resources on its southernmost colony. To counter the British invasion, militia from Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee went to their sister state’s aid. General George Washington sent Major General Nathanael Greene to support South

Carolina. Greene’s famous southern strategy led British soldiers on a wild goose chase through the Carolina back country that successfully wore Lord Cornwallis down before

180 John W. Gordon, South Carolina and the American Revolution: A Battlefield History (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), 3, 183. See also, Jim Piecuch, ed., Cavalry of the American Revolution (Yarley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2012); Robert Olwell, Masters, Slaves, & Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998); Tom Hatley, The Dividing Paths: Cherokees and South Carolinians Through the Era of Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 101 his Yorktown debacle. However, initially South Carolinians fought alone and the planter class remembered these earliest desperate struggles most clearly as a product of their historic isolation from the other colonies. This memory of isolation and destruction of

South Carolina property and people prevailed. Planters used this memory to continue consolidating their hold over the state’s political world with a “planter-soldier ethic as a right and as a duty.”181

After most coastal colonies achieved statehood, their respective state militias waned as effective fighting forces as the sense of threats diminished. However, because

South Carolina was constantly under siege due to Indian wars, threats of slave insurrections and the Spanish in the south, the militia remained a potent force. Planters maintained their own roles as military leaders, contributing to the ubiquitous use of military titles such as “colonel” and “general” for any statesmen in authority.

South Carolina’s rampant militarism was intimately connected with masculine control, evident in the microcosm of family life. The political culture of the state maintained a remarkable level of fear that it associated with feminine weakness and submission. In the early national period, for example, most other states moved toward liberal divorce policies. Historian Glenda Riley notes that divorce became a general byproduct of the revolutionary rhetoric of liberation and it was generally women who sought them. Throughout the nation, divorce was still extraordinarily difficult to obtain, as “more wives than husbands charged their spouses with wrongdoing.” Southern states were generally more reluctant to grant divorce, even as most Southern legislatures joined

181 Gordon, South Carolina and the American Revolution, 183. 102 the rest of the nation to validate the right to divorce. “Except for South Carolina, whose officials refused to sanction divorce, southern governments made radical changes in their divorce practices.” Indeed, in South Carolina, divorce laws were not even mentioned in the state’s constitution until 1895, in which the unwritten rule was finally articulated explicitly; “divorce should never be allowed.”182 South Carolina’s singular inflexibility in family life is mirrored in its antebellum political world as well, contributing to its political and economic instability. Inflexibility in family life mirrored inflexibility in

South Carolina’s political world. And South Carolinian planters were particularly inflexible over codes for submission and authority. For the low-country legislators who dominated South Carolina’s House of Commons, submission to any outside authority or internal dissent was an anathema.

As the national authority of low-country planters waned after the Panic of 1819, the upper-South planters and professionals increasingly criticized low-country political dominance. Low-country planters operated out of the Southeastern border of South

Carolina, while the state’s professionals held central positions in Columbia and Camden.

Their Piedmont newspapers promoted ideas about crop diversity and the flexibility to respond to new market conditions. They believed that they could exert pressure on low- country planters by encouraging the state as a whole to import fewer basic necessities, build factories to process their own cotton crops, and reduce Southern dependence on

Northern ports.

182 Glenda Riley, “Legislative Divorce in Virginia, 1803-1850,” Journal of the Early Republic, 11:1 (Spring, 1991), 55; McCrady, The History of South Carolina under the Proprietary Government, I:11. McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds. 103

In many ways, South Carolinian low-country planters aligned with centrally located professionals. Central South Carolina newspapers supported slavery and protested federal tariffs as much as the low-country papers did. However these Piedmont professionals also believed that if the South were independent from Northern industry and merchants, the tariff issue would become inconsequential and Southern wealth would rise accordingly.183 Even rural regions, such as Greenville in the Northwest corner of the state, were more aligned with central South Carolina. The new planter class in the back country that developed after the American Revolution continued the “planter-soldier ethic as a right and as a duty,” which contributed to the consolidation of planter authority throughout the state.184 The low-country planters of Charleston maintained their dominant role in state politics, but the back country planters developed their own distinctive views. Still, South Carolina’s militarism challenged internal dissent and contributed to the state’s inability to create a stable two-party system until after the Civil

War.

183 William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina 1816- 1836 (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1965) and The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, Vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). In The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), Jonathan Daniel Wells shows that the Southern middle class was on the forefront of building competitive industry in the South, and further contributed to the divisions between northern and Southern cooperative interests. By reviewing Chapter 3 of Jennifer Morgan’s study, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) alongside Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), a compelling portrait of the special uniqueness of the South Carolinian low-country planter class becomes evident. Morgan demonstrates the slave-culture connection between the sea-island planters with Barbados. O’Shaughnessy explains why the sugar islands such as Barbados were less invested in nation building during the American Revolution. These portraits indicate a historic and cultural distinctiveness of the South Carolinian low-country planters from the rest of the continental United States. In Deliver Us from Evil, Ford also mentions the Chesapeake-Barbados connection as a significant divider within the state. 184 Gordon, South Carolina and the American Revolution, 183. 104

Differences and distinctions aside, a nascent two-party system embroiled South

Carolinian politics during the Nullification crisis. Low-country planter politics, honed after decades of practice against royal authorities, applied these skills to isolate the short- lived Unionist Party, even though most South Carolinians preferred to remain in the

Union. As one historian explained, low-country planters used “the homogenizing effects of race fear, ethnic integration, and sectional peace” to defuse the political differences that might lead to distinct party system competition.185 It was difficult at first for South

Carolina’s Unionists to take Nullification seriously, but their effort to create a separate

Unionist Party in the state demonstrates just how seriously they eventually took this threat. In the end, however, Nullification carried the state, not through reasoned debate, but through emotion-based masculine camaraderie. The stultifying relationship between race-fear and masculine politics in South Carolina should not be ignored.

The Union Party promoted rational discourse based on submitting to the U.S.

Constitution through the ideology of American political economy. However frustrating national policy might be, they recognized that whatever tariffs cost the state, the price of independence would be considerably more expensive. Instead of demanding that other states do more for South Carolina, they suggested that the state would protect its independence and assets better if it resolved its own problems. Unionist editors exposed the irrationality of the Nullification leadership’s arguments. For example, the Camden

Journal attacked George McDuffie’s forty bales argument as specious. Originally against

185 James M. Banner, Jr., “The Problem of South Carolina,” The Hofstadter Aegis: A Memorial, Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, eds. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 72. 105

Nullification, McDuffie switched sides to defend the idea. In Charleston on May 19,

1831, McDuffie presented his witty, albeit wrong, “forty bale” theory on tariffs, claiming that Southerners essentially gave 40 bales of cotton to the North for every 100 they produced.186 The Journal claimed “There is more of mystification—More of “darkness visible,” than a man admiring Mr. M’Duffie as we do, could willingly believe to be possible.”187

Unlike the Nullification Party, the Journal’s editors were less inclined to blame the North for South Carolina’s economic depression, laying principal responsibility on the state’s planter class. For example, the editor published a letter by “Amicus Patriae” who explained that the tariffs were both unfair and legal. Amicus Patriae targeted South

Carolina’s low-country planters, whose tenacious attachment to cotton alone made the state more vulnerable to tariff regulation. Low-country planters were “insensible to every law of economy,” Amicus Patriae proclaimed, when they refused to devote a small portion of their plantation for self-subsistence. If planters grew only cotton in a depressed market and need to import all necessities and luxuries, “what must prove the unavoidable result?” For Amicus Patriae, the answer, a stubbornly depressed economy, was simply

“too obvious” to explain.188

In addition to diversifying crops and building manufacturing plants, Daniels published articles claiming that slavery should be harnessed more effectively to give the

186 William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, Vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 255-256. 187 Camden Journal, June 4, 1831. 188 Camden Journal, July 26, 1828. 106

South an advantage over the North for attracting white laborers. Slavery could encourage the immigration of industrious white artisans, not discourage it. However, the distinctions between white and black labor had to be managed more effectively. Thus Chapman Levy expounded upon the manufacturing profitability of slave labor on behalf of white laborers. Slaves protected white laborers from performing the more grueling tasks of industry and infrastructure. New York enriched itself through its increased population, and meanwhile, South Carolina floundered without. Why? Levy was convinced that more

European immigrants might come south if offered the protections of reasonable wages that Northerners could not offer without slave labor.189 Levy blamed South Carolina’s aristocracy for draining the state’s natural resources without contributing anything to the benefit of the state. South Carolina’s solution should not be to demand better terms, but to make the state less vulnerable to Northern pressures.

South Carolina’s Nullification debate was firmly located in questions regarding the Union’s economic viability. Equating politics with prosperity is an essentially

American political characteristic. Richard Hofstadter resisted his designation as a consensus historian because to him it was patently obvious that all American political leaders validated widespread prosperity as an American ideal. Hofstadter explained,

“However much at odds on specific issues, the major political traditions have shared a belief in the rights of property, the philosophy of economic individualism, the value of competition; they have accepted the economic virtues of capitalist cultural as necessary

189 Camden Journal, August 9, 1828. 107 qualities of man.”190 As the South lost political capital through its “comparative economic backwardness” and as the world increasingly condemned the slave economy, planters grew increasingly frightened over the implications of emancipation upon their social world.191 These general Southern anxieties were felt most extremely by South Carolina’s low-country planters. Not without a fight would they descend from the greatest heights of economic power, only to find themselves surrounded by greatest concentration of restless enslaved Africans on the continent. Bitter enemies as their political careers evolved,

Hofstadter recognized with great irony that Calhoun and Jackson were in “consensus” over the tenets of the American political economy.

Conclusion

The Nullification Party’s failed efforts in the early 1830s eventually led to the attempted secession of eleven states through the American Civil War, the meaning of which remains a vibrant and critical historical memory. Intent upon protecting their own state’s sovereignty, South Carolina initiated its Nullification doctrine suggesting that other states, like their own, could benefit from state sovereignty and a national recognition of concurrent majorities. Likewise, through their unprecedented sovereign state recognition by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Cherokee cases, Cherokee Nation v.

Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), contributed significantly to the foundations of a vibrant, if almost obtusely complex, federal Indian law.

190 Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition: And the Men who Made It (New York: Random House, [1948] 1973), xxxvii. 191 Hofstadter, American Political Tradition, 78. 108

Even as the Cherokee Nation and South Carolina attempted to celebrate their identities as culturally unique and worth protecting as distinctly separate entities, each failed to establish its independence. Yet in their respective attempts they challenged the

United States to reflect over its own identity and in this way influenced the course of

American history. The Cherokee Nation proved itself capable of adapting republican standards that provided for the welfare of its citizenry, yet the United States was unwilling to accept the lessons in political economy that this tribal nation could impart.

The planter authority of South Carolina developed an oppositional political system of either dominance or submission that other Southern states eventually, albeit in some cases, reluctantly, adopted to protect slavery. Intriguingly, Cherokee sovereignty and

South Carolina’s Nullification crises developed around the same time that traders almost doubled the movement of enslaved workers westward from the 1820s to the 1830s. In subsequent decades, the movement decreased somewhat, but not to pre-1820 levels.192

The rapid increase of enslaved workers across the southern United States may have contributed to the rising anxieties and fragile federal authority over controlling slave populations, once limited to expansive, lucrative, and unstable coastal plantations and also may have contributed to the timing of the combined crises.

The next chapter continues to explore the effects of South Carolina and the

Cherokee Nation’s efforts to define themselves as separately unique. Their arguments,

192 Richard H. Steckel and Nicholas Ziebarth, “A Troublesome Statistic: Traders and Coastal Shipments in the Westward Movement of Slaves,” The Journal of Economic History, 73:3 (September 2013), 799, 803- 806. 109 once combined, frightened Americans over the survival of the Union itself, offering a challenge over what it meant to be American.

110

CHAPTER 3 1825-1829: POLITICAL FISSURES OVER REPUBLICANISM: THE CONTRIBUTION OF NON-WHITE REPUBLICS

The 1824 presidential election of John Quincy Adams upset many planters, although few were as outspoken as Virginia Senator John Randolph of Roanoke. In a series of speeches, Randolph lambasted President Adams’s foreign policy of sending official delegations to non-white republics. Randolph derided the newly liberated Haiti in

1825 and the Panama Congress of 1826 as “a Holy Alliance of tyrants.”193 Randolph warned that “The question of slavery is one of extreme delicacy” for the Union and the individual states. As a “domestic question,” all our efforts in foreign policy must be determined by “the peace of our own political family.” Therefore slavery “cannot be touched” and cannot be questioned by Northern “sister states, or by the Federal

Government.” Randolph beseeched America to recognize that “To touch it [slavery] at all, is to violate our most sacred rights—to put in jeopardy our dearest interests—the peace of our country—the safety of our families, our altars, and our firesides.”194 For example, American missionaries at home and abroad were well-meaning but dangerous accomplices, “politico-religious Quack[s]” or fanatics, he called them. Their support for non-white republics and slave liberations in South America threatened the United States’

193 2 Part I Cong. Deb. I 1826, March 1, 1826, p. 113 194 Ibid, March 14, 1826, p, 165. Italics in original. One of the most influential missionary societies in the Early Republic was the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). Envisioned by Congregationalist graduates of Williams College in 1806, their society included Congregationalists and the Dutch Reformed Church as well. Their journal, the Missionary Herald, encouraged public funding in part through widespread subscriptions. The journal reported on missionary efforts to Christianize the world, including South America, the Pacific Islands, and Native Americans within continental United States. It is likely that Randolph was thinking about the publicized efforts of missionaries, such as those represented in the Herald, as “politico-religious Quacks.” 111 white supremacy, which Randolph equated with domestic peace and order. He believed that missionary work overturned social order and, in the end, propelled a “modern black crusade.”195 Randolph delivered tirades with great passion and melodramatic flair. His speeches were insulting, longwinded affairs against federal officials and their policies.

Although Randolph attacked as enemies of the State anyone who did not actively support slavery, his style was so outlandish that some thoughtful observers considered him to be harmless. Essentially, Randolph was popular and entertaining and represented a potent electoral force on behalf of the planter class.

What is critical to the thesis of this dissertation is to recognize that Randolph’s proslavery ideology, which protected planter authority, was equally invested in settler sovereignty, which Lisa Ford defines as “the legal obliteration of indigenous customary law” as “the litmus test of settler statehood.”196 If the United States recognized that non- whites had viable leadership qualities, the edifice of race-based plantation slavery would be jeopardized. Thus, non-white republics were as threatening to race-based chattel slavery as manumission and abolition. Although rhetorically convoluted, on the Senate

195 Ibid, March 2, 1826, 119, 130. Italics in original. It is also likely that the slave insurrection of Demerara (present day Guyana) in 1823 contributed to Randolph’s fears. A British pastor named John Smith was implicated. That Smith’s teachings inadvertently contributed to slave revolts simply increased planter beliefs that missionaries needed better oversight. Even through “Smith had no part in organizing the revolt,” Edward Rugemer explains that “members of his mission clearly did.” Rugemer, The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), 78. 196 Lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty: Jurisdiction and Indigenous People in America and Australia, 1788- 1836 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 2. Ten years earlier, Patrick Wolfe defined “settler colonialism,” as the colonizer’s intention to eliminate Indigenous peoples through amalgamation and replacement. Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology (London: Continuum Publishing Group, 1999). Ford recognizes how settler colonialism shifted from colonial to the nation- building projects of new republics. 112 floor Randolph brought together white American imperialism and slavery as twin pillars necessary for planters’ social control.

Randolph’s tirades are an important link to the developing public awareness that connected Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification. Before Randolph, Indian issues, slavery and tariffs were controversial, but separate concerns. Randolph made the first congressional speeches that encompassed non-white republics, slavery, and demeaning attacks against the Adams administration. The publicity surrounding Randolph propelled

Philip Fendall, a clerk for the U.S. State Department, to publicly criticize Vice-President

John C. Calhoun for allowing Randolph too much freedom in the Senate chamber. When

Calhoun responded, their 1826 debate focused on the relationship between liberty and republicanism and became known as the “Patrick Henry/Onslow Debate.” Neither debater mentioned Randolph or the issues he raised directly, but the exercise contributed to Calhoun’s increasingly sectional alignment with low-country planters. In addition, the

“Patrick Henry/Onslow Debate” provided the foundation for Calhoun’s Exposition and

Protest two years later over tariffs and imposition (or Nullification). The Exposition and

Protest sparked the Webster-Hayne Senate debate over tariffs and Nullification in early

1829. The Webster-Hayne debate brought together the issues of Native America, slavery, and tariffs raised earlier by Randolph. Although Cherokee supporters, Calhoun, and

Jackson tried to keep the debates over Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification separate, the public debates over both issues were firmly linked in multiple news articles and private correspondence. Randolph understood that despite the Cherokees’ investment in plantation slavery, Native American sovereignty interfered with planter justifications for 113 race-based slavery. The public understood this connection as well, and eventually it led to the initiation of the American Civil War and the sectional divisions over the expansion of slavery.

Philip Fendall confronted Vice-President John C. Calhoun with an anonymous penname, “Patrick Henry.” The vice-president responded as “Onslow” believing erroneously that Patrick Henry was really President John Quincy Adams himself. Their series of letters, the “Patrick Henry/Onslow Debate,” illustrated two competing views of republicanism and signaled the divisions within the Jeffersonian Republican Party itself.

Patrick Henry and Onslow avoided the issues that Randolph raised, and instead focused on the process under which senators in congress might legitimately voice dissenting opinions.

The debates encouraged a wider discussion over republicanism in the press. The same public that found Randolph entertaining criticized Calhoun for refusing to curtail the Virginian senator’s excesses while the vice-president presided over the Senate. The greatest criticism against Calhoun was sectional and came predominantly from the

Northeast. The sectional nature of the public response contributed to Calhoun stepping back from his earlier nationalist vision. Although the debates were ostensibly about republicanism, Randolph’s fear-mongering over anti-slavery and non-white republics, and his virulent attacks upon the Adams administration, initiated the debates and began the public connections between slavery and non-white (Indian) sovereignty.

Until 1829, Indian removal debates and slavery were mainly separate discussions.

In March 1829 Andrew Jackson mentioned both Indian removal and tariffs in his first 114 inaugural address as separate but important issues. From August to December of that same year, Jeremiah Evarts, secretary of the reform organization the American Board of

Commissioners for Foreign Missions, publicized his arguments on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty rights through his publication of the William Penn essays in the National

Intelligencer. Neither Jackson nor Calhoun nor Evarts connected tariffs, Nullification and

Cherokee sovereignty in their 1828 and 1829 addresses. However, after 1829, Cherokee sovereignty and tariff discussions became almost inseparable on the Senate floor, as evidenced in the Webster-Hayne debate over Nullification in early 1830.

Randolph was the first to connect colonialism with slavery on the Senate floor, and Jackson, Calhoun, and Evarts could not keep them separate for long. That connection became a potent influence for South Carolina’s unionists and nullifiers alike. Moreover, in the national presses, that connection raised the specter of disunion over the imprisonment of American Board missionaries who supported Cherokee sovereignty rights.

Randolph’s Significance: Quids, Proslavery, and Historians

John Randolph’s immoderate attacks on the Adams administration were useful to

Vice-President Calhoun, because Randolph was a Quid. Quids (Tertium Quid ) “a third way”) distinguished themselves from what they perceived as the changing platform of the

Jeffersonian Republican administration and the Federalist platform. Quids rallied for local rule, and a federal government that limited itself to market expansion. In 1800 as a spokesman for the newly formed Republican Party, Thomas Jefferson promised even before he assumed presidential office “[t]hat the Constitution has not empowered the 115 federal legislature to touch in the remotest degree the question respecting the condition of property of slaves in any of the States, and that any attempt of that sort would be unconstitutional and a usurpation of rights Congress do not possess.”197 Jefferson willingly used federal authority for the Louisiana Purchase, and he made increasing use of federal power especially during the second term of his presidency. Quids attacked

Jefferson’s domestic and foreign policies, such as his efforts to settle the Yazoo claims and quietly purchase West Florida through French and Spanish intermediaries, for any display of federal power might eventually come to threaten Southern slavery.

Pennsylvania Quids, like the Southern planter Quids, wanted a return to the republicanism of the 1790s that defeated the Federalist Party. Focused on developing the abundant resources of the continent for the benefit of widespread prosperity, the

Pennsylvania Quids “played a crucial role in shifting the nation’s economic energies from the external to the internal market.”198 Mid-Atlantic Quids believed that the principal role of the federal government should be to facilitate national unity by promoting the economic complements among the interests of manufacturing, industry, trade, and agriculture. In all other aspects of governance, Quid ideology focused on local rule, resisting the Adams Administration’s central or federal authority such as national banks and protective tariffs. Southern Quids promoted local rule, in part, to protect slavery, but even if Northern citizens were personally anti-slavery, few wanted to make a national

197 William J. Cooper Jr., Liberty and Slavery: Southern Politics to 1860 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), 97-98. 198 Andrew Shankman, Crucible of American Democracy: The Struggle to Fuse Egalitarianism & Capitalism in Jeffersonian Pennsylvania (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 97. 116 fuss over it.199 Calhoun recognized that Randolph’s combination of Quid-oriented values,

Southern planter-invested ideology, and public personality protected planter interests, and so he willingly gave Randolph free rein to insult the Adams Administration. Further,

Randolph’s mud-slinging at the Adams administration played into Calhoun’s efforts to promote Andrew Jackson as the next president.

Randolph is best known as the progenitor of the slave power ideology. He made visible the divisions among slaveholders themselves, particularly the east-west divide.

Generally, eastern slave owners wanted less government and less taxation, while Western slaveholders “believed that the “mountains blocked western prosperity. Building canals, roads and railways, promoted “state internal improvements [that] could liberate free labor energies.” Protecting his aristocratic sensibilities as democratic governance increasingly took hold in the public mind, or “one-white-man, one-vote fanaticism” as Randolph saw it, was “a sword above gentlemen’s necks.” He believed that surrendering too much

199 During the constitutional convention, the historian William Cooper suggests that the planters wanted it both ways. They wanted political protections for slavery, but they did not want to pay the taxes necessary to support their institution. David Waldstreicher suggests that in the end, the planters had made for themselves a fool’s bargain. Northern industrialists willingly brokered slavery for tariff protections, which served them better in the long run. Regardless, both Cooper and Adam Tate recognize that a cadre of Southern planters remained unconvinced that the enhanced federal powers of the recently ratified constitution would protect their interests. William J. Cooper Jr., Liberty and Slavery, 50; David Waldstreicher, Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (New York: Hill and Wang, 2009), 114; Adam L. Tate, Conservatism and Southern Intellectuals, 1789-1861: Liberty, Tradition and the Good Society (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005), 29. For the sectional divisions that emerged through the Jeffersonian Republican era, see Brian Schoen, “Calculating the Price of Union: Republican Economic Nationalism and the Origins of Sectionalism, 1790-1828,” Journal of the Early Republic, 23:2 (Summer, 2003), 173-206; Martin Christoffer Öhman, “Ambiguous Bonds of Union: American Political Economy and the Geopolitical Origins of Interregional Cooperation and Conflict, 1783-1821,” (diss. University of Virginia, 2011). 117 authority would ruin the planter class.200 For Randolph, all American citizens needed to actively support the institution of slavery; passive consent would not do, especially in light of the increasing international dismantling of slave labor systems. The North increasingly feared the Southern slave power, and the South increasingly worried over its loss of political authority in the general government to Northern interests.201 Although the

Quids commanded the respect of their fellow planters, the historian William Cooper also acknowledged “Randolph and his fellow Quids were never able to control the legislative

200 Historians of slavery such as Lacy Ford, William Freehling, and Manisha Sinha recognize Randolph’s significance in the antebellum debates over bondage. For Freehling, Randolph realized that his idealized memory of the aristocratic planter class was ending, and he sought the best way out for the Virginian elites. Ford and Sinha recognized Randolph’s speeches were “caustic” and tended toward “hyperbole,” but he was also was one of the early proponents of secession. Sinha also explained that Randolph differentiated Nullification from secession. Supporting a strict constructionist view of the constitution, Randolph denounced Nullification as “unrepublican” because it went far beyond the written word of the constitution. William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, Vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 174-176; Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 126; Manisha Sinha, The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 18, 24. 201 David Brion Davis observes that regional paranoia developed in both directions, North and South. Leonard Richards outlines the methods of Southern political control that Northerners were increasingly distressed by, including the stacked voting disparity due to the three-fifths compromise as well as the Southern tendency to vilify Northerners who dared to question Southern principles. David Brion Davis, The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969; Leonard L. Richards, The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780-1860, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. Henry Brooks Adams, grandson to John Quincy Adams, wrote Randolph’s first biography in 1882, establishing the planter’s reputation regarding slave power ideology. Certainly it is reasonable to question whether Randolph’s whimsicality could construct any definitive ideology, however, in a newly published edition of Henry Adams’s research into Randolph’s life and influence, Robert McColley endorses the credibility of Henry Adams’s claims. Henry was sympathetic to Randolph’s strict constructionist ideology of Quidism and demonstrated that Randolph helped to create an ideology that he later strove to dismantle. McColley argues that Henry effectively pointed out that Randolph betrayed his strict constructionist ideology to protect slavery. According to Henry Adams, Randolph used “the once pristine doctrines of strict construction and states’ rights as instruments for defending slavery, thereby hopelessly corrupting and perverting those doctrines.” (Henry Adams, John Randolph, A Biography, New edition with primary documents and introduction, Robert McColley, ed., (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 5.) Michael O'Brien, Henry Adams and the Southern Question, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005.) 118 process.”202 Apparently, neither was Randolph particularly interested in developing the networks, compromises and broadly flexible political programs necessary to build a new and viable political party. Randolph, Cooper pointedly observes, “was a host all by himself.”203 Randolph is easy to lampoon, but his influence over the evolution of slave power ideology and his ability to spur greater minds to either attack or defend him, demonstrates his political significance that contributed to the public connections between

Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification.

Unremittingly, Randolph attacked the Adams administration even for its strengths, using issue-avoiding polemics to sling mud at anyone he deemed unfit.

Randolph dismissed out of hand the sophisticated arguments used by the Adams

Administration to support its domestic and foreign policies. He simply claimed that language was the tool of “charlatan[s] of every sort,” who will “pick the pocket and put the fetters upon the planter and upon the slave-holder.” Randolph ridiculed Spain’s inability to keep its South American colonies under control. His argument was that the

Spanish were imitating the English and thus demonstrating “their outrageous attempts to be very genteel.” Randolph did not explain how imitating British gentility contributed to

South American unrest. Like a slapstick comedian, Randolph shifted quickly from one diatribe to another. From the apparent Spanish failures at English gentility, Randolph immediately segued to Shakespeare’s play Othello explaining that he could not pardon the tragic jealousy of Othello precisely because he was a black Moor. “I beg pardon,” he

202 Cooper Jr., Liberty and Slavery, 108. 203 Cooper Jr. Liberty and Slavery, 107. 119 explained, “not to justify the jealousy of Othello—yet I believe that the jealousy might have been pardoned to the noble Moor, certainly by me, had he not been a black man.”204

Othello’s race alone prevented Randolph from validating Othello’s literary exalted character and corresponding tragic flaw. Thus in one speech, Randolph attacked the

Adams Administration’s articulation as an affront to Southern planters, claimed that

Spain’s foreign policy was doomed to fail because it attempted to imitate England, and dismissed British literature when it recognized human qualities in non-whites. The point was not in Randolph’s logic. The point of Randolph the Southern planter aristocrat was that he delighted the national democratic public.

The early American press quoted Randolph extensively. Some praised the senator, while others derided him. Everybody seemed to have an opinion about him, and it is likely that the eccentric senator’s comings and goings helped to sell papers. For example, a Pennsylvania paper, the Berks and Schuylkill Journal reported, “The eccentric demagogue, John Randolph, has returned to the United States.” Although the paper’s editors did not like Randolph, they found him worthy of discussion regardless. “We know not whether the word “eccentric” is properly applied, but certainly (in our humble opinion) he is one of the most arrogant and vain Americans we ever heard of.”205

Alternatively, the Baltimore Patriot wrote approvingly of Randolph’s activities, “John is tired of Europe” and intended to return to the United States soon, the paper reported. An

204 “2 Part I Cong. Deb. I 1826,” March 30, 1826, 399. 205 Berks and Schuylkill Journal, Reading, Pennsylvania, December 9, 1826. 120 uncouth British soldier jeered at Randolph for his “outlandish dress, and his queer figure and physiognomy” and in response,

Mr. Randolph fixed his keen eye on the young jester, and said to him in a stern voice, “Let him who jeers the Tartar beware of the dirk!” The poor fellow thought he had indeed encountered a Turk, and, frightened half out of his senses, suspended his insolence, and took himself out of the atmosphere of the hero of Roanoke.206

Those who confronted Randolph’s insupportable diatribes also made the news. The

Rhode Island Republican reported that Randolph passed through Richmond, Virginia in haste. Apparently the senator accused John Pleasants, editor for the Richmond Whig, of being corrupt. Pleasants had left word for Randolph to explain himself, “which Mr. R. refused to receive.—This is most likely, the cause of his sudden departure.”207 The

Richmond Enquirer offered positive reviews of Randolph’s excursions in Europe, heartened by the “distinguished persons” who visited with him. “They, it appears, have no misgivings about his sanity and no suspicions of his not being a gentleman. His speeches at Liverpool are filled with good sense, easy and just expressions, and graceful compliments.” Randolph was evidently quite popular, “aristocratic” and “bold and manly,” even if his tendency to boast of his English descent “is a weakness.” But, the

206 Baltimore Patriot, Baltimore, Maryland, November 8, 1826. David Johnson explains that the most likely culprit of Randolph’s physical ailments and emotional instability was Klinefelter syndrome, a condition caused by an additional X chromosome in males. The genetic disorder left him permanently enfeebled, with a beardless face, a high pitched voice, sterile, and with “psychosocial or behavioral problems.” His fragile constitution, drinking binges and heavy use of laudanum eventually took their toll. Admitting that Randolph had always been “loquacious,” even a sympathetic historian acknowledged that later in Randolph’s career, when elected senator and attacking the Adams administration, “his mind was unquestionably unhinged.” William Cabell Bruce, John Randolph of Roanoke, 1773-1833, (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1922), II:64. 207 Rhode Island Republican, Newport, Rhode Island, May 18, 1826. 121 paper conceded, “it has nothing mean or vulgar about it.”208 Thus, even Randolph’s character flaws were readily forgiven, and the Southern press was especially supportive.

When Randolph’s naysayers accused him of insanity, the Louisiana State Gazette defended the senator, claiming that his madness stemmed from honesty and integrity.

“[H]e talks in his own way, speaks of matters and things in general, which will be confined to no systematic limits, be governed by no stiff and turgid rules of eloquence, but soars like the eagle, with expansive and excursive wing.” The Gazette insisted that

Randolph’s steadfast principles demonstrated his virtue in a period of uncertainty, for

“times have changed—danger is apparent, and the man” rose once again “in all his original force, power and protection. Yet he is pronounced mad by servile presses.” 209

Randolph’s likeability protected him in ways not available to Calhoun. Like a whipping boy, Calhoun was held responsible for Randolph’s excesses. For example, while the editors of the Baltimore Patriot remained friendly to Randolph, they took a sterner eye toward Vice-President Calhoun. The Patriot claimed that after Randolph continued to insult the administration on the Senate floor, Calhoun, “as the presiding officer of the Senate” degrades his station “by his neglect to preserve the rules of the

Senate inviolate, and has, in this particular, disappointed the just expectation of his friends and country generally.”210

Positive or negative, Randolph was good press, and the peripatetic senator never seemed to hesitate at expressing provocative opinions. Logical or not, the links Randolph

208 Richmond Enquirer, Richmond, Virginia, August 8, 1826. 209 Louisiana State Gazette, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 25, 1826. 210 Essex Register, April, 17, 1826, Salem Massachusetts. 122 forged between Indian sovereignty and slavery entered the public mind. Three years later, the more sophisticated rhetoric of the Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster and South

Carolina’s Senator Robert Hayne articulated these connections as well. In 1832 when

President Andrew Jackson attempted to dissociate the U.S. Supreme Court’s Worcester v.

Georgia decision on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty from South Carolina’s Nullification

Ordinance, he was unable to do so in the public sphere.

Josiah Quincy Jr., a future Boston mayor, offered one of the more revealing commentaries over Randolph’s antics. Quincy reminisced that Randolph’s speeches were either “charming or provoking,” depending upon the listener’s point of view. “To a

Senator anxious to expedite the public business or to hurry through the bill he had in charge,” Quincy explained, “Randolph’s harangues upon all sorts of irrelevant subjects must have been very annoying.” To the general public, however, Randolph’s speeches were “delightful.” Quincy concluded, “Four-fifths of what he said had the slenderest possible connection with the subject which had called him up; but, so far as the chance visitor was concerned, this variety only added a charm to the entertainment.”211 Thus, long after the Civil War, Randolph’s persona still held a public “charm.”

Randolph’s ideas exuded an apparently innocent charm in 1826, but six years later, his ideas raised a specter of disunion in more serious minds. Senatorial detractors of

Randolph generally believed that he was distracting and wasted valuable time. Webster complained when Randolph went on “for two, four and sometimes six hours at a time,”

211 Josiah Quincy. Figures of the Past, from the Leaves of Old Journals. Boston: Robert Brothers, 1883, 219-220. 123 expounding upon “whatever occurs to him in all subjects” and fortifying himself occasionally on the floor with brandy and port. Randolph insulted Secretary of State

Henry Clay with such vehemence that they dueled on April 8, 1826, (They ended up shooting into the air on purpose and shook hands.) The historian Irving H. Bartlett quipped that “since nothing less than a bullet in the mouth could have shut him

[Randolph] up, the tirades continued.”212

Randolph was more than entertaining and obstructionist. A growing Southern polity found Randolph’s ranting useful. Andrew Jackson’s supporters vied for the presidency in the 1828 election, and they intended to make Adams a one term president.

Jackson encouraged Calhoun’s tacit support for the Virginian senator claiming that

Randolph was among those “who had the independence to stand forth the champions of the constitution and the people.”213 Calhoun, having decamped from Adams’s nationalist republicanism and thrown in his lot with the growing Jacksonian movement, essentially used his authority as President of the Senate to sanction Randolph’s attack on the Adams administration. Unleashed, Randolph grew so long-winded that even the detail-bound,

William Winston Seaton of the Congressional Register of Debates eventually wrote somewhat tiredly, “Mr. RANDOLPH rose and opposed the resolution in a speech of three hours. The question was then taken on the passage of the resolution and decided in the

212 Irving H. Bartlett, John C. Calhoun: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993), 132. 213 Andrew Jackson to John C. Calhoun, July 18, 1826. Papers of Andrew Jackson, VI:187. 124 affirmative.”214 Seaton simply gave up recording all of Randolph’s speeches. Illogical and entertaining, Randolph’s anti-administration speeches contributed to Jackson’s freedom to avoid establishing a platform in his bid for the presidency.

Randolph’s most recent biographer, Aaron Scott Crawford, believes he was neither brilliant nor inept. “Randolph never composed a treatise, articulated a concise vision of his political ideas, or ever revealed himself to be a systematic thinker of any kind.” Rather, Crawford suggests that Randolph’s “political doctrine consisted of an unwavering, unprincipled, and often irrational devotion to obstruction in governance.”215

However, Crawford insists that Randolph’s influence on sectional politics should not be underestimated and explains, “During the antebellum period, rabid sectionalists promoted the image of John Randolph as a pivotal figure in the proslavery political movement that led to the Civil War.”216 Certainly, Randolph’s ranting in March 1826 prompted Calhoun later that year to write eloquently and influentially about the planter’s ironic ideology of liberty over power. Indeed, Randolph needed the vice-president’s significant support to speak his turgid mind so freely in Congress.

The Panama Congress: Dismantling National Republicanism

Encouraged by the public response, planters added substance to Randolph’s harangues, especially his anti-administrative attacks. On March 2, 1826, South Carolina’s

Senator Robert Hayne complimented Randolph’s insights and wondered if President

214 “2 Part I Cong. Deb. I 1826,” 19th Congress, 1st Session, April 3, 1826, 407. The resolution concerned a constitutional amendment to limit presidential terms to two. 215 Aaron Scott Crawford, “John Randolph of Roanoke and the Politics of Doom: Slavery, Sectionalism, and Self-Deception, 1773-1821” (Dissertation, University of Tennessee, 2012), 4. 216 Crawford, “John Randolph,” 2. 125

Adams would be able to provide any more information about the delegates to be sent to the Panama Congress that the Senate and public did not already possess. It was an odd request and strictly an anti-Adams obstructionist ploy attempting to prevent the success of a well-liked program. The vicious political attacks against his foreign policy surprised

President Adams, who many recognized as an accomplished diplomat. Dexter Perkins declared that, “single-handed,” Adams, while the previous president’s Secretary of State,

“was to determine in large measure the course of the [Monroe] Administration.”217

Unaided, Secretary of State Adams effectively protected Jackson from reprisals for his actions in Florida, yet Jackson turned on Adams after the 1824 election.

The republicanism emerging in the South American countries was popular with most American citizens. Símon Bolívar initiated the Panama Congress to provide a unity of purpose for the various new South American republics that wanted to free themselves from Spanish monarchal control. Many American citizens celebrated this congress, calling Bolívar the “Liberator,” and likening him to George Washington. They saw Latin

America as following the United States’ republican example, after wresting independence from England’s hands. Yet planters such as Hayne worried that Bolívar as “the Liberator” might promote universal emancipation.

The principal senators who masterminded the Jacksonian effort to undermine

Adams’ presidency included Martin Van Buren of New York, John Holmes of Maine,

John M. Berrien of Georgia, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, Robert Y. Hayne of South

217 Dexter Perkins, “John Quincy Adams,” Samuel Flagg Bemis, ed., The American Secretaries of State and their Diplomacy, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928), 22. 126

Carolina, and Vice-president John Calhoun of South Carolina as well.218 Their effort was strictly political. This emerging party’s focus was anti-administration.

Falsely accused of Federalist economic elitism, Adams’s foreign policy actually upheld the Republican vision of a federal government that created diffused opportunities to acquire wealth. Adams supported free trade agreements for widespread prosperity, not the favored-nation ideology of the federalists. Indeed, as secretary of state under Monroe,

Adams laid the groundwork for his presidential policy to support the emerging republicanism in South America, which was popular among the American citizenry.219

As Secretary of State, and mindful of the tinderbox republicanism held among the aristocracy of Europe, Adams had moved significantly more cautiously than the

American public preferred. He believed that the United States would be best served by showing cautious acceptance of the emerging republican governments. Writing to Caesar

A. Rodney, whom Monroe had appointed United States Minister to Buenos Aires,

Secretary Adams advised, “The Republic of Colombia, if permanently organized to embrace the whole territory which it now claims, and blessed with a Government effectually protective of the rights of its people, is undoubtedly destined to become

218 Mary W. M. Hargreaves, The Presidency of John Quincy Adams. Norman: University Press of Kansas, 1985, 151. 219 Ernest R. May indicates that Adams proceeded with his foreign policies under President Monroe specifically to enhance his chances for the 1824 presidential election. May, The Making of the Monroe Doctrine (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 255. Weeks suggests that Adams supported Jeffersonian republicanism as far back as 1803, being the only “federalist to support the Louisiana Purchase.” Adams intended a transcontinental expansion for American prosperity. William Earl Weeks, “John Quincy Adams’s “Great Gun” and the Rhetoric of American Empire,” Diplomatic History, 14:1, (January 1990), 30. James E. Lewis argues that John Quincy Adams recognized that the “Spanish American revolutions produced nearly as radical a transformation for North Americans as the American Revolution itself.” Lewis, Jr., The American Union and the Problem of Neighborhood: The United States and the Collapse of the Spanish Empire, 1783-1829 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 216. 127 hereafter one of the mightiest nations of the earth.”220 In this letter, Adams expressed the possibilities of a Latin American republic, although he also recognized its uncertainty.

Therefore, he promoted a cautious policy of friendliness, without providing actual support. Germán A. de la Reza explains that Simón Bolívar never intended to create a fully unified South America, recognizing the governing diversity of the various republics would inhibit such an effort.221 Still United States’ politicians took note of the emerging consolidation of South American republics that might compete with U.S. republican visions of hemispheric domination. Like Adams, Henry Clay saw the political benefits of cooperation and market opportunity in making resources available to a “population of upwards of twenty millions” and growing.222 Alternatively, Randolph and the planter class in general saw a disturbing breakdown of racial distinctions that interfered with their race-based authority and wealth. Most Americans agreed tacitly with the race-based distinctions critical to planter economics. The question was one of degree. Planters wanted unwavering support for an ideology that many others preferred to regard as naturally occurring. Legislation against non-white rights seemed unnecessarily obtrusive to Americans not connected with the planter class.

Mary Hargreaves explained that Adams “administration supporters from New

England through the Middle States into Ohio and Kentucky had reported a sympathetic

220 William R. Manning, ed., Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States Concerning the Independence of the Latin-American Nations, vol. I (New York: Oxford University Press, 1925), 202. 221 Level III National Researcher, Germán A. de la Reza, “The Formative Platform of the Congress of Panama (1810–1826): The Pan-American Conjecture Revisited. A Plataforma Formativa Do Congresso Do Panamá (1810–1826): A Conjectura Pan-Americana Revisitada,” Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI) 56, no. 1 (2013): 5–21. 222 Henry Clay, “Political,” Vermont Gazette, October 17, 1826, Brattleboro, VT. EAN. 128 public opinion, [and were] surprised and bewildered at the “shameful and indeed factious opposition” to the mission.”223 Even the staunch Jacksonian senator from Missouri,

Thomas Hart Benton, privately conceded that the Panama Congress “captivated all young and ardent imaginations.”224 Yet despite the potential prosperity Adams’s policies might have brought the nation, after the 1824 election Calhoun convinced himself that Adams was generally an inept politician. The Vice-President joined the emerging coalition to bring about his President’s demise because, despite their widespread popularity, the administration’s foreign policies threatened planter racial politics.

Jacksonians did what they could to obstruct Adams’s South American policies, even though they knew his strategies were popular and potentially lucrative for national trade and prosperity. The public may have been shocked over the vitriol hurled on the congressional floor, yet Americans still felt the financial losses sustained during the Panic of 1819. Many Americans continued to struggle with the difficult economic hardships originating in that during the financial catastrophe. The National Bank’s insensitive protectionist responses did not endear federal economic interventions to many citizens.

Thus the well-organized attacks against the vulnerable Clay-Adams American System were significantly more effective due to the simultaneous attacks against the President’s foreign policy.

The anti-Adams/pro-Jackson coalition applied tremendous effort to undermine

Adams and Clay’s South American policies. The Senate defeated Van Buren’s

223 Hargreaves, John Quincy Adams, 158. 224 Ibid. 129 resolutions to block participation in the Panama Conference. However, instead of backing down and recognizing congressional and public support for a different viewpoint,

Randolph went on the attack again by blaming the President and Secretary of State for forming a coalition to defeat his efforts. On March 30, 1826, Randolph assailed their personal credibility with considerable evocative imagery, “I was defeated, horse, foot, and dragoons—cut up, and clean broke down by the coalition of Blifil and Black

George—by the combination, unheard of till then, of the Puritan with the blackleg.”225

The reference to Black George, an evil-minded commoner and blackleg of questionable racial lineage had been enough of an insult for Clay to challenge Randolph to a duel one week later. Randolph’s diatribes were unsubstantiated, but impossible to ignore.

Race Politics, John Randolph, and the Election of John Quincy Adams

As discussed in Chapter One, during Monroe’s last presidential year, Georgia’s

Senator John Forsyth failed to convince Congress to reject the 1804 Cherokee treaty based solely on the recognition that the Cherokees are not white. Planters realized that they would not be able to press their race-based distinctions of Native Americans if

Congress recognized non-white, perhaps even ex-slave, delegates from other American or

Atlantic republics such as Haiti.226 Although most white Americans supported Indian

225 Hargreaves, John Quincy Adams, 152. The reference to Blifil and Black George would have been common knowledge of the time, from the popular novel, by Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749). Blifil was a manipulative and evil character who pretended to be virtuous. This reference was directed at President Adams, and underlined by the following reference of “the Puritan.” Black George was a lower class evil man, who through Blifil’s covering for him, was capable of doing more mischief in the world than he ought to have been able to accomplish. The “blackleg” reference questions Clay’s racial standing as a white person. 226 While arguing against Panama, Randolph was equally concerned over the proposed extension of powers for the judiciary to add circuit judges so that the federal judiciary would no longer need to ride the circuit as 130 removal and cared little about the condition of African Americans, Southern slaveholders insisted upon an explicit white supremacy with no regard for constitutional protections for non-whites. In effect, they demanded that the U.S. Constitution be explicitly race based, an idea that most Americans were unwilling to accept.

Randolph was a dream come true for Jackson’s supporters who wanted to focus on the opposition’s failures instead of building public support for a new vision.

“Randolph’s harangues upon all sorts of irrelevant subjects” were simultaneously interfering with the Senate’s order of business and “a delightful entertainment” which captivated public imagination.227 For a group who wanted the current administration out of governance, Randolph’s contribution might have been, in some ways, even more effective than all of Van Buren’s back-door politicking. In a political climate that celebrated state conventions as a reflection of popular will over the caucus system,

well. His concerns rested predominantly over the increasing authority of the U.S. Supreme Court to usurp individual states’ rights in terms of individual state’s rights. Randolph worried, “It is true, as has elsewhere been said, with apparent triumph, that the States, whose legislative acts have successively fallen under the interdiction of the Court, have excited little or no sympathy on the part of their sister States, and, after struggling with the giant strength of the Court, have submitted to their fate. But, sir, it is feared that this will not always be the case.” He also acknowledged the particular wisdom of Chief Justice John Marshall, perhaps as a fellow Virginian, but he also understood that someone with Marshall’s acumen would not always lead the court. Randolph considered, “That his uncommon man who now presides over the Court, and who I hope may long continued to do so, is, in all human probability, the ablest Judge now sitting upon any judicial bench in the world, I sincerely believe. But to the sentiment, which claims for the Judges so great a share of exemption from the feelings that governed the conduct of other men, and for the Court the character of being the safest depository of political power, I do not subscribe.” 2 Part I Cong. Deb. 391-392 1826, 19th Congress, 1st Session, Register of the Debates in Congress, pp., 419, 421. (Italics in original.) 227 Josiah Quincy. Figures of the Past, from the Leaves of Old Journals. Boston: Robert Brothers, 1883, 219-220. 131 entertaining obstructions to accomplishing governmental business was a brilliant fait accompli for an opposition party.228

228Andrew Shankman, “John Quincy Adams and National Republicanism,” in A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams, ed. David Waldstreicher (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2013), 263-280; Padraig Riley, “The Presidency of John Quincy Adams,” in A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams, ed. David Waldstreicher (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2013), 328–347. Sean Wilentz lays the blame for the failure of the Adams administration squarely on Adams and Clay’s shoulders. Regarding the Adams-Clay alliance, Wilentz claims “If, in politics, a blunder is worse than a crime, then Clay, along with Adams, was guilty indeed, or a complete failure of political intelligence and imagination.” Yet Adams was politically vulnerable in important ways. He supported neither northeastern-aligned Federalism resistant to westward expansion, nor the conservative vision of a weak central government, and his moderate conciliatory preferences were increasingly problematic in the emerging democratic age. Throughout his tenure, Adams was attacked on many fronts. In Massachusetts, David Henshaw, “an unschooled former druggist’s apprentice who had made a fortune as a wholesale drug merchant” underwrote a Jacksonian newspaper against the Adams’s elitism. Yet Federalists also distrusted Adams for his “economic nationalism [was] too collectivist and pro-Western.” Finally, New York’s senator, Martin Van Buren proved “crucial to the reorganization of national political alliances” most specifically for Jackson and anti-administration. He helped to align Congress into a “virtual committee for the defeat of the president.” Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2005), 255, 294, 295. The real lesson, it seems, is not Adams’s inadequacy, but an example of the imperfections of popular democratic governance. Daniel Walker Howe recognizes that John Quincy Adams “came to the office the best prepared of all,” but due to circumstances partially beyond his control and partly due to the “contradictions in Adams’s own conception of his presidential role,” the sixth president of the United States was not destined for a successful presidency. Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 245. Drew McCoy explains in his study of the post presidential thinking of James Madison, that Madison recognized both the importance of popular opinion, as well as its perils. McCoy writes, “Madison preoccupation with the perils of majority rule must not be confused with a rejection of the principle itself. In 1787 and in the last decade of his life, his purpose remained consistent: to minimize the risk of majority abuse without abandoning the cause of popular government.” McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 137. Certainly, Adams’s political errors should be considered, but the broader implications of the shortcomings and benefits of Adams’s presidency can provide a critical reflection on the positives and negatives of democratic governance. Historians debate the precise involvement of Calhoun in Adams’s administrative debacle. Lee Cheek et al suggests that Calhoun, although personally against Adams presidency, acted fairly in his capacity as Senate President, claiming that “Calhoun exercised this new responsibility with great fairness, selecting friends of the Adams Administration to chair eight major committees, with the remaining seven chairmanships given to senators not directly associated with the administration.” Cheek also concedes, however, that since some chairs went to Adams’s enemies, Adams was justified in his suspicions against his vice-president. H. Lee Cheek Jr., Sean R. Busick, and Carey M. Roberts, Patrick Henry/Onslow Debate: Liberty and Republicanism in American Political Thought, (New York: Lexington Books, 2013), xii. 132

John Quincy Adams Administration and Indian Affairs

Federal Indian policies suffered from the individual interests of local politicians.

Like local politicians in virtually every state, John Quincy Adams supported Indian removal, but he wanted to do so on constitutionally firm ground. On the other hand,

Georgia’s Governor George M. Troup was anxious to bolster his political base by removing the remaining Creeks and Cherokees within Georgia’s proscribed boundaries as soon as possible. Historian Michael Green explained that Troup applied aggressive frontier tactics to achieve his political goals and would “press a vigorous attack, catch his opponent off balance, sweep to his goal too fast to be stopped, and present his adversary with an accomplished fact.”229 Shifting away from pressuring the Cherokees after their successful negotiations in 1824 for ratifying the 1804 treaty, Troup focused on William

McIntosh to help him extricate the Creeks. McIntosh was both Troup’s cousin and a principle head man for the Creek Nation. President Monroe had required his agents,

Duncan Campbell and James Merriweather, to negotiate land sale treaties “within the context of full Council participation.”230 Campbell, Merriweather, and McIntosh, however, maneuvered in secret, without the full council aware of the deal making. The negotiators made extravagant promises to one another, and McIntosh signed a privately negotiated treaty of great financial benefit to himself. Aware that the treaty could not withstand even a cursory senatorial scrutiny, the agents presented the treaty to an obliging

Calhoun in March 1825, on the last day of eighteenth congressional session. Thus

229 Michael D. Green, The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982),102. 230 Green, Politics of Indian Removal, 83. 133 ratified, the newly inaugurated President Adams signed it into law on March 7th. Once a

Creek delegation convinced him that the treaty had been illegally established, Adams negotiated a similar land sale treaty in 1826 that was slightly more favorable to the

Creeks and approved by Georgia’s Senator John Forsyth. Yet Georgia’s Governor Troup still railed against Adams’s decision claiming that the president over-stepped his federal authority by renegotiating a new treaty.

Troup was caustically secessionist and vehement in his denunciation of the

Adams administration. In a letter to the president’s secretary of war, Troup called Adams a “public enemy.”231 He excoriated the federal government as “invaders, and, what is more, the unblushing allies of the savages whose cause you have adopted.” Coens notes that even John Randolph disapproved of the Governor’s “demented Rant.”232 Nationally, the American public was supportive of Indian removal, even if they did not approve of

Troup’s methods. A careful assessment of Adams’s Indian policies indicates that Adams agreed with the public majority and promoted removal. The Creeks successful challenge of the Treaty of Indian Springs granted them only a short reprieve from removal with a minor increase in financial recompense. Yet their success was unprecedented and demonstrated how tribal council leaders were learning how to navigate American constitutional law to their benefit.

Adams’s policies toward Native Americans may have complemented his attitude toward the emerging South American republics. He viewed the Southern nations as

231 George Troup to James Barbour, February 17, 1827, from Cooper, Liberty and Slavery, 164. 232 Coens, “The Formation of the Jackson Party, 1822-1825,” 274. 134 foreign neighbors that he felt bound to respect, but whose interests were different from that of the United States and its citizens. Similarly, once Native American nations proved their civilized status to Adams, he was willing to treat with them fairly as separate republics, but he expected them to not interfere with expansion interests of the United

States. Just as Monroe had earlier suggested that a reasonable territory should be set aside for Native Americans, likely around the Pacific Northwest, had Adams enjoyed a more successful presidency, he might have continued such a removal policy. In his day, this view would have been appropriately virtuous by nationalist republican standards— constitutionally supportable and profitable as well—by establishing surviving Indian governments as friendly neighbors or trading partners for mutual interests in industry and trade.233

During Monroe’s administration, Calhoun focused on Indian education and civilization, believing that removal would naturally follow. Belatedly the Monroe administration recognized the fallacy of that thinking when the Cherokee delegation

233 Lynn Parsons explores Adams’ changing views on Native Americans. He argues, accurately, that Adams supported full assimilation for Native people who willingly embraced Western civilization. The tenacity of white land greed, not Native Americans, altered Adams’s perspective. Parsons, ““A Perpetual Harrow upon My Feelings”: John Quincy Adams and the American Indian,” The New England Quarterly, 46:3 (September 1973), 339-379. Intriguingly, Adams became steadfastly pessimistic over Indian survival and his ability to do anything positive for Native Americans. Conversely, he engaged in the anti-slavery movement because he was convinced that abolition would eventually succeed. Alexander Saxton also recognized the significant conflict embedded in federal authority, noting “The Indian problems confronting John Quincy Adams as president arose from the fact that the United States, in order to negotiate its own survival, had bargained with both Indians and individual states.” It was a debilitating conflict for a nation founded on the ideology of fair and transparent principles codified through constitutional law. Indeed, when negotiating with British commissioner Henry Goulburn at Ghent, at the close of the War of 1812, Adams assured British officials that the rights of Indians who “cultivate[d] lands” would “always be respected by the United States. Saxton notes that Adams even mentioned the Cherokees as an example. Thus, when Adams threatened and then back down when the Georgia militia threatened the Creeks in 1825 “played out in dress rehearsal a Nullification drama seven years ahead of time, but with an opposite outcome.” (Alexander Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Verso, [1990] 2003), 53, 54.) 135 successfully renegotiated the 1804 treaty in 1824. During Adams’s presidency, Secretary of Indian Affairs Thomas McKenney highlighted the resultant issues that developed from promoting Indian removal through civilization. In his 1826 report, he wrote, “[T]hey are more enlightened, and have more comforts, and are more prosperous, than are any others,” and therefore less amenable to removal.234 No longer expecting education to promote removal, Adams’s cabinet worked more directly for removal even before

Jackson came into office. Federally-funded missionaries recognized this policy shift and struggled over their changing role as federal government policies moved in new directions.

Adams’s Indian advisors held conflicting views over Native Americans. They reflected the challenges of supporting westward expansion with honor while American citizens were less than honorable in the process. Rather than confront the enormity of the abuses over land acquisitions, American leaders and citizens preferred to believe that

Indians would conveniently disappear. Adams chose James Barbour, past governor and senator from Virginia, as his Secretary of War. Nodding to Monroe’s earlier advice, discussed in Chapter One, Barbour promoted the idea of a Western Indian state. While

Adams respected Barbour’s views, the president thought assimilation was more practical.

Adams understood that the expected extermination of Native Americans had less to do with racial difference and more to do with white greed. Secretary of State Henry Clay held a harder racial line than either Barbour or Adams. After an 1825 cabinet meeting,

Adams reported that Clay believed, “Native Americans were not an improvable breed,

234 Thomas L. McKenney, 2 American State Papers Indian Affairs 590 1832, December 27, 1826, 701. 136 and their disappearance from the human family will be no great loss to the world.”

Adams also reported that “Barbour was somewhat shocked at these opinions.”235 Adams noted these differences, but believed them to be politically insignificant. Adams and

Clay’s views converged over the American system and foreign policy. Native American policy was not a deciding factor for cabinet membership. However, America’s political leaders, such as Adams, repeatedly underestimated the survivability of Native American tribes. For one year, the Creeks challenged successfully the Treaty of Indian Springs in

1825, renegotiating a Treaty of Washington in 1826, which Georgia’s political leaders decried as an invasion of state’s rights. Six years later through Worcester v. Georgia

(1832), the Cherokees successfully defended their sovereignty before the United States

Supreme Court. The Cherokees thus established a still-viable decision on behalf of

Native American sovereignty, which in conjunction with South Carolina’s Nullification

Ordinance brought American citizens to face the possibility of disunion. Despite a historic pattern that attempted to dismiss or ignore them, Native Americans found ways to make their concerns matter to the American public.

John Randolph: Planters, Slavery and Non-white Republics

Although both were committed to America’s westward expansion, Adams and

Clay believed that the Union’s growth also contributed to its fragility. They intended to promote national unity through international trade agreements. As one historian explains, they believed that “easing the problem of neighborhood” would reinforce the strength of

235 Adams, Memoirs, VII, 89-90 (December 22, 1825). As quoted in Parsons, “Adams and the American Indian,” p. 357. 137 the union.236 Throughout March 1826, which led to the Patrick Henry/Onslow debates,

Randolph spoke at length on his fears over the Panama Congress. Essentially obstructionist, Randolph called for congressional oversight of Adams and Clay’s policies.

When Randolph began this discussion on March 1, he acknowledged up front that his request for supervision over executive authority “was a very unusual thing.”237 His reasoning was explicitly racial. If the president insisted upon negotiating with non-white republics, Randolph believed that the president should have more congressional input in such cases. Randolph’s anti-administration attacks demonstrated considerable bravado, considering he was questioning the skills of the principal architect of the United States’

South American foreign policies for the previous ten years. This point is important, because it supports Aaron Crawford’s thesis that Randolph’s speeches were fundamentally anti-administration and not driven by any comprehensive ideology. Yet this anti-administration attack elucidated a longstanding fear of the planter class that their global hegemony based on explicit racial difference was rapidly eroding.

What if, Randolph queried, the president sent abolitionist delegates to visit with

Bolívar, known as the Liberator of slaves and the “South American Washington”? What recourse could Congress take under such circumstances? On the Senate floor, Randolph, insisted upon closer administrative monitoring:

[Randolph] He hoped that the Ministers, whoever they might be, would be of that character and description who would labor under none of the odious and exploded prejudices, which revolted and repelled the fastidious Southern man from Africans—from associating as equals with them, or with People of African

236 Lewis, Jr., The American Union and the Problem of Neighborhood, 189. 237 Niles’ Register, March 4, 1826, Congress, 12. 138

descent-that they may take their seat in Congress at Panama, beside the native African, their American descendants, the mixed breeds, the Indians, and the half breeds, without any offence or scandal at so motley a mixture.238

Randolph explicitly connected white supremacy over all non-white republics as essential for the planter class. The elite white racial composition of the Adams Administration did not protect them from planter-based attacks, demonstrating how debilitating white supremacy was for white people as well.

Further, Randolph judged negatively the emerging republicanism of South

America through a racial lens. He claimed that South Americans were “deteriorating” because of cross-race breeding. Racial distinctions alone differentiated South America’s republican revolutions from the ideals of American Revolutionary War. As he distinguished through Shakespeare’s Othello, Randolph could fathom neither tragic human characteristics in a non-white Moor, nor republican virtue in a non-white republic.

Further, the white missionaries who assisted the South Americans were “politico- religious” fanatics, who needed to be countermanded as well. Without explaining precisely how the South American republics were different beyond racial distinctions,

Randolph asserted that the Congress of Panama was as different from the United States government as “light and darkness—as common sense and practice differ from the visionary theories of moon-struck lunatics.” With no evidence to explain his unusual demands other than racial, Randolph demanded that the president explain his position to the American people. “I want this to open their eyes,” so that “the good sense of the

People of the United States” should have all the facts before them to determine what this

238 “2 Part I Cong. Deb. I 1826,” 19th Congress, 1st Session, March 1, 1826, 112. 139 former colonial power of Spain intended to do “in regard to Negro slavery.” For

Randolph, non-whites of Spanish America, or anywhere, could not be equipped to protect

U.S. planter interests. Additionally, Randolph attacked white supporters of non-white civil rights, such as religious reformers, missionaries or abolitionists. The senator turned the moral suasion of antislavery on its head. Those who did not actively support slavery endangered the lives of white families who relied upon it for their livelihood. For

Randolph and many planters, the world should be held responsible to protect the beneficiaries of the slave system.

Randolph’s speechifying and Calhoun’s support significantly influenced the nature of the Senate debates. The leadership in the House of Representatives was more supportive of the Adams administration. Speaker of the House John W. Taylor tried to avoid party politics at a time when party politics were becoming increasingly influential.

Martin Van Buren and his supporters prevented Taylor from serving as speaker for more than two non-consecutive terms. However, Taylor influenced the tenor of the debates over the Panama Congress within the House. An editorial footnote in the Register of

Debates claimed that the House had access to materials that were not brought to the

Senate floor.239 As Randolph deflected the senators’ attentions from pertinent materials to

239 On March 14, 1826, the editor made a series of notations that referenced the differences between the debates over the Panama Congress between the House and Senate, especially noting that documents available to the House were not readily available to the Senate. For example, “The President, in his message to the House of Representatives, says: “I can scarcely deem it otherwise than superfluous to observe, that the Assembly will be in its nature diplomatic, and not legislative;” and then goes on to explain the mode of its organization and action. No such information was before the Senate. The documents before them proved that the President had insisted on obtaining information on those very points as preliminary to his acceptance, and had filed to obtain it. Certainly the Senate had no such information—and the 140 consider adequately South American policy, he developed his arguments to defend planter authority. Although focused on slavery, Randolph attacked non-white republics as antithetical to planter interests. Further, the senator claimed that anything less than full support for the planter class was un-American. The nation could not unite to support

Randolph’s vision on behalf of the planter class, and sectional politics continued to fester.

Haitian Independence, the Panama Congress and Sectionalism: Calhoun’s Private Fears lead to the Patrick Henry/Onslow Debates

Edwin Hemphill and Clyde Wilson, editors for the Papers of John C. Calhoun, are convinced that the 1826 Patrick Henry/Onslow debate provided the theoretical basis of Calhoun’s 1828 Exposition, and no later scholarship appears to dispute that claim. The debate provided the “much discussed turning-point” in Calhoun’s career from nationalist and latitudinarian to sectionalist and strict constructionist.”240 Calhoun had been uneasy over the 1824 election, and although South Carolina voted for Jackson, Calhoun did not trust him. Calhoun’s biographer John Niven believes that Calhoun respected Adams’s political skills but did not like his alignment with Henry Clay and his American System.

Aligning with Jackson, Niven observes that Calhoun meant “to use his office of vice- president, as far as its severely limited powers permitted, to enhance what he regarded as the popular mandate.”241 The Patrick Henry/Onslow Debate gave substance and direction to Calhoun’s political frustrations. Yet the debate further isolated the vice-president

documents before them went to show that the Congress was legislative, and not diplomatic.—Note by Mr. H.” “2 Part I Cong. Deb. I 1826,” n159-160. Italics in original. 240 John C. Calhoun, The Papers of John C. Calhoun, ed. W. Edwin Hemphill, vol. X, XXVIII vols. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1977), X:xxi. 241 John Niven, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 109. 141 because it was predominantly Northeasterners that criticized Calhoun for his lack of support for the president. Calhoun became more openly sectional, although he had already been negotiating privately for Southern unification to counteract Northern dominance in the federal arena before Patrick Henry/Onslow Debate over liberty and republicanism. The debate itself delineated irreconcilable differences within the complex and ambiguous ideological basis of Jefferson’s republican vision. It focused on federal authority in terms of its limitations and prerogatives. However, Randolph’s tirades coupled with Calhoun’s refusal to restrict him provided the spark that ignited the debate over republicanism.

Northern support for Haiti’s independence in July 1825 and Adams’s expectation to send delegates to the Panama Congress in 1826 only furthered Calhoun’s apprehension. In early July 1825, Haiti negotiated its independence from France, and

Calhoun worried over a Northern interest in capitalizing on Haitian independence. Like

Randolph, he found the idea of an independent non-white republic to be a “delicate” issue. Northern papers, he noted, were principally optimistic about this new Atlantic republic and saw a new market ripe for profits and a convenient re-location for American ex-slaves.

Northern support for Panama was neither more anti-slavery nor less racist than its Southern neighbors. Southern planters depended upon race-based slavery to protect their profit margins, while Northern merchants depended upon cheap labor and expanding market potentials for personal wealth. Yet Northerners could be as elitist about white culture as their Southern neighbors. For example, on July 13 the month of Haitian 142 independence, Loring D. Dewey, Presbyterian minister and agent for the American

Colonization Society optimistically predicted a brilliant future for Haiti due to the white- infused “mixed blood” of its leadership. Dewey imagined “The immense wealth it [Haiti] poured into France, while in a state of colonial dependence upon that kingdom, testifies most fully to the richness of its soil and the abundance of its productions.” His support for Haitian independence was burdened with a complex mix of race and class patronizing. He qualified his optimism for Haiti’s future explaining that the island’s population also struggled with paganism and sloth, problems, he declared, which arose from “the lower classes who were slaves before the revolution.” Although Dewey was supportive of Haitian independence, he also managed to support planter sexual exploitations over slaves at the same time he celebrated the benefits of free labor. He observed, “Among the colored offspring of the slave owners and others who have always enjoyed freedom, you find many distinguished for intelligence and liberality.”242 The merchant Richard Robinson considered the wealth to be gained from Haitian independence and advertised for button manufacturers to contact his traders directly through Haiti and South America, convinced of the expanding markets in this “extensive and increasing country.”243 The editor for the Portland Advertiser in Maine was also attracted to the economic possibilities for American trade, “On the whole the commerce of Hayti will now be on a much surer footing.—The United States will be benefitted—

242 Loring D. Dewey, “Hayti,” Hampshire Gazette, Northhampton, MA. July 13, 1825, 1. Haiti was commonly spelled “Hayti” at this time. 243 Richard Robinson, Advertisement entitled, “American Establishment for the extensive manufacture of Gilt Buttons, of every description,” Columbian Centinel American Federalist, Boston, MA. July 27, 1825, 1. 143

Great Britain may not be so, except for present pendencies—In the way of business, for the moment, nothing is done—all is rejoicing, &c.”244 However a few Northerners noticed, and celebrated, the revolutionary possibilities of Haitian independence.245

Some news editors recognized Haitian independence as a path to the end of slavery in ways that chilled any support Calhoun might have felt for a Haitian republic.246

A Maine editor for The Eastern Argus described a new dawning for African people more generally in terms of liberation and prosperity:

This is a new era in the history of the African race. Thirty-four years ago the Island of Hayti, or, as it was then called, Hispaniola or St. Domingo, was peopled by a numerous race of Africans, whom their fellow-men had found “guilty of a skin not colored like their own”—and for this sole cause had doomed them to perpetual slavery and woe. Now, this race of slaves is a vigorous and powerful people, rich in resources, possessing a good degree of intelligence, under an efficient government of their own adoption, and holding an acknowledged rank among the independent nations of the earth. The successful experiment of the blacks of Hayti in the establishment of an independent government, may prove the commencement of a series of events, which shall elevate the hitherto degraded African race, and place them on a level with their fellow-men. Who knows but the time is fast approaching when most of the West India Islands all be inhabited by independent nations of blacks, holding a conspicuous place in the scale of nations and governments?247

244 “Hayti,” Portland Advertiser, Portland, ME. July 29, 1825, 2. “Hayti” was the common spelling of Haiti at this time in the United States. 245 Ashli White, Encountering Revolution: Haiti and the Making of the Early Republic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). 246 Alfred Hunt in his seminal study of the impact of the Haitian revolution in antebellum America demonstrates that planters equated the Panama Conference with the revolution. The Panama Congress included Haitian diplomats. Thomas Hart Benton believed that having American diplomats interact with Haitian diplomats “would be misunderstood as “a reward for the murder of masters and mistresses by black slaves.”” Hunt, Haiti’s Influence on Antebellum America: Slumbering Volcano in the Caribbean (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 185. 247 “Independence of Hayti Acknowledged,” Eastern Argus, Portland, MA. July 29, 1825, 2. 144

“Who knows” indeed. Such news articles stood out in a republic that effectively protected white supremacy, indicating that some American citizens willingly negated the dominant view.

However, Calhoun and many Southern planters would be alarmed over “vigorous and powerful . . .independent nations of blacks.” In 1824 Calhoun had recognized non- white delegates such as the Cherokee delegation and upheld Monroe’s vision of a northwestern land reserve. Like some of the South American republics and the United

States, the Cherokee Nation was a slave-owning society. It adopted race-based plantation slavery using African Americans as slave labor. The Cherokees were different in important ways from non-white republics such as Haiti and South America, however.

Many Americans believed that Native Americans like the Cherokees were a vanishing race and could therefore be more readily contained. Also Native Americans who embraced plantation slavery had a vested interest in protecting America’s racial politics, unlike Haiti and South America.

Adams’s cautious support for the Haitian and Panamanian republics contributed to an alliance between Georgia and South Carolina to protect planter interests for racial controls of American politics. To Calhoun, Adams’ presidency threatened planter interests and the South Carolinian brought all his political acumen to bear on his effort to develop a Southern united front. Calhoun focused on Adams’ “ineptitude” as president and inability to carry Monroe’s republican mantle. Calhoun claimed his devotion to upholding the will of the people through democratic elections, especially since Calhoun won the majority electorate support as vice-president, while Adams had not. 145

As a planter dedicated to shoring up eroding planter privileges, Calhoun rejected

Adams’s willingness to negotiate with Haiti and the Panama Congress. Calhoun could attack neither Adams’s experience nor intelligence, and certainly not Adams’s dedication to the public good. The popular vote for Jackson in the 1824 election, however, had become Adams’s “Achilles heel,” and Calhoun played that card to its fullest potential.

Calhoun built up Adams’s federalist associations and pretended to mourn over his unfortunate “ineptitude” as presidential leader. He presented Adams as an elitist who was out of touch with the people, and finally, Calhoun nurtured alliances among the Southern states, as well as alliances between Southern and Western interests, presenting Adams’s support base as exclusively Northeastern.

Considering Calhoun’s earlier respect for Adams as Secretary of State, the South

Carolinian may have been posturing when he poured his wit into a studied paternalism.

Calhoun outlined his analysis of President Adams’s ineptitude in a letter to Samuel

Southard, Secretary of the Navy. Fundamentally, Calhoun believed that Adams’s first error was the organization of his administration and although Calhoun was Adams’s vice- president, he positioned himself as no part of the current administration. Calhoun claimed that Adams mishandled the Indian Springs Treaty, because he did not know Georgia’s

Governor Troup as well as the Vice-President did. “I know the Gov[erno]r well,”

Calhoun explained. Adams’ conciliatory efforts to protect simultaneously constitutionalism and Georgia’s interests in Creek removal simply backfired, “All

[Adams] has done to bring over the caucus, or Radical party has availed him nothing in the South.” Further, Adams was smart enough to know his error, and therefore, “must be 146 deeply embarrassed,” that his mistakes interrupted any possible “union in favour in the

North and West.” Calhoun was sorry for the president’s ineptitude and did “not anticipate the embarrassment,” with “the least pleasure.” He simply held to his own principles, instead of waffling as Adams had. “The real, effective ascendancy of the people, has ever been my most sacred principle, from which I shall never depart; and to preserve which, I am ready to make any sacrifice.”248 Calhoun closed his letter to Southard with his concerns over the implications of the United States’ recognition of Haiti. While the

Northern press saw expanded markets, Calhoun saw miscegenation. He continued:

It is not so much the recognition simply, as what must follow it. We must send and receive ministers; and what would our social relations with a Black minister at Washington? Must he be received or excluded from our dinners, our dances and our parties, and must his daughters and sons participate in the society of our daughters and sons? Small as these considerations appear to be they involve the peace and perhaps the union of this nation.249

Here Calhoun demonstrates the vital connection between planter authority, race politics, and his support for the national union. More important than prosperity, stabilizing trade

248 John C. Calhoun to Samuel L. Southard, August 16, 1825, Papers of John C. Calhoun, X:38. Six years later, members of the Campbell family provide another view of Calhoun’s support and connection to “the people.” The Campbell family predominantly recognized Calhoun’s political gifts, but also believed that his perspective was too elitist and had less attraction than the straightforward ways of Andrew Jackson. David Campbell was a personal friend of Andrew Jackson and a political leader in Western Virginia. According to the Campbell Family Papers, Collection overview, Campbell’s correspondence engaged state politics and the state militia. (Guide to the Campbell Family Papers, 1731-1969, Duke University Rubenstein Rare Books and Manuscripts.) These papers reflect the increased significance of popular opinion on political affairs. Calhoun lost public opinion to Jackson because “the old Genl. has the advantage before the great body of the people. He was, in his old way, plain and straight forward.” [David Campbell] to [Robert Hayne], May 16, 1831. A brother, James Campbell compares Jackson’s supporter, John Eaton to Calhoun, claimed that Eaton “is a better writer than Calhoun,” and Eaton’s political enemies, of which Calhoun was one, had a “highblown pride” that would “break under them & that they are to be overwhelmed by the popular wave.” James Campbell to John Campbell, November 2, 1831. 249 Ibid. 147 agreements and states’ rights, Calhoun required that all states in the union would protect explicit racial distinctions, which accorded with Randolph’s planter authority arguments.

Calhoun also believed that the South could unite against President Adams’s vision of nationalism. “If I do not mistake,” Calhoun explained to Southard, “that which moved our Senate, now moves Georgia. The same course, the same motives, and the advancement of the same party exist in both cases.”250 Calhoun did not explain in this letter what “course” or “motives” would unify South Carolina and Georgia’s interests.

However, in December 1824, South Carolina’s annual meeting legislative reports from the state house and Senate provide some reasonable conjectures.

For example, just as the Georgia legislature became especially sensitive against federal authority as a result of the reformulation of the Indian Springs Treaty, South

Carolina’s representatives were similarly reconsidering federal judicial authority. The

Denmark Vesey conspiracy of 1822 caused an immediate response out of Charleston.251

According to the South Carolina Journal for the House of Representatives of 1824, a

“Special Committee” determined that their recently elected Governor Richard J. Manning should send a public message to congress regarding “decisions of the Federal Judiciary and the acts of Congress contravening the letter and the spirit of the Constitution of the

250 John C. Calhoun to Samuel L. Southard, August 16, 1825, Ibid., X:38. 251 Michael Schoeppner demonstrates the linkages from Denmark Vessey in 1822, the first Negro Seamen Act in the same year, Jackson’s Attorney General Roger B. Taney’s support for these acts in 1832, which eventually led to his infamous Dred Scott opinion in 1857. Schoeppner, “Status across Borders: Roger Taney, Black British Subjects, and a Diplomatic Antecedent to the Dred Scott Decision,” Journal of American History, 100:1, June 2013, 46-67. See also Robert Forbes on the Negro Seaman’s Acts beginning in 1823, as part of the legacy of the Denmark Vessey scare. Forbes, “Slavery and the Meaning of America, 1819-1837,” PhD diss., Yale University, 1994, p. 365-367. 148

United States.”252 Correspondingly, the Senate considered bills to extend the judicial authority of state magistrates. “A Bill to give jurisdiction to the Judges of the Courts of

Ordinary throughout this State with power to order the sale or division of real and personal estates not exceeding a certain number,” and “A Bill to authorize the payment of

Grand Juries, and to under the jurisdiction of magistrates in civil cases.”253 In addition,

South Carolina prepared to initiate negotiations with Georgia to combine their resources to build a canal network that could compete with the recently opened Erie Canal for New

York. “Read a first time in this House the following Bills sent from the Senate, viz: A

Bill to declare the assent of this State to a convention between this State and the State of

Georgia, for the purpose of improving the navigation of the Savannah and Toogaloo

Rivers.”254 Calhoun understood that South Carolina could not stand alone in its protests against Northeastern interests, and therefore encouraged unified resistance and autonomy through building a Southern states coalition.

Calhoun believed that he could rally together a general Southern resistance to

Northern mercantile interests through race politics.255 In his letter to Colonel Joseph

Gardner Swift, a civil engineer recently named water commissioner in New York City,

Calhoun explained that the South was aligned against Adams, “if I mistake not, in active operation to embarrass and weaken him. From this source spring the Georgia movement;

252 South Carolina House of Representatives Journal 1824, December 15, 1824, 207. 253 South Carolina Senate Journal 1824, December 15, 1824, 192, 210. 254 Ibid, 208. 255 Certainly, Calhoun’s 1825 letter to Swift anticipates Martin Van Buren’s famous letter to Thomas Ritchie, two years later, in which Van Buren urges Ritchie to support Jackson’s support for national conventions in Pennsylvania and New York. Van Buren hoped that this alignment of Northern and Southern interests could undermine Adams’s bid for reelection. Martin Van Buren to Thomas Ritchie, January 13, 1827. American History Online. Facts on File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp? 149 and hence the blending of the Slave with the Indian question, in order, if possible to consolidate the whole South. Against these movements,” Calhoun asked rhetorically,

“what can sustain the administration in this quarter?”256 Calhoun believed that the Adams administration’s Indian policy and policies toward slavery could negatively impact its popularity in national elections and therefore bolster Southern influence on national policy decisions. The impetus for Calhoun’s effort to develop a Southern bloc came from his interests in protecting slavery, and Indian removal was an important component of

Calhoun’s vision to protect planter interests, even against Cherokee planters.

John Randolph attacked Adams’s policies toward South America because United

States’ planters could not justify their power and wealth against the white poverty that surrounded them if they supported non-white access to wealth and planter status. Calhoun supported Randolph’s diatribes, because like the Virginian senator, he was anti- administration. As president of the Senate, he gave Randolph unrestricted access to the floor.

The Onslow/Patrick Henry Debates

Philip Fendall, a clerk for the U.S. State Department who supported the Adams

Administration, had enough of John Randolph.257 Like many commentators, Fendall did

256 John C. Calhoun to Joseph G. Swift, September 2, 1825, The Papers of John C. Calhoun, X:40. 257 Because Philip Fendall left little in the way of public writings, some historians suggest that Fendall might have written the essays collaboratively with Adams’s oversight. Currently known manuscript evidence is scanty, but in October 1826, Charles J. Catlett wrote to Fendall, “The President thinks that Junius could not have done more justice to the subject than Patrick Henry has done—I rejoice at your success—you are in a fine way to preferment—may your prospects be realized and may the choicest blessing attend you forever and forever.” The Catlett letter indicates that Adams approved of Fendall’s efforts, not likely providing editorial support. “Patrick Henry,” to the Editor of the Washington, D.C., National Journal, May 1, 1826. Charles J. Catlett to Philip R. Fendall, October 17, 1826, Cheek et al, 150 not confront Randolph, but instead blamed Calhoun for allowing Randolph to diminish the prestige of the Senate. Fendall dubbed himself “Patrick Henry” and proceeded to lecture the President of the Senate over his republican responsibilities.258 Convinced that

“Patrick Henry” was President Adams himself, Calhoun took the pen name “Onslow,” and fully engaged the debate to defend his lax controls over Randolph. Thus Fendall and

Calhoun, two worthy adversaries, began to debate over the meaning of republicanism, known as the “Patrick Henry/Onslow” debate. The debate went far beyond an interesting academic exercise over political ideology, however. Randolph’s fear over the waning planter authority in the federal government instigated his tirades in defense of that authority that sparked the debate. Randolph attacked the Adams administration with destructive and emotion-laden, if popularly entertaining, insults that demanded active support for slavery and disavowal of non-white republics from every American citizen, even if that support would be financially debilitating for many of them. The debate shifted Calhoun permanently into sectionalism and provided the theoretical underpinnings for his Exposition and Protest of 1828. It is easy to ignore Randolph’s mark on the debate because he was simply not mentioned. Yet everyone reading the debate in the papers knew that Randolph was the motor that drove the impassioned speechifying over the meaning of republicanism.

Patrick Henry/Onslow Debate, 101. “Junius” was the nom de plume of a British citizen who criticized King George III for his tyranny in a series of public letters from 1769-1772. 258 Although Fendall wrote to Calhoun, his choice of the penname “Patrick Henry” may allude to John Randolph. Randolph gave his first oratory debacle against the original Patrick Henry at the Charlotte Court House in 1799. It was the last speech of Patrick Henry’s illustrious career, and the first public speaking engagement of Randolph. No one questioned Henry’s dominance in that debate. William Cabell Bruce, John Randolph of Roanoke, 1773-1833, (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1922), 144. 151

Adams’s supporters grew increasingly frustrated with both Randolph and

Calhoun. The editor of the Essex Register reprinted a report from the Baltimore Patriot that exclaimed over the unprecedented attacks by Randolph and the vice-president’s evident contempt for the president. “The extraordinary conduct of Vice-president

Calhoun as presiding officer of the Senate, in permitting the repeated indecorous and personal attacks of John Randolph upon the President and members of the cabinet, without ever calling him to order, or attempting in any manner to restrain him.”259 The

Register’s editor suggested that Calhoun allowed Randolph’s attacks, because he really wanted to be president, “which God in his infinite mercy avert.”260 After the April 8, 1826 duel between Randolph and Clay, it is reasonable to presume that Adams and his supporters believed that something proactive needed to be done.

It is difficult to do more than presume what Adams thought about his friends’ efforts to corral Randolph’s excesses. Considering his proclivity for written analysis, intriguingly, he studiously avoided this subject in his diary. There may be some evidence of his reflective process from the biblical verses he recorded. The day after the

Randolph/Clay duel, on April 9, 1826, Adams recorded without comment that he heard two homilies offered on the biblical verses, Acts 17:27 and Revelations 22:17.261 The verses may reflect how religion informed the president’s thoughts on his political world at this time, both his likely irritation with congress and his hope for a better future. In the

259 “Baltimore; Patriot; Vice-president Calhoun; Senate; John Randolph; Mr. Randolph,” Essex Register, Salem, MA. April 17, 1826, p. 3. 260 Ibid, Italics in original. 261 John Quincy Adams diary 49, "Rubbish III," diary and miscellaneous entries, 1803 - 1845, p. 978. Massachusetts Historical Society. 152 first verse, the apostle Paul expressed his frustration over the idols he saw in Athens and his efforts to reason with anyone who would speak with him in the marketplace and synagogue. In the Revelations’ verse, Adams may have taken comfort with the apostle

John’s joy over his vision of Christ’s second coming. The apostolic tradition guided faithful Christians such as President Adams. Anticipating correctly that historians would someday pore over his writings, the reflective and introspective Adams may have simply decided not to write about something that went beyond his understanding.

On May 1, 1826, Fendall published his opening attack on Calhoun for permitting

Randolph’s barrage against the Adams administration. Fendall accused Calhoun of consoling himself over his own political disappointments by supporting “in the declamations of every enemy to the Government,” especially John Randolph. Fendall reminded Calhoun that his job was to protect the decorum and authority of the Senate debates. He had not been placed there by his fellow senators, as had the Speaker of the

House, but by the “People, and that to them, and not to his body [the Senate], he was ultimately responsible.” In this way, Fendall suggested that because Calhoun’s authority came from the people directly, he had a greater responsibility to uphold the public good.

Fendall rebuked Calhoun for using his claim to lack authority as an excuse for not controlling the Senate floor as one way to exert inappropriate power. According to

Fendall, Calhoun’s claim to decentralized power was disingenuous because it primarily advanced his own interests. Fendall’s letter galvanized some of the quieter dissenting voices that had endured John Randolph’s lengthy speeches. Maine’s Senator John

Holmes proposed a Senate resolution to give more procedural power to the president of 153 the Senate in order to force Calhoun to curb Randolph’s harangues. These efforts by

Fendall and Holmes demonstrate that Randolph, even if “unprincipled” and “irrational,” was evidently significantly influential.

On May 20, Calhoun responded to “Patrick Henry.” He derided Fendall’s supposition that he had the “right to call a Senator to order, for words spoken in debate.”

Calhoun applied a strict constructionist view of his responsibilities. He claimed that the

“higher authority” of Thomas Jefferson defined the precepts of republicanism. The

“UMPIRAGE of the Vice-president” Calhoun interpreted “expressly designates his power over the debates of the Senate.” For Calhoun umpirage meant “an appellate jurisdiction only.” Calhoun differentiated between the authority of the Senate President and the Speaker of the House. “The nineteenth rule of that House expressly confers upon the Speaker the power and expressly makes it his duty to call a member to order” when members veer off topic. Like Fendall, Calhoun acknowledged the wisdom of the voting public when he asserted that he was inappropriately blamed for the duel between

Randolph and Henry Clay. Calhoun recognized that Randolph was a critical feature in

“Henry’s” attacks upon his actions, or inactions. He confronted Fendall over the claim that he acted on ambition, pointing out that it seemed less appropriate to attack one for ambition through inaction over action.262

Both debaters argued ideology and attacked personal credibility, although Fendall employed lengthier personal attacks against Calhoun. Yet Calhoun employed the

262 “Onslow” [John C. Calhoun] to the Editor of the Washington, D.C., National Journal, May 20, 1826. Calhoun’s italics. 154 personal with remarkable sophistication. For example, he feigned surprise over one of

Fendall’s points by subtly conflating John Quincy Adams with his father’s Alien and

Sedition Acts. These 1798 Acts were essentially forms of social control that quickly backfired on the Federalist Party. Calhoun derided Fendall’s claim that Calhoun should have used his authority to prevent the Clay/Randolph duel by comparing such an intrusion to Adams’s father’s overuse of social control:

And yet, the Vice-President has been most wantonly and gratuitously assailed as the instigator of the duel between Mr. Randolph and Mr. Clay, because he did not prevent Mr. Randolph from uttering those words, which nothing but a despotic Power, worse than the sedition law, could have prevented him from uttering!263

While waiting for Fendall to respond, Calhoun strove to consolidate his position.

He wrote to Micah Sterling, a fellow alumnus from Yale College, about his worries over the Adams administration’s propensity toward “kingship,” and his faith in “the ascendency of the popular voice in our system” as well as his recognition that its proper ascendancy required in addition “a wise direction to its movements.”264 Calhoun also approached Andrew Jackson, expressing his concern over the Adams administration’s attacks on the “liberties of the country” as a battle between power and liberty. He remained optimistic that “the virtue of the people” would prevail and that Adams would lose the next election. In this letter, Calhoun invoked the words “liberty” and “freedom” eight times, and wrote against government patronage equally as strongly. Privately

Calhoun confirmed the growing public recognition that he aligned himself with Andrew

Jackson’s presidential bid.

263 Ibid. 264 John C. Calhoun to Micah Sterling, May 31, 1826, Papers of John C. Calhoun, X: 109. 155

Fendall responded to Calhoun’s call for limited jurisdiction of his power in the

Senate. He countered with an oversight tenet that he considered a “truism” for parliamentary procedures: “the right to call to order is a necessary consequence of the power of preserving order.”265 Essentially, Fendall explained that power could not be avoided, or pretended away, but needed to be used wisely with the common good in mind. Fendall challenged Calhoun’s application of Jefferson’s authority, countering with a quotation from Jefferson’s preface, “the regulation of the Senate, and where these are silent, of the rules of Parliament.” In this way, Fendall denied the restrictions of the

Senate’s “Umpirage” which Calhoun interpreted to justify his inactions. Further, Fendall showed that Jefferson specifically wrote against Senate digressions, especially those that pertained to “speaking, reviling, nipping, or unmannerly words, against a particular member.”266 Calhoun and Fendall both used the authority of Thomas Jefferson to define republicanism’s interpretation of parliamentary rules. Their opposing interpretations of

Jefferson demonstrate how effectively the founder of American republicanism spoke to diverging interests.

This different interpretation of appropriately used authority (as little as possible versus for the greater good of all concerned) is the crux of the battle between Onslow and

Patrick Henry. While both modes of applied power have validity, Calhoun’s application of restricted power is disingenuous as applied here because he actively supported anti- administration goals at this point. He claimed to have no authority to interrupt anti-

265 “Patrick Henry” to the Editor of the Washington, D.C., National Journal, June 7, 1826, Ibid, 114. 266 Ibid, 116. Italics in original. 156 administration diatribes, while quietly maneuvering behind the scenes, using his authority to stack the Senate committees with anti-administration senators. Fendall referred to the inappropriate behavior of John Randolph as a principal example of Calhoun’s misapplication of parliamentary rules without surmising the political (as opposed to ideological) reasons Calhoun did so.

Fendall attacked Calhoun’s judgment because he protected Randolph’s right to speak with Senate authority without holding him responsible for appropriate use of that authority. Therefore Calhoun allowed Randolph to reduce the authority of the entire

Senate body and its subsequent service to the public at large. “The mind dwells with mingled emotions on the fall of a man, [Randolph,] whom by nature designed for better things than to be the unconscious implement of a party.”267 Fendall recognized in the anti-administration rhetoric that a new political platform was brewing and that Randolph was a pawn and not the instigator of this effort.

Unexceptional as a political platform builder and ideologically confused,

Randolph still became a critical touchstone for deeper political thought. Fendall rightly accused Calhoun of “shameless tolerance of the most flagrant indecencies, and his yet more shameless vindication of it,” because, hiding behind Calhoun’s strict constructionist rhetoric protecting Randolph lay a genuine effort to bring Adams administration down.

The debate between Patrick Henry and Onslow continued into October 1826, delving deeper into classical political arguments defending the opposing positions of

“limited” power and “judicious use.” Neither side admitted the validity of the other’s

267 Ibid,123. 157 argument or looked for means of common ground. It became a debate to convince the

American public to choose one position or the other. On August 4th of that year, Fendall raised the point of Nullification. In a feigned effort to appear conciliatory, Fendall claimed that Calhoun was “driven to exigency of asserting that the activity of the one is the paralysis of the other,” thus “the presiding power nullifies the clause giving the rule- making power, as the latter nullifies the former.”268 The debaters drew lines in the sand, which neither were willing to cross nor did they invite the American public to do the same.

The debate between Patrick Henry and Onslow reverberated in the public sphere.

The editors of the Papers of John C. Calhoun explain that many voters felt betrayed by

Calhoun. He had been voted vice-president due, in part, to his support of presidential administrative policies, not by undermining them. Many saw Calhoun as disloyal to the administration and the people who voted him into office. As an example, an anonymous public letter written by “Lilburne” accused Calhoun of offending “by your conduct in the

Senate, all good men, of all parties, possessing intelligence enough to discern the motives and tendency of your conduct, and patriotism enough to rise about the influence of party feeling.”269 Prophetically, Lilburne claimed that Calhoun’s presidential ambitions would fail him because he sided with the very party interests that he had once thwarted as

Secretary of State. Significantly as well, Lilburne acknowledged in 1826 that multiple party interests were at work, indicating that while still unofficially differentiated, new

268 “Patrick Henry” to the Washington, D.C. National Journal, August 4, 1826. 269 “Lilburne” to the Richmond Virginia Whig, August 4, 1826. 158 political parties were both emerging and influential. Most of these letters, sent privately to Calhoun or publicly printed in newspapers came from the Northeast, which Calhoun noted and took to heart.

In a confidential message to Levi Woodbury, New Hampshire senator, Calhoun explained his move toward sectional politics, disavowing any merit in Northeastern politics:

As to myself, I saw from the beg[inn]ing what I must suffer. I knew that many of the friends of Mr. Adams were mine, and that where his influence was the greatest, I mean in New England, I had just reasons to calculate on kind feelings; but I could not but see that when Mr. Adams came to be wielded by the power to which I have refer[r]ed, that the great mass of his friends controlled by personal attachment, or impelled by the influence of power would become my bitter enemies. Nor did I doubt but at first it would be almost impossible to bear up against such force. I however deem it most fortunate for myself and not unfortunate for the country that the dicision [sic] on the question of order [in the Senate] should be selected, as the great point of attack. I felt from the first my hold there to be strong, not only strong in truth but in the great principles of the freedom of debate, with which it indentifies [sic] me, [“&” interlined] of which I believe the intelligent and virtuous are now fully satisfied. To the South my course is not only approved of, but applauded; and, I feel entire confidence, such will finally be the fact elsewhere.270

Calhoun convinced himself that his move toward sectional politics would ultimately benefit the nation as a whole. He believed that planters understood republican society better than any other social class, and therefore were destined to be its rulers. His view demonstrates a complex mix of sectionalism and nationalism that belies an either-or understanding of planter ideology.

270 John C. Calhoun to Levi Woodbury, “Confidential,” September 21, 1826. Brackets original to editors of the Papers of John C. Calhoun, X:123. 159

The debate essentially fizzled out in October 1826. Both writers displayed great intelligence and mastery of the classics of political thought. They employed powerful rhetorical expressions to make their oppositional cases. It was a debate fit for any university setting, and it is difficult to determine the winner of such a contest of great minds put to task. However, in the end the results produced two losers. Despite their brilliance, neither debater recognized the political ramifications of one-upmanship nor found an ability to concede merit in the other’s cause. These absolute divisions and their effort to best the other mirrored and perhaps even contributed to the sectional divisions emerging in the nation. Majority rule became winner take all and interfered with conciliatory politics. A minority opinion meant vulnerability. In his public arguments,

Calhoun simply took his justifications Southward, believing that if the South could unify its vision, the Northeast would eventually submit. Fendall and his supporters simply claimed, “good riddance.”

The debate was instigated by the lesser mind of John Randolph, who connected the threat of non-white republics with the threat upon the institution of slavery. Although

Randolph occupied the minds of Calhoun and Fendall, neither debater discussed the issues that Randolph raised. They debated levels of republican responsibility to curtail freedom to speak his mind freely on the Senate floor at the expense of accomplishing legislative tasks. Both free speech and legislative responsibility were important to the debaters. Calhoun used the free speech argument for another goal. He protected

Randolph’s meanderings because he intended for them to disrupt legislative proceedings.

160

Randolph believed that America needed to protect planter interests, even if it cost expanding market relationships with neighborhood non-white republics, linking planter and non-white sovereignty debates in his defense of white supremacy. Fendall and

Calhoun ignored Randolph’s reasoning as they debated the meaning of republicanism, but this connection re-emerged with Andrew Jackson’s presidency. In 1829 President

Jackson’s inaugural address included remarks about Native American removal, military concerns and impost (tariff) law. Although Adams’s successor would keep these issues separated in his own mind, when he addressed these issues simultaneously, Jackson would significantly alter their outcomes.

Calhoun: Exposition and Protest

Although Jackson bested Adams decisively in the 1828 election, both candidates won a sizeable increase in voter support. Calhoun remained president of the Senate, now as Jackson’s vice-president. In December 1828, after the election and before the inauguration, Calhoun lent his political stature to the emerging Nullification ideology among South Carolina’s planters when he published anonymously his Exposition and

Protest.271 Until that publication, few outside of South Carolina took Nullification seriously.272 Calhoun proposed a constitutional amendment that would enable large minority populations—which he defined as “concurrent majorities”—to nullify majority

271 Although studied together, Calhoun’s Exposition and Protest were actually two separate documents. In the first, Calhoun exposed the enormity of the tariff problem, in the Protest, he offered resolutions. (John Niven, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 163. 272 South Carolina’s political leaders published the Exposition without acknowledging Calhoun’s authorship at first, attempting to protect (ultimately in vain) the vice-president’s relationship with his president. 161 decisions. Calhoun developed this political theory on behalf of large minorities through his Exposition of 1828, his “Fort Hill Address” in 1831, and in a public letter to South

Carolina’s governor, Governor James Hamilton Jr. in 1832.273 Essentially Calhoun argued in favor of localism. Everyone knew one another in state communities, he explained, and therefore, states’ “majority opinions” were more republican than national majorities. For Calhoun, the protective tariffs from 1824 to 1828 demonstrated the tyranny of a national majority that state “concurrent majorities” would mitigate. The protective tariffs unfairly benefitted Northeastern industry and demonstrated that “a well- organized national majority” could “fasten “unjust” and “oppressive” burdens on the opposition minority.”274 Most Americans agreed with Calhoun’s criticism over the tariff increases, believing that they indicated a disturbing dominance of Northeastern industrialism, but they rejected his Nullification doctrine as a solution. Indeed, James

Madison, the last of the surviving founders, vehemently disagreed with Calhoun and may have created the single most significant setback for those who favored Nullification.

Calhoun defended Nullification and Randolph’s tirades with the ideology of laissez-faire republicanism. For his Onslow defense, Calhoun espoused a strict constructionist theory of governance, predominantly because it permitted him to allow a senator to attack a president that Calhoun feared did not have planter interests at heart.

Because Nullification was not a strict constructionist argument, Calhoun needed to

273 Lacy K. Ford Jr., “Inventing the Concurrent Majority: Madison, Calhoun, and the Problem of Majoritarianism in American Political Thought,” The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Feb., 1994), 19-58. 274 Ford, “Concurrent Majority,” 44. 162 promote it by encouraging a constitutional amendment. Like Onslow, Calhoun appealed to the nation in order to promote the planter cause. Also like Onslow, Calhoun became further enmeshed within sectional planter-interest politics. Northeasterners resented

Onslow, but most of the nation was appalled by Nullification.

Andrew Jackson’s popularity grew at least in part due to his lack of the subtlety that contributed to Calhoun’s demise. The consistent questioning of hidden motives throughout politics and multiple conspiracy theories help explain the tenacious popularity of Andrew Jackson who, according to David Brion Davis, was a man “who wears no mask, who plays no role, whose appearance and behavior are at one with this inner self.”275 Calhoun was Jackson’s opposite in this regard. Calhoun was a consummate politician, brilliant and subtle, denying his political activities even as everyone understood he was a master in the game of political maneuvering. Yet his mastery coupled with his lack of the common person’s touch rendered him untrustworthy for many voters.

U.S. planters represented one of the last vestiges of the slave system, as global republics and empires increasingly adopted the ideology of wage labor. Davis also observes that the Northern “aristocracy” was equally despotic. North and South aristocracy had more in common than not, yet Andrew Jackson stood alone in the mind of the public as a political leader who would not fail to speak straightforwardly. Yet as Mark

Cheathem explains in his recent biography, Andrew Jackson thought and acted like a

275 David Brion Davis, The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969), 28. 163

Southern planter. Like Randolph, Jackson’s unique popularity gave planters additional democratic political support and his public image invoked the ideology of “the common man.”276

Calhoun exerted no such democratic public image. According to John Campbell, a Tennessee lawyer and Jackson supporter, Jackson’s associates were “better writer[s] than Calhoun” whose “highblown pride” would “be overwhelmed by the popular wave.”277 In the Exposition, Calhoun protested tariffs that unequally targeted regions, the

American System of internal improvements and the Congressional use of simple majorities to curtail states’ rights. He hoped to convince the American people that

Nullification would protect the Union from tyrannical majorities. He failed.

Led by James Madison, most newspapers attacked Nullification as not a protector of the Union, but as a step toward its dissolution. Madison’s letters against Calhoun’s

Exposition and Protest were published widely. Madison stated unequivocally that “If

Congress have not the power it is annihilated for the nation, a policy without example in any other nations and not within the reason of the solitary one in our own.”278 The

Richmond Enquirer noted that Madison’s letters received significant attentions in

Congress.279 The Boston Weekly Messenger reported that some senators encouraged a

“remonstrance” over the tariff, and held that a Nullification law would be unnecessary

276 Mark R. Cheathem, Andrew Jackson, Southerner, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana States University Press, 2013). 277 James Campbell to “Brother” [John Campbell], October 2, 1831, Campbell Family Papers, 1731-1969, Rubenstein Library, Duke University. 278 James Madison, “Letter,” Portland Maine Advertiser, January 2, 1829, p. 2. 279 “South Carolina Extract of a Letter, Dated Columbia, Dec, 15, 1828,” Richmond Enquirer, Virginia, December 27, 1828, p. 2. 164 and divisive.280 Demonstrating his general cluelessness over popular opinion, Calhoun expressed his hopes to Major John Dix of New York that the rest of the states would recognize South Carolina’s faith in the Union asking for “the greatest moderation on the part of the majority.” Calhoun was less optimistic about the New England states, claiming, “I fear our Northern brethren are not sufficiently impressed with this great truth.”281 Finally, there was President Jackson. If Calhoun thought that his Exposition and

Protest would meet with Jackson’s approval as Adams’s successor, he was most certainly wrong.

From 1824 to 1828, most of Andrew Jackson’s impending presidential platform was unclear to the majority of American voters. Many voted for him simply because they believed that Jackson understood and supported the concerns of the common man. While campaigning, Jackson spoke against corruption and supported the constitution, which, of course, were unarguable points. Little else was known, except for his probable Indian policies made evident from his aggressive campaigns for Indian removals. Therefore, once Jackson secured his 1828 presidential election, Indian supporters began to build their defenses. Jackson’s election signified shifting political winds and a significantly politicized voting public. Those who promoted their various platforms before the public—Nullification supporters (predominantly planters), tariff adversaries (virtually everyone) and Indian sovereignty rights promoters (predominantly missionary

280 Boston Weekly Messenger, January 1, 1829, p. 2. 281 John C. Calhoun to Major John Dix, January 2, 1829. Calhoun, The Papers of John C. Calhoun, X: 542. 165 reformers)—did not link their issues together, although they vied for public support simultaneously as a result of Jackson’s election.

Almost tangential to the Patrick Henry/Onslow debates over republicanism, and shortly after Calhoun published his Exposition and Protest, Jeremiah Evarts, Secretary of the American Board, publicized a defense against Cherokee removal in a series of articles published through the National Intelligencer from August to December 1829. Evarts held no illusions about President Jackson’s Indian policies. An unyielding reformer and a

Yale-trained attorney, he defended his mission’s most successful accomplishment, the civilization of the Cherokee Nation, before Congress, the judiciary, and the American public. Implicitly responding to Randolph’s attack of “politico-religious fanaticism,”

Evarts’s arguments were based upon American jurisprudence and constitutional authority. Although Randolph connected non-white republics and planter interests, the

Patrick Henry/Onslow debates mentioned neither issue. Andrew Jackson discussed both

Indian rights and tariffs in his first inaugural address without linking them. In his

Exposition and Protest, Calhoun did not discuss Indian removal, nor did Evarts mention slavery in his Cherokee defense, but this separation did not last. By the Webster-Hayne

Debate of 1829, not even the president could keep these issues apart.

The William Penn Essays

In 1828 Andrew Jackson won the presidency partly on a promise to solve the

“Indian problem.” Jackson did not believe that the United States was bound to uphold treaties made with Native Americans. He intended to remove all Indian nations that still

166 lived east of the Mississippi, and his allies proposed a bill in Congress that would grant the chief executive authority to do so.

Jeremiah Evarts led the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

(ABCFM), one of the most successful and long-lasting of the religious societies created during this era. The American Board promoted both Protestant virtues and American capitalist ideas to the world’s indigenous peoples. Evarts was intensely moralistic and uncompromising. He surprised everyone who knew him when he chose Yale Law School over divinity school. Although recognized as a capable attorney, his practice faltered because he refused to represent clients he deemed unjust.282 Secretary of the American

Board Dr. Samuel Worcester (1770-1821) invited Evarts to join the nascent missionary society as its treasurer.283 When Worcester died, the Board elected Evarts as secretary, a position he held until his own death in 1831. Although other missionary groups worked with the Cherokees, the Moravians and Baptists for example, the American Board provided the greatest source of financial and political support for the Cherokee Nation.

Evarts’s friends and associates regarded him as an expert on Native legal rights, and they encouraged him to speak out on the Cherokees’ behalf. In 1829 Evarts published articles criticizing Jackson’s Indian removal bill in the Washington, D.C. newspaper, the

National Intelligencer.284 The Cherokee Nation became the focal point during the Indian

282 Nancy Morgan, “Jeremiah Evarts: The Cherokees’ Forgotten Counsel,” Ed. Tim Alan Garrison, “Our Cause Will Ultimately Triumph”: Profiles from the American Indian Sovereignty Movement (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2014), 27-38. 283 Dr. Samuel Worcester (1770-1821) should not be mistaken for his nephew and namesake, Rev. Samuel Austin Worcester (1798-1859), well known as the plaintiff in Worcester v. Georgia (1832). 284 The Daily National Intelligencer published Evarts’ essays from August 5 through December 19, 1829. The essays were subsequently reprinted in many other papers, predominantly from the Northeast, with two 167

Removal debates. Evarts argued specifically for the Cherokees against Jackson’s Indian

Removal Bill.

Evarts adopted the pseudonym “William Penn” for the articles in memory of the

Pennsylvania founder who had reputedly dealt fairly with the local indigenous population almost one hundred and fifty years earlier in 1682. Nostalgic memories of Penn were popular in this time of social upheaval, industrialization, and rapid expansion. For

Pennsylvanians especially, the memory of William Penn in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, invoked a wish for a simpler life of wisdom and accord.285 Evarts may have assumed William Penn’s name for strategic as well as idealistic reasons, for

Pennsylvania was an important swing state as Congress prepared to debate the bill.

In these essays, Evarts delineated over twenty federal treaties with Native

Peoples, giving particular attention to the treaties of Hopewell (1785) and Holston (1791-

1792). These treaties established specified boundaries for the Cherokee Nation recognized by the United States, the first under the Articles of Confederation and the second under the U.S. Constitution. The “William Penn” essays acknowledged Georgia’s actions towards the Cherokees as a states’ rights issue, but concluded that Georgia ultimately needed to support national interests. On the transfer of Cherokee loyalty from

Great Britain to the United States, Evarts suggested that the United States should imitate

Great Britain’s benevolence toward Indian nations. notable exceptions: the Richmond Inquirer, from Virginia, and the Southern Patriot from South Carolina. Francis Paul Prucha, ed., Cherokee Removal: The “William Penn” Essays and Other Writings (Knoxville, 1981) 8-11. 285 Ann Uhry Abrams, “Benjamin West’s Documentation of Colonial History: William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians,” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 64, No. 1, (Mar., 1982); Carolyn Weekley, The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks (Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1999). 168

Evarts believed that renouncing earlier treaties disparaged the Founding Fathers.

He linked Washington with the Holston Treaty, claiming that it was negotiated by

President Washington’s cabinet and “ratified by senators not inferior to any of their successors.” Evarts reserved his most explicit praise for Washington, who conscientiously developed the nation’s ideological foundations, “This treaty was made under his own eye,” Evarts reminded his readers, “and witnessed by distinguished men.”

The founders established these treaties with great “solemnity” granting them “a solid basis, and a substantial meaning.” Evarts wrote that General Washington, “always pursued a magnanimous policy toward the Indians.” He challenged his contemporaries,

“Has fraud of this barefaced and most disgraceful character been perpetrated in the sanctuary of our dignified Senate?” He continued to compare, “Washington was neither a usurper, nor an oppressor; nor were Ellsworth and his fellow senators, either novices or cheats.” Evarts believed that Washington’s treatment of Native Peoples was exemplary, which the nation should sustain.286 Treaties called for international “peace.” As Monroe argued before him, and Adams certainly understood, Evarts claimed that the United

States should uphold its treaties, particularly as a new nation wanting to demonstrate its moral authority to the world.287

286 Prucha, Cherokee Removal, 69-77. Evarts’s arguments aside, the historical George Washington had a significantly spottier record regarding Native Americans, which was especially evident in the colonial era and during the Revolutionary War. (Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992). For the challenges over controlling white settler expansion during Washington’s presidency, see Charles Beatty Medina, Contested Territories: Native Americans and Non-Natives in the Lower Great Lakes, 1700-1850 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2012), 35-79. 287 Prucha, Cherokee Removal, 72 (Evarts’ italics); Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 6 Pet. 518 (1832). 169

Evarts’s principal concern with Jackson’s Indian removal policy was its lack of constitutional support. He would acquiesce to Cherokee removal, but only under strict accord with constitutional law as interpreted by the judicial body. Like Calhoun, Evarts wanted to protect minority interests in an increasingly majority rule democracy, but he did not want a constitutional amendment to do so. Evarts utilized similar arguments made by Monroe and Calhoun just five years earlier. Three years later in 1832 the U.S.

Supreme Court would concur with Evarts, using the American Board Secretary’s arguments on behalf of the significance of treaty law for the protection of the Union.

Anything less would provoke anarchy and disunion.

Exposition and Protest, December 19, 1828

Calhoun gave the idea of Nullification its most detailed and rational defense to date when he attacked the Tariff Law of 1828. The Exposition outlined two arguments:

First, the tariff law of 1828 was unconstitutional. Secondly, the nation would stabilize if it interrupted the emerging trend of the federal government making decisions that encroached on state powers through a simple majority ruling. Supremely self-confident,

Calhoun believed that the U.S. Constitution was flawed, and he presented a way to fix it.

Few outside Charleston believed that Nullification would protect the Union.

Calhoun’s biographer, John Niven, recognizes that Calhoun’s position on Nullification was significantly more radical than Jefferson and Madison intended in their Virginia and

Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-1799.288 However, Calhoun provided a moderate

288 While South Carolinian nullifiers believed that they were simply adopting Jefferson and Madison’s earlier Resolutions, Madison explicitly denied this to be the case. Madison wrote that there was a 170 argument for minority rights’ interposition among Charleston’s nullifiers. Calhoun believed that a constitutional amendment that supported interposition or Nullification would calm the fears of the most radical secessionists.289 The 1828 tariff, he believed, enriched Northeastern manufacturers at the expense of other regions, the South in particular. The tariff demonstrated that the Northeast was attempting to achieve national dominance. Wanting to check an emerging Northeastern empire, Calhoun urged the nation to adopt a strict constructionist view of the Constitution to curtail the authority of a federal government that was no longer dominated by the planter class. As he argued earlier in the Patrick Henry/Onslow debates, Calhoun believed that a strict constructionist view of the Constitution was a fundamentally republican interpretation, and that interposition would make that ideology more explicit.

Calhoun claimed that the “General Government” had “specific powers, and it can rightfully exercise only the powers expressly granted.”290 The tariff was unconstitutional because it unequally benefitted certain regions over others. It was “oppressive,” and

“calculated to corrupt the public virtue and destroy the liberty of the country.” Further, the tariff was “a violation by perversion, —the most dangerous of all because the most

fundamental difference between expressing an opinion—thus hoping to convince the majority to agree— and actually refusing to bow to majority decisions. McCoy, Last of the Fathers, 139-143. 289 Niven, John C. Calhoun, 163. 290 Papers of John C. Calhoun, 10:445. The Papers of John C. Calhoun contains two separate versions of the Exposition, placed side by side. Calhoun, wishing to remain anonymous for the Exposition’s publication, submitted his draft to a committee of peers, who edited the document, and published it. Even numbered pages are entitled, “Rough Draft of What is Called the South Carolina Exposition.” The corresponding odd-numbered pages are called, “Exposition Reported by the Special Committee.” Because this chapter focuses how the Exposition was received publicly, I quote from the Committee’s version, which is similar to, if not identical, to Calhoun’s draft. I refer to the Exposition as Calhoun’s document, since it most definitely reflects his thinking. Yet, for precise quotations, I note the Committee’s rendition. 171 insidious and difficult to resist.”291 Calhoun derided those who claimed the precedence of earlier taxes as a way to legitimize support for this new tariff. “Ours is not a Government of precedents, nor can they be admitted, except to a very limited extent, and with great caution, in the interpretation of the Constitution.”292 Because the Republic was so new,

Calhoun reasoned, it was imperative to work with the Constitution as written, without expansive interpretations promoted by small majorities, or worse, a handful of Supreme

Court justices. Calhoun promoted Nullification as an amendment to the Constitution.

Such an amendment would require a significant majority support; he hoped that this constitutional debate would spearhead a return to the amendment process. New laws,

Calhoun worried, were passing Congress with slight majorities. A new government, such as the United States should only deviate from explicit Constitutional directives with large majorities, for the sake of cross-regional stability and nation-building.

Calhoun’s language towards the tariff is strident. Earlier historians have argued effectively that the crisis over Nullification was fundamentally connected to planter efforts to protect their interest in slavery.293 Although Nullification Party supporters

291 Papers of John C. Calhoun, 10:445, 447. Committee’s italics. 292 Papers of John C. Calhoun, 10:447. 293 William W. Freehling spearheads histories that link Nullification with slavery and as evidence of significant divisions within the southern regions: Freehling, Prelude to Civil War; the Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836 (New York: Harper & Row, 1966); The Nullification Era: A Documentary Record (New York: Harper & Row, 1967); The Road to Disunion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). See also, Manisha Sinha, The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000); Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Other historians argue that the connection between slavery and Nullification is overemphasized, positing that “states rights” was the central issue. Richard E. Ellis, The Union at Risk: Jacksonian Democracy, States’ Rights, and the Nullification Crisis, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Charmaine Day, “Worcester v. Georgia: Cherokees, The American Board and the Nullification Crisis” (Master Thesis, 172 focused on states’ rights and tariffs, their arguments remained specious. They refused to enter into a reasoned discourse with Unionists, employing strong arm tactics to protect their party’s line.

Calhoun’s primary position in his Exposition was to deride the 1828 Tariff. He believed that it was unconstitutional because it promoted the interests of manufacturing over that of agriculture, and further, that it promoted the interests of one section of the country over everyone else. Tariffs should be wielded only to support the interests of the national government, with equal representation throughout. His intention for Nullification was to promote “balance, not supremacy.”294 Believing that he could spearhead a movement to support interposition because of the widespread rumblings over tariffs,

California State University, Fullerton, 2006); David Schroeder. "'Nullification in South Carolina: A Revisitation." (Ph.D. diss. Tuscaloosa. Alabama, 1999). 294 John Niven, John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 160. Biographer John Niven explains that Calhoun’s political views were consistently national throughout his career, although Calhoun also believed that the Southern aristocracy should remain a primary influence. Worried over the increasing Northeastern influence within the general government and over Northern prejudices about Southerners, Calhoun focused on the rising federal tariffs as a sign of Northern dominance at the expense of the South. In the last months of 1828, Calhoun wrote the Exposition and Protest buoyed by national frustrations over tariff reform, hoping to convince recently- elected and states’ rights supporter Andrew Jackson to see things his way, and concerned about secession rumblings among lowland South Carolinian planters. Brilliant, polished and egotistical, Calhoun expected to be an influential national leader, but he had no flair for the common touch. John Campbell expressed a great respect for Calhoun, claiming “He is really a most splendid man in his conversation and manners.” Yet Campbell accurately predicted that Calhoun would not win a national election because he lacked “tact & judgment about common matters.” (Campbell’s emphasis) John Campbell to David Campbell, December 18, 1829. The Campbell Family Papers, 1731-1969, Duke University Rubenstein Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. The Campbell family supported Jackson and some were on intimate terms with the president. David Campbell was a political leader in Western Virginia. David Campbell eventually became governor of Virginia in 1837. Calhoun’s missteps with President Jackson over the Margaret Timberlake Eaton affair also contributed to his isolation. Nancy Morgan, “‘She’s as Chaste as a Virgin!’: Gender, Political Platforms, and the Second American Party System,” ed. Sean Patrick Adams, A Companion to the Era of Andrew Jackson, Blackwell Companions to American History: The American Presidents (Wiley- Blackwell 2013). 173 instead Calhoun frightened the nation over South Carolinian radicalism and further reduced the national influence of his home state.

Nullification supporters did not perceive themselves as radical. Indeed, they defended their arguments using thirty-year-old documents written by the founders of

American Republicanism, Madison and Jefferson, authors of the Kentucky and Virginia

Resolutions. It was not until the Webster-Hayne Debate that Madison publicized his vehement objections over the Nullification Party’s misuse of these documents. Calhoun countered that Nullification leveled power disparities, more equitably spread the costs of national expenditures, and would achieve a unifying consensus in significant matters of national concern. Madison remembered the Articles of Confederation as a failure and rejected Calhoun’s arguments emphatically.295

Calhoun defined the 1828 Tariff as unconstitutional because it protected the interests of the industrial northeast at the expense of the South, and provided no benefit to the West. Calhoun became increasingly concerned when Congress or the Supreme Court used a simple majority to interpret the Constitution in ways that the Founders may not have intended; the practice, he believed, divided the nation through rulings promoted by small groups of representatives, protecting, not national interests, but “sectional interests.”296 The 1828 Tariff was a case in point. The manufacturing states, Calhoun observed, “bear no burden of the Tariff” by their own admission.297 Tariffs taxed foreign imports, not domestic, but Calhoun recognized that foreign markets would simply raise

295 James Madison to Edward Everett, August 28, 1830. Constitution Society. www.constitution.org. 296 Papers of John C. Calhoun,10:449. 297 Papers of John C. Calhoun,10:449. 174 their costs to match the tariff. In effect, Calhoun explained, the tariff taxed the whole nation for the benefit of the North, which Calhoun calculated to be annual revenue for the

North of $16,650,000.298 Calhoun defamed the 1828 Tariff as the “Tariff of

Abominations.”

President Adams himself had been frustrated with the 1828 tariff, but he held more hope for the success of the “American System,” proposed by Secretary of State

Henry Clay and himself. Yet the “American System” was also met with significant distrust. Ten years earlier, in 1816 Calhoun supported a comprehensive national internal improvements system, such as the American System. Over time he came to believe that the Northeast used the proceeds from tariffs to promote their interests over other regions.

By 1828 Calhoun believed that tariffs and internal improvements combined to benefit

Northeastern interests alone. Thus, in his Exposition, Calhoun denounced Henry Clay’s

American System, accusing “the Tariff is the soul of the [American] system.”299 The

Tariff represented government intermeddling that no longer supported all regions equally, and particularly frightening to Calhoun, favored the North’s alignment with Western regions, against the South.

C. F. Daniels of the Camden Journal agreed. He believed that the Adams-Clay

“American System” unfairly benefitted Northern manufacturing. The American System stepped backwards, “an offspring of the dark ages,” that place too much economic power

298 Papers of John C. Calhoun,10:455. The relative share of a GDP of an 1828 consumer market price of $16.65 million would equal $271 billion in 2008 dollars. http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/result. 299 Papers of John C. Calhoun,10:463. 175 in the central government. Daniels concluded that the American System would ultimately impoverish most of the nation.300 The Journal also denounced the 1828 tariff as unfair to the Southern States. However, at the same time, Daniels proclaimed, “The Tariff Bill has passed,” and “as good citizens, we must submit to it.” Daniels believed that the tariff simply represented the ineptitude of the Adams Administration. Most of the nation agreed with Calhoun, but Nullification as the proposed solution complicated the national protest.

For example, David Campbell’s brother James decried the bank, tariffs, and the

American System, as did John Calhoun, but he had no use for Nullification as a solution.

James Campbell was a lawyer and member of the Tennessee legislature. He believed that the tariffs and the banking system worked for the benefit of brokers and against the interests of American farmers in particular due to double depreciations of currency.

While the merchant experienced depreciation by supplying farmers in advance of payment, the farmer lost when he paid for his earlier purchases and also for the value of his produce. James Campbell claimed, “The whole machinery results at last in making the farmer pay for all losses & risks; & profits.” On the “nullifying doctrine,” he further concluded, “I move to strike the whole of it out.”301 The Camden Journal was furious over Nullification. Daniels acknowledged that South Carolina had already suffered under the “unrighteous legislation on the part of Congress,” and secession under such circumstances would be worth discussing. But the state needed to be honest about what

300 Camden Journal, June 14, 1828. 301 James Campbell to David Campbell, May 8, 1830. Campbell Family Papers, 1731-1969, Duke University Rubenstein Rare Books and Manuscripts. 176

Nullification meant. Nullification was “revolution,” and the state had not suffered enough to warrant the extensive costs of secession. The idea that Nullification might be constitutional and protect the state’s rights within the Union, Daniels claimed, was “very much of a downright absurdity.”302

In his Exposition argument, Calhoun delved into the history of statecraft, and considered the intentions of the writers of the Constitution. Building upon the ideas he developed during the Patrick Henry/Onslow Debates in 1825, in 1828 Calhoun wrote

“Universal experience teaches that power can only be met by power, and not by reason and justice.”303 Therefore, the Constitutional conveners carefully restricted federal government power with state powers, consisting of “two distinct and independent sovereignties.”304 Simple majority decisions and Supreme Court interpretations pitted regional interests against one another. The Constitution itself, he believed, supported a balance of power between federal and states, each as sovereign political entities. Calhoun wanted this balance to be more explicitly delineated, and he believed that an amendment which would dictate three-fourths majorities would serve the purpose.305

True to his longstanding effort to build a South-West alliance to combat the emerging Northeastern influence, Calhoun linked their agrarian commonalities. Like the

South, the West was predominantly agrarian and “manufacture[d] but little.” Also like the

302 Camden Journal, July 3, 1830. 303 Papers of John C. Calhoun,10:505. 304 Papers of John C. Calhoun,10:497. 305 It is worth noting that the Constitution itself, in Article V, enables amendments through a two-thirds majority of states, or of Congress. Why, then, did Calhoun suggest a three-fourths majority? It is reasonable to presume that the South Carolinian polity would have “settled” for a two-thirds majority; as an experienced politician, Calhoun would not place all his conditions up front. 177

South they “must consequently draw their supplies, principally, either from abroad, or from the real manufacturing States.” Like the South, therefore, the West would summarily need to pay high import duties, which “must necessarily diminish, if not destroy, their trade with us.” Calhoun warned the Western states that the South might lose first, but eventually financial loss would come to Western regions as well, “unless compensation for the loss of our trade can be found somewhere in the system.”306 He spoke of the oppression of the Southern planters as they managed the agricultural variables of “soil, climate, habits and peculiar labor.” Southerners had to “make war” with those who would profit from “our labor,” and “take bread out of the mouths of their wives and children.” The planters only benefitted from “a very small share” of financial return. The tariff consumed “the fruits of our labour,” which violated “every principle of justice.” Inviting an alignment with the West, Calhoun claimed, “The agricultural States of the west are differently affected.” Yet he believed that a “free exchange,” not tariffs,

“would contribute to their ‘natural advantages.’”307

Calhoun chose his words carefully. He mentioned “Nullification” only once, and this time in reference to the Supreme Court’s ability to “nullify” state statutes, which he protested. In the Exposition, Calhoun protested tariffs that unequally targeted regions. He argued against the American System of internal improvements as regionally specific, and he believed that the national use of simple majorities curtailed state and local rights.

306 Papers of John C. Calhoun,10:479. 307 Papers of John C. Calhoun,10:461-481. 178

President Jackson agreed with neither Jeremiah Evarts’s William Penn arguments, nor Calhoun’s Exposition and Protest. He vehemently censured South Carolina’s

Nullification doctrine and threatened military action against the state. In his mind,

Jackson separated these issues. Nullification was a threat to the Union, while Indian removal was the natural progression of a dying race of people. Jackson believed that, as a democratically elected president, his interpretation of the U.S. Constitution held more justification than that of a non-democratically elected judicial body, and as commander- in-chief, he had the right to send federal troops into South Carolina. Contrary to

Jackson’s view, many American citizens found explicit connections between

Nullification and enforced Cherokee removal, and senators made these connections as well in their public debates.

Conclusion

Randolph connected modern racial slavery and settler colonialism as twin pillars necessary to protect planter interests. Claiming that slave-owners needed unquestioned backing to protect their safety, he denied that American citizens had the right to demonstrate anything but full support for the institution of slavery. Because racial difference justified American slavery, planters also required the invalidation of non-white republics. Likewise, privately, John Calhoun believed that Indian removal and slavery could unite the South to provide a bulwark against the emerging Northeast industrial hegemony. Randolph (publicly) and Calhoun (privately) linked slavery and unconditional

Indian removal to serve their political agendas. Many Northerners also upheld racist views, as indicated by the paternalism used to describe Haiti’s independence. Yet while 179 they supported white supremacy, many white Americans believed that this supremacy occurred naturally, and should not require legislative control.

The Patrick Henry/Onslow debate explored republican authority and responsible leadership while ignoring the race politics that Randolph exposed on the Senate floor.

With a significantly more disciplined political mind than Randolph’s, Calhoun may have been searching for a non-racial, constitutional defense of planter interests. Calhoun understood that there was no national consensus in race politics, and in particular, in a racially distinct constitutional interpretation. Even without that consensus, Calhoun may have tried to create an alternative bridge that might have united enough Americans against the problems created by Native Americans who refused to disappear and African

Americans who resisted enslavement.

Yet Randolph’s ideas resurfaced during Andrew Jackson’s first term in office.

Calhoun wrote his Exposition and Protest, hoping to convince Americans to legitimize

Nullification through the constitutional amendment process. Likewise, in the William

Penn essays, Jeremiah Evarts wanted the American public to recognize the link between

Cherokee political rights and the national security issues surrounding constitutional treaty-making authority. Both Calhoun and Evarts hoped to protect minority interests at a time when majority rule seemed to divide and threaten the rights of minority citizens.

Both Calhoun and Evarts tried to influence the direction of a fractured

Jeffersonian republicanism through the democratic process of direct elections. The politics of race contributed to sectional divisions. These divisions promulgated efforts to control congressional committees, their debates, and the public voting process. Calhoun 180 believed that the South could unify through race to protect planter interests through the combined factors of slavery and Indian removal, although he said so only privately.

Evarts believed that the prerogative of a non-democratically elected judiciary should protect the republican authority of the U.S. Constitution by stabilizing the impact of a changeable public opinion.

In 1824, congressional debates on Indian removal and tariffs remained distinctly separate. During Adams’s presidential administration, Randolph linked planter/Indian issues publicly, and Calhoun did so privately. Publicly, Calhoun and Evarts presented their cases for minority rights (planter and Indian) separately. Jackson needed to address both issues at the same time, although he also tried to keep them separate. However, as the Senate debated tariff law and Indian removal in the early months of 1830, these debates became inextricably linked and raised the threat of disunion over this connection.

181

CHAPTER 4 1829-1830: THE EMERGING PUBLIC DEBATE CONNECTING CHEROKEE SOVEREIGNTY RIGHTS AND NULLIFICATION

Introduction

By 1830, Americans linked Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification irrevocably.

In April of that year, past President John Quincy Adams penned a letter to his former

Secretary of War, Peter B. Porter, lamenting that the federal executive and Georgia’s legislators “have suddenly discovered that all the Acts of Congress and all the Indian

Treaties made for the last forty years are palpably unconstitutional. So their Legislatures have nullified them all.” Adams had foreseen the issues of national unity as Secretary of

State and President. His National Republican agenda for developing a centralized infrastructure, Adams and Clay’s “American System,” had been intended to preserve national unity through regulated expansion. With Cassandra-like insight that the nation rejected during his tenure in national government, Adams understood that the new Indian policy to ignore legal precedents weakened constitutional law and the fabric of the Union.

Two years before South Carolina issued its Nullification Ordinance, Adams remarked that if the new President told the public and the Indians that this is right, “and so it shall be.”308 Adams understood that South Carolina’s planters were simply adopting the

President’s Indian policies toward their tariff resistance. Jackson’s lack of self-restraint in federal Indian policy created new opportunities for local interest groups to apply similar logic with national ramifications.

308 John Quincy Adams to Peter B. Porter, April 4, 1830. Adams MSS Trust, Reel 150. From Lynn Parsons, ““A Perpetual Harrow upon My Feelings”: John Quincy Adams and the American Indian,” The New England Quarterly, 46:3 (September 1973), 362. Italics in Parson’s quotation. 182

Most Americans believed in Andrew Jackson’s strong leadership, his patriotism, and his determination to protect the Union. Indeed, instead of being a non-issue, or simply not as important as South Carolina’s Nullification, the Cherokee sovereignty debates may have contributed significantly to Jackson’ re-election in 1832. Because the public feared disunion over the connection between Nullification and Cherokee sovereignty, Americans may have voted for Jackson precisely because they wanted the

“Hero of New Orleans” to impose his strong will and save the Union at all costs.

The Jackson administration was determined to remove the Cherokees from their homelands, and the Cherokees were just as determined to remain. The Cherokees and their allies widened the debate over their sovereignty rights and brought their claims into the larger antebellum debate over federal authority and states’ rights. Previously, federal officials negotiated privately with Cherokee delegates, pressuring for removal while publicly promoting Indian civilization. The Cherokees, however, demonstrated their diplomatic skills by insisting upon past publicly proclaimed affirmations. Yet Jackson believed such past agreements were irrelevant. For Jackson, his election gave him a popular mandate to remove all Indians east of the Mississippi. He defended the ethics of unconditional Indian removal as his responsibility to uphold the public will, but the public divided over removal by any means.

When the public connected Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification in early 1830 the debates over each increased significantly in terms of volatility. The Webster-Hayne

Debate over Nullification, tariffs and citizenship began in January 1830. According to the historian Herman Belz, that classic exchange of views engaged the Senate in a months- 183 long re-examination of the “changing political, constitutional, and economic conditions of the country.” Although he did not make the connection explicit, Belz believes that the

Webster-Hayne debate ended in May 1830 at the same time that Jackson’s Indian Bill became law.309 Many Americans wanted to make an exception of the Cherokees and the vote over the controversial bill was close. Separated, these debates engaged recurring conflicts over federalism, taxation, westward expansion, land policy, and Indian removals. Each disagreement was problematic, but manageable. Yet when newspapers, the Senate body, and state legislators connected the debates over Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification, they saw two states simultaneously threatening federal authority, which raised the fearful potential of disunion.

South Carolina’s low-country planters capitalized on the Cherokees’ achievement by linking their state’s right to nullify federal law with Georgia’s state right to remove the

Cherokee Indians. Yet this effort among a small group of coastal planters alarmed most of the state enough to form a second party. South Carolina was the only state lacking a

309 Herman Belz, ed., The Webster-Hayne Debate on the Nature of the Union: Selected Documents, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2000), ix. Belz’s discussion of the Webster-Hayne debate suggests that the significance of the debate went far beyond Webster’s famous “Second Reply to Hayne,” in late January 1830. The literary historian, Sandra Gustafson concurs, claiming that the Webster-Hayne debate represented a critical national shift in American political discourse involving democratic deliberation. Gustafson, Imagining Deliberative Democracy in the Early American Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). In this famous rebuttal, Merrill Peterson declares, “Webster consecrated the Union.” Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 178. Robert Remini’s biography of Daniel Webster is slightly more circumspect. Remini acknowledges the factual errors embedded in Webster’s rhetoric, but he also focuses on the historical significance of the speech, and the power it held over the people throughout the nation. Remini, Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), 331. In his biography of Thomas Hart Benton, William Chambers recognizes that Benton was less impressed by Webster’s speech, and further, historians should give Benton’s significance more attention as a symbol of the faith in and practice of popular democracy.” Chambers, Old Bullion Benton: Senator from the New West, Thomas Hart Benton, 1782-1858, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1956), xii. 184 two-party system. The hastily formed Union Party did not last, but its existence, albeit short-lived, demonstrated both the stranglehold that the low-country planters held over the state’s political forces and how alarmed almost everyone else was within the state over the possibility of secession.310 Although at first Unionism commanded a sizeable majority in the state, Unionists found that without legislative controls, they could not combat the established organization that protected the low-country planters’ political dominance and Nullification Party. Nullification rallies and emotional appeals demonstrated that the public did not necessarily gravitate toward rational deliberation.

Public will could be manipulated, and South Carolina’s Unionists found rational discourse more difficult to sustain than passion. Nullification supporters predominantly argued their platform through an emotion-laden, anti-submission campaign. They staged parties, organized militia groups, and celebrated manly strength. Unionists countered with questions over the costs of not submitting. They suggested financially sound, if less exciting, methods to rebuild the state’s economy. While parties were simply more fun than lectures, the low-country planters held other advantages. The established voting districts gave significant advantages to low-country planter hegemony, and the militaristic culture of the nullifiers encouraged extra-legal violence against resistors to their cause. Even with these advantages, South Carolina remained deeply divided over

310 James Banner explains that the South Carolina legislature appointed local officials, which gave South Carolinians in general an “indirect and diluted influence.” The House of Commons and the legislature were unlikely to encourage party formation. The militancy of the state, the perpetual fear of race war, and the House of Commons all contributed to the lack of competition in the electoral process. Banner, Jr. “The Problem of South Carolina,” The Hofstadter Aegis: A Memorial, Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, eds. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 77-79. 185

Nullification. The State’s Rights Nullification party eventually dominated the state, but only by a small margin, even in the low-country planter city of Charleston.

The characteristics of the public debate over Cherokee sovereignty and

Nullification demonstrate how both debates took on new significance when connected in the public mind. Despite the Webster-Hayne Debate’s principal focus on slavery and tariffs, expansion and Indian removal entered into the conflict exacerbating fear and sectionalism. The valiant efforts of South Carolina Unionists failed to rein in the radical secessionist voice and power of the low-country planters.

Before the Debate: The Union Party in South Carolina

In South Carolina’s central and Western regions, pro-Union newspapers emerged to challenge low-country planter political dominance and combat Northerners’ perceptions that the low-country extremists represented all of South Carolina.311 South

Carolina Unionists put considerable effort into promoting their cause. Believing in the rhetorical authority of the democratic press, South Carolina’s Unionists did their part to defend the Union and oppose Nullification. In effect, they encouraged South Carolinians to work harder and smarter for their own prosperity. For the already hard-pressed poorer citizens of the state, however, blaming Northerners for their poverty and rallying with the planters that they could only dream of becoming was simply easier.

311 William Link explores an analogous division in late antebellum Virginia in Roots of Secession. Just as the Cherokee Nation contributed to the conflicts within South Carolina, even if inadvertently, the free black “emissaries” among the enslaved population contributed to the antebellum crisis within the state of Virginia itself. Link, Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003). 186

The short-lived rise of two party politics in South Carolina has been well documented by historians of the antebellum South and the state of South Carolina.312 The

Nullification Party used the emotional lure of camaraderie effectively to increase its following, and by 1830, the Nullification Party changed its name to the States’ Rights and

Free Trade Party. Later that year, party leaders won key positions by slight majorities and made full use of their logistical advantages. Finally, Nullifiers exacerbated debates over sectionalism and the tyranny of the national majority. They denounced Unionists as

“submissionists” willing to prostrate their state to the greed of Northern industry. Center- state middle class professionals criticized South Carolina’s planters for their lack of innovation and stranglehold over the state’s resources. Essentially Unionists and

Nullifiers disagreed over how to resolve the uneven effects of market forces. Low- country planters deflected this criticism leveled against them by appealing to a collective martial manhood that equated submission with effeminate weakness, thus successfully

312 William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War; the Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816- 1836 (New York: Harper & Row, 1966); The Nullification Era: A Documentary Record (New York: Harper & Row, 1967); Richard E. Ellis, The Union at Risk: Jacksonian Democracy, States’ Rights, and the Nullification Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Lacy K. Ford, Deliver Us from Evil: The Slavery Question in the Old South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 50; Pauline Maier, “The Road Not Taken: Nullification, John C. Calhoun, and the Revolutionary Tradition in South Carolina,” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 82:1 (January, 1981), 15; Donald J. Ratcliffe, “The Nullification Crisis, Southern Discontents, and the American Political Process,” American Nineteenth Century History 1:2 (Summer, 2000), 1–30; David F. Ericson, “The Nullification Crisis, American Republicanism, and the Force Bill Debate,” Journal of Southern History 61: 2 (May, 1995), 249-270; Through her significant case study, Sandra Ragonese’s Master’s thesis on Colonel William Drayton demonstrates the difficulty for moderate South Carolinians to maintain political authority in the politically paranoid environment. Ragonese, “‘A Drayton Leads Th’ Embattled Line’: Colonel William Drayton and the South Carolina Nullification Controversy” (Masters’ Thesis, Temple University, 2000). Stephanie McCurry shows how paranoia contributed to gender roles especially restrictive to women. Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low-country (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 187 obfuscating the state’s vulnerable economy from relying upon one primary cash crop— cotton—in a fluctuating market.

South Carolina’s low-country plantations had the highest ratio of enslaved

Africans to white citizens within the continental United States. This factor created an especially paranoid planter class entrenched in its singular sea-island cotton crop. A few influential planters encouraged innovation, but the widest cry for reform came from the upcountry region of the state and the Southern middle class.313 Successful businessmen in wealthy counties near the state capital, Columbia, founded newspapers to counter

Charlestown’s political dominance. The Camden Gazette began publication in 1818, the

Camden Chronicle in 1824, and Charles A. Bullard started the Camden Journal in 1826.

Bullard’s Journal decried the rampant sectionalism taking over congressional debates.

Congress had become “an arena for contending factions, [rather] than the deliberative assembly of a free, intelligent and powerful nation.”314 The Journal’s platform was unequivocally pro-union. Even when Congress passed unreasonable tariff laws, Bullard still recognized that tariff law had to be honored.315 South Carolina’s Union Party remained fiercely dedicated to Southern pride and protecting slavery.

Concerned over the emerging support for Nullification, by September 20, 1828, under the new direction of C. F. Daniels, the Camden Journal forthrightly proclaimed the paper’s support for Andrew Jackson, South Carolina and the Union. The Journal

313 Jonathan Daniel Wells, The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Drew Gilpin Faust, A Sacred Circle: The Dilemma of the Intellectual in the Old South, 1840-1860 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977). 314 Camden Journal, May 31, 1828. 315 Camden Archives and Museum, Camden, South Carolina: http://cityofcamden.org/archivesmuseum/kershawcountyhistoricaltimeline.aspx 188 denounced the Adams Administration as inept and placed considerable faith in the promise of a Jackson presidency. To demonstrate an increasing national recognition that the tariffs needed serious revisions, the Journal noted that even Massachusetts Senator

Daniel Webster, who generally supported tariffs to favor manufacturing interests, both disapproved of the 1828 tariff bill and voted for it. With characteristic optimism, the

Journal declared that if Andrew Jackson became president, he would show more fortitude and insist upon a better bill.316

The nation watched with some concern over the discussions of Nullification in

South Carolina. Although the Nullification Party proclaimed their patriotism and dedication to the Union, few outside the party could conceive how one state’s independence from majority rule would empower the federation of states as Nullification advocates claimed. In November 1828, the Washington Daily National Journal hoped that South Carolina’s shortsighted interest Nullification would alternatively encourage a higher moral standard among federal legislators to act as “patriots, not partisans.” The

Journal’s editor noticed that when South Carolinian representatives disturbed congressional “harmony” they simultaneously confused the American public.317 Vying for the political office he would achieve in 1830, a South Carolina attorney Daniel Huger argued on behalf of a convention over Nullification as evidence of free speech and attention to the public will. “[N]othing was to be feared from giving back to them the power not vested in the Legislature.” A convention over Nullification would give the

316 Camden Journal, June 14, 1828 and June 28, 1828. 317 Daily National Journal, Washington D.C., November 20, 1828. 189 public a chance to decide the matter, explained Huger. “They, and they alone have the right to decide upon the course that ought to be pursued.”318 Wanting to develop public sanction for an unconstitutional platform with limited support, Nullification advocates couched their efforts to protect their interest within a more democratically defensible position for free speech.

Meanwhile, in January 1829, the idea of “Nullification” began to widen beyond

South Carolinian tariff protests and included judiciary concerns. A congressional judiciary committee report proposed limits to Supreme Court jurisdiction over state laws.

At present, the judiciary committee observed, a quorum of the U.S. Supreme Court was limited to four members. It was possible, the committee suggested, that without a legislative amendment, only three justices might “nullify the most solemn acts of the

States.”319 The report implies an increasing connection between Nullification and Indian sovereignty. Only a few watchers raised concerns over Nullification at this point before the Webster-Hayne debates. None explicitly connected Cherokee sovereignty and

Nullification even though Jackson’s Indian Removal Bill was debated in Congress at this early juncture.

The Cherokee Nation Engages Congress

The Cherokee Nation’s leadership continued applying its resistance strategies against removal. Cherokee leaders frequently sent delegations to Washington to monitor federal authorities. They cultivated skills in public relations, diplomacy and lobbying, and

318 Boston Weekly Messenger, Boston, Massachusetts, January 01, 1829. 319 Augusta Chronicle and Georgia Advertiser, Augusta, Georgia, January 17, 1829. 190 they based their arguments on republican principles of justice, liberty and fair play. They argued for a good neighbor policy. Cherokee autonomy benefited whites and Cherokees alike by helping their people become less needy than they would be without Cherokee national support. The Cherokees enabled white Americans to demonstrate how they lived up to their pledges and professed ideals. They offered to act as “eldest brothers” to the

Plains Indians that were still “wild.”320 Yet these Cherokee strategies depended heavily on a unified vision of republican principles and coherent protections. It was not lost on public officials that if the United States recognized Cherokee sovereignty, then other tribal nations might follow suit. The Creek Nation’s leadership made this point explicit when it requested American civilization assistance. “[O]ur neighbors, the Cherokees, are fast advancing in the arts of civilized life.” The Creeks were convinced they could do likewise and lose “old habits” and “assume all the arts of civilization.”321 The Cherokee

Nation’s leaders worked hard to protect their “civilized” reputation, and they rallied influential government officials to their aid.

For example, John Crowell, an agent for Indian Affairs, denounced Georgian newspaper efforts to link the Cherokees with “Indian hostilities.” Crowell authorized the editors of the Cherokee Phoenix to repudiate such reports “and that no such expression ever escaped me on the subject of the determination of the Cherokees.”322 Niles’ Register continued to quote the Cherokee Phoenix as an authority on Cherokee politics and life as

320 Andrew Denson, Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy and American Culture, 1830-1900 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 47. 321 37 Niles’ Wkly. Reg. i 1829-1830, August 29, 1829, p. 12. 322 Ibid, p. 13. 191 it generally demonstrated their high level of civilization, especially when compared to their white neighbors. The newspaper claimed that the Cherokees were literate and avid readers. After one week’s tutorial, the Cherokees wrote “more correctly than the English scholar, who has been steadfast to his book two years.” The Cherokees became a favorite lecture topic for demonstrating their quick adaptation of Western civilization’s attributes.

With evident admiration in his Lectures on American Literature, Samuel Knapp explained how Sequoyah created the Cherokee alphabet. Knapp compared Sequoyah’s accomplishments as a “schoolmaster, professor, philosopher and a chief” with the ancient

Greek philosopher Pythagoras’s contributions to geometry. Knapp also pointed out how the Cherokees demonstrated the worthy effects of United States altruism. The government provided support to the Cherokees by funding the font for typesetting. The

Cherokee Phoenix newspaper was published in both Cherokee and English and

“characterized by decency and good sense.”323 The Cherokee Nation cultivated a republican image to protect its sovereignty rights.

When the Cherokees’ Indian agents requested permission from the War

Department to remove squatters on their land, Secretary of War John Eaton balked. Eaton made it clear that earlier mandates could not be invoked, “This exercise of your authority, arising under some order of former years, is different from ordinary cases of intrusion,” he claimed. Eaton said that the territorial boundaries were unclear. Two weeks later,

Tennessee Governor William Carroll encouraged the Cherokees to remove from their

323 Samuel L. Knapp, “Lectures on American Literature,” as quoted in 37 Niles’ Wkly. Reg. i 1829-1830, September 5, 1829, p. 28. 192 eastern lands. Carroll was certain that the Cherokee leaders would willingly meet with government officials over a land sale negotiation. “The best feelings exist every where toward the United States in the [Cherokee] nation,” and the Jackson administration held no “hostile intentions” toward them. The Cherokees resided within Georgia’s chartered limits, and it was time to go. The Cherokee chiefs responded on the same day that

Georgia’s claim to their territory was “certainly questionable.” Federal authority over individual states was guaranteed to the Cherokee nation by treaty, “We are happy to hear” that the Jackson administration is pleased that “the best feelings exist every where towards the United States” among the Cherokees. They were also “confiding in the magnanimity and justice of the United States.” The Cherokees had no intention to remove.324

With its characteristically tenacious political acumen, the Cherokee Nation appealed to the American public. Its publicists exposed precisely how the Jackson administration ignored federally-guaranteed protections granted from previous administrations in ways that questioned republican principles. In a November message to the Cherokee National Council, Principal Chief John Ross recognized the crisis that the

Cherokees faced. Hoping for the “good faith and magnanimity of the general government,” Ross laid the crisis squarely upon principles of the U.S. Constitution and liberty. The Cherokee Nation promoted republicanism based on merit, not race. Ross also spoke to his own constituents. In this moment of crisis, he claimed, division within the

324 J[ohn] H[enry] Eaton to Hugh Montgomery, August 13, 1829; William Carroll to John Ross, August 29, 1829; Jno. Ross, Geo. Lowrey, Wm. Hicks, Maj. Ridge to Wm. Carroll, August 29, 1829. As quoted in 37 Niles’ Wkly. Reg. i 1829-1830, October 3, 1829, p. 93, 94. 193

Cherokee Nation could only hurt them. Much “depends upon our unity of sentiment and firmness of action.” The stakes were high and any chance they had to remain in their homelands depended upon unity of purpose. The conflict between the Cherokee Nation and the United States exposed the crisis over two national sovereignties embedded within federal sovereignty. Among the Cherokees themselves, their crucial strength was their national unity.325 Yet the American image of “Indian savages” remained tenaciously attached to the Cherokee people.

Exorcising the Ghost of the Hartford Convention

For at least a decade, South Carolina political leaders held Massachusetts’

Federalists at bay over their flirtation with secession during the 1814 Hartford

Convention.326 Historian Robert Forbes explains how the Federalist embarrassment over the convention softened their earlier efforts to restrict slavery’s expansion. Their hesitation became especially noticeable during the debates over Missouri and Maine’s statehood in 1820. South Carolina Senator William Smith conflated Maine with

Massachusetts over the Hartford Convention, claiming that “he could not distinguish between the particular sections of Massachusetts.” The Northeast may have been

“valorous” during the Revolutionary War, but “her fame stopped there.”327 Smith did not

325 Jno. Ross to the Cherokee Legislature, October 14, 1829; As quoted in 37 Niles’ Wkly. Reg. i 1829- 1830, November 14, 1829, p. 189-190. 326 Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2012); Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels & Indian Allies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010); Robert Forbes, “Slavery and the Meaning of America,” Volumes I & II (PhD diss., Yale University, 1994). 327 Cleveland Register, Cleveland, IL. January 11, 1820, from Forbes, 209. Robert Forbes argues persuasively that South Carolina effectively silenced the more radical elements against slavery in the federalist stronghold of Massachusetts throughout the 1820s over the memory of the Hartford Convention. 194 need to mention explicitly the Hartford Convention in this reference, because it was understood.

Some Northeasterners fought back, although the effort lacked Federalist unity. In

April 1820, the editor of New Hampshire’s Sentinel suggested that Southern planters had ulterior motives in their constant dredging up of the Convention. Planters wanted to thwart New Hampshire’s efforts to curtail slavery’s expansion. Southern critics claimed that any effort to curtail slavery demonstrated that Northerners wanted “dissolution of the

Union.” Instead, the New Hampshire author blamed the South, not the North, for threatening disunion. Southern states wanted to curtail democratic debate by claiming that even expressing an interest in curtailing slavery would bring about civil war and disunion.328 Indeed, by 1825, some Northern newspaper editors suggested that South

Carolinians themselves were adopting the principles of the Hartford Convention in their bid for state sovereignty over federal taxation authority. The editor of the Connecticut

Courant wondered if South Carolina’s Governor John Lyde Wilson “has never condemned the Hartford Convention as being treason and rebellion.”329 By 1828, a

Wilmington Delaware Jacksonian newspaper promoted Andrew Jackson because of

Southern secession interests. If elected, the Hero of New Orleans would once again rescue the nation, this time by preventing South Carolina from instigating a “Southern

Hartford Convention.”330

328 Sentinel, Keene, NH April 22, 1820. 329 Courant, Hartford Connecticut. January 4, 1825. 330 Wilmington Delaware Patriot and American Watchman, July 15, 1828. 195

Since the colonial era, America’s leaders had wooed popular opinion to establish their republican credibility to rule. Andrew Jackson essentially flipped the narrative, claiming that American citizens—not a natural aristocracy—were the true authority in a republic. Yet even as Jacksonian supporters celebrated majority rule’s virtuous republicanism, conflicting American interests, and the nation’s rapid westward expansion stretched a cohesive national vision to the breaking point. The problem over lack of unity is evident in the Camden Journal. The paper’s editor Charles Bullard worried over the annexation of Texas. He was convinced that rapid expansions of the United States boundaries could be a “lurking cause of dessolution (sic) in our system,” weakening the

Southern states over conflicting interests.331 Historians generally recognize the destabilizing impact of westward expansion, Indian removal, slavery’s expansion, and popular sovereignty on the frontier.332 However, the Cherokees in Georgia demonstrated that conflicts over citizenship did not subside with statehood. The conflicts between

331 Camden Journal, October 10, 1829. 332 Peter Kastor considers the shifting debates over statehood from Louisiana to Missouri and Maine. Kastor defines nationalism in the early republic era as a form of “attachment” to American principles. These principles included whiteness, so that statehood impeded African Americans and Native Americans from accomplishing “their own visions of freedom.” Kastor: The Nation’s Crucible: The Louisiana Purchase and the Creation of America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 13. Whether African Americans, Native Americans lost rights through statehood, or continued to battle for these rights during territorial expansion, the Cherokee Nation demonstrates that fully in established states Native American and African American rights remained a consistent battle. Further, this battle negatively affected white citizens as well. Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel, Bleeding Borders: Race, Gender, and Violence in Pre-Civil War Kansas, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009); Elizabeth R. Varon, Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Gary Clay Anderson, The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005); Michael A. Morrison, Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997); Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo- Saxonism, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981). 196 citizens and non-citizens continued to exacerbate the unresolved tensions between states’ rights and federal authority.

The Webster-Hayne Debate, 1830

Neither Calhoun’s Exposition and Protest (1828) nor ABCFM Jeremiah Evarts’s

William Penn Essays (1829), combined the debates over Nullification and sovereignty in their respective arguments. Yet as evident in the Webster-Hayne debate, the senators connected issues long kept separate, and as Herman Belz observes, “the debate over the nature of the Union took an alarming turn” moving “beyond the exchange of alternative views on how to administer the federal government to accusations and recriminations about the destruction of a federal government and the Union.”333 The principal context for the crisis brought about by the Webster-Hayne debate came out of the election of

Andrew Jackson to the presidency. Jackson’s election represented the breakdown of the unofficial caucus system, through which a lineage from Secretary of State to the presidency emerged to stabilize presidential policies over successive administrations.

James Madison felt that Jackson’s presidency was “an anomaly” and his executive abuses would fade away once he left office. Madison hoped that the republic would support the

“immutable standards of justice” which were “linked to the rules of property that stabilized social relationships.”

However Jackson’s presidency represented a critical disrespect for precedent and a simultaneous belief that his militant tactics would preserve the Union. His popularity rested upon a public recognition that the political elite did not necessarily act in the best

333 Belz, ed., The Webster-Hayne Debate, vii. 197 interests of the American people. This recognition was made painfully evident during the

Financial Panic of 1819 and its tenacious aftermath. Jackson represented the will of the people, and he justified his actions because they represented the people’s wisdom.

Because the people wanted Indian removals, he would oblige. Treaty laws and Supreme

Court opinions should be subservient to public opinion, and because the people wanted something new, Indian treaties became no longer viable and a thing of the past. Because

“the people” chose Jackson as president, he was free to serve their interests as he interpreted the public’s will. By defining his actions as upholding the will of the people, he exacerbated the conflict and partisanship that took advantage of divisive public opinion and “momentary legislative majorities.”334 In important ways, Jackson’s vision of himself embodied an essential component of the master narrative in American history— strong political leaders protected the will of the people. Anti-aristocratic/elitism has been a longstanding and potent political tool in the United States, utilized effectively both to undermine and enable widespread American prosperity.

The January-February debate, which brought the ideas of Nullification into the generally contentious tariff debates, began on January 19, 1830 when Missouri’s Senator

Thomas Hart Benton protested Connecticut’s Senator Samuel A. Foot’s resolution.

Benton initiated the dramatic contest between the Northeast and the South. Foot hoped to slow westward emigration. It reduced Eastern property values and decreased the labor

334 Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 41, 42, 104. 198 pool for Northeast industries. Therefore, Foot suggested a resolution that would limit “for a certain period the sales of the public lands.”335

The Foot resolution, seemingly innocuous, was anything but. Land meant wealth and resources for those who controlled it and, therefore, Indians who lived on these

“public lands” were in the way of white prosperity and expansion. The War of 1812 provided a critical turning point in which Americans looked westward and no longer feared internal dissention or European attack. The sale of public lands provided a considerable bankroll for the new nation. Critical to the context of the Webster-Hayne debate, the funds acquired through land sales gave the national government, not the state governments, the “the keys to the nation’s economic future.”336 Early in the debate,

Webster, Hayne and Benton sharpened their sectional differences precisely over the nation’s land policies. Senator Foot suggested curtailing public land sales in January

1830, on the heels of Evarts’s “William Penn” essays, published from August to

December 1829, on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty rights. The Webster-Hayne battle over states’ rights and nationalism culminated with the passage of Jackson’s controversial

Indian Removal Bill in May 1830. Foot’s suggestion to curtail land sales was hardly innocuous, but rather it was a potential powder keg and the Cherokee Nation was a lighted match. The authority of federal sovereignty depended upon support for westward

335 The Foot Resolution, in its entirety, is in Herman Belz, ed., The Webster-Hayne Debate on the Nature of the Union: Selected Documents, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2000), 3. 336 Daniel Feller, The Public Lands in Jacksonian Politics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), xii. 199 expansion and widespread prosperity. Americans opinions varied over whether or not the

Cherokee Nation’s sovereignty could co-exist in partnership with U.S. sovereignty.

South Carolina’s Senator Robert Y. Hayne articulated the sectional dispute implied by Foot’s resolution almost immediately, and he made his Southern bid for

Western support in the process. He explained, “There may be said to be two great parties in this country, who entertain very opposite opinions in relation to the character” of the national policy over public lands. Some [i.e. Northerners] claim that “Congress has pursued not only a highly just and liberal course, but one of extraordinary kindness and indulgence.” While, those who align with the West [i.e. Southerners] “insist that we have treated them [Westerners], from the beginning, not like heirs of the estate, but in the spirit of a hard taskmaster, resolved to promote our selfish interests from the fruit of their labor.”337 The Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster disagreed. “Sir, I rise to defend the

[North]East. I rise to repel, both the charge itself, and the cause assigned for it. I deny that the East has at any time, shown an illiberal policy towards the West.”338 Webster put to rest any earlier Northeastern embarrassments over secession interests. With Southern secession talk on the rise, the Massachusetts senator firmly deflected any hint at

Northeastern sectional interests and declared the Northeastern region as nationally focused. To protect their respective region’s interests, Northern and Southern politicians

337 Speech of Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, January 19, 1830. From Belz, Webster-Hayne Debate, 5. It is clear that Hayne is targeting Northeastern industry in his attack, because he also discusses the “unnecessary extension of powers” by the federal government to preserve “a population suitable for conducting great manufacturing establishments.” (Hayne, January 19, 1830, in Belz, 10.) 338 Speech of Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, January 20, 1830. From Belz, 27. Despite South Carolina and Massachusetts both being eastern seaboard states, it is clear that Webster equates the East with the Northeast, because he interchanges New England with the East, and he differentiates “a Southern from an Eastern measure.” (Belz, 27). 200 needed to demonstrate support for expansion, Western interests, and the regulation or deregulation of public lands.

To demonstrate their national focus, senators from the North and South embedded savage images of Native Americans within this debate over public lands. Hayne referred to Western public lands as “large and fertile territory” without “any inhabitants but

Indians and wild beasts.” Similarly, Webster claimed that brave colonists cleared “the forests of a barbarous foe” as they “pioneered their way in the wilderness.”339 Webster reminded Hayne that a strong federal government, made stronger by public land sales, was therefore capable of providing “expenditures in Indian treaties and Indian wars.”340

In this way, Webster validated an ordered westward expansion in terms of the costs of

Indian removals, either militarily or diplomatically. These were inauspicious references made on the Senate floor in the wake of Cherokee efforts to demonstrate their rights through treaty law and civilized good-neighborliness.

The Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton had little patience with Webster’s rhetoric. He noted a general Northeastern-bias in federal land policy that provided insufficient support for the West. “Mr. Benton said he could not permit the Senate to adjourn” after Webster’s declaration of Northeastern amiability toward the West, which had been “so much in conflict with what I had considered established history.”341 Benton procured letters written by Northeastern political leaders such as John Quincy Adams and

John Jay to validate his views. He concluded “The idea that the growth of the West was

339 Hayne, January 19, 1830, in Belz, 7. Webster, January 20, 1830, in Belz, 18. 340 Webster, January 20, 1830, in Belz, 19. 341 Speech of Mr. Benton, of Missouri, January 20, 1830, in Belz, 185. 201 incompatible with the supremacy of the northeast, has since crept into the legislation of the Federal Government, as will be fully developed in the course of this debate.”342

Benton also mentioned Native Americans as “the hostile Indians were bent on war,” which was “a gratification of their savage thirst for blood and plunder, without danger of chastisement.” The federal government, according to Benton, had restricted American citizens from compelling war-like Native Americans “to accept peace.”343

Embedded in this sectionally fraught debate over public lands, Hayne saw his opening to promote a South-West alliance against the Northeast. He supported Benton’s argument, noting that “the West have had some cause for complaint.”344 Hayne suggested that the West and South “enrich other and more favored sections of the Union,” namely, the Northeast.345 To find a Northeastern alliance with the West, Webster looked for a new way to shift the discussion on land policy, and he drew his argument from a Western desire to control slavery’s expansion. Northern industry did not waste land as the South did, he asserted, with a recognized jab at slavery. Cheap Western lands would primarily attract planters whose, “impoverished lands [were] thrown out of cultivation.” Southern land-use methods would similarly waste Western lands; therefore, Southern support for the West was not in that region’s best interest. Hayne countered that the South, not the

Northeast, had habitually supported Western lands. Webster disagreed, stating, “Let me see, sir, any one measure favorable to the West which has been opposed by New

342 Benton, January 20, 1830, in Belz, 196. 343 Benton, January 20, 1830, in Belz, 201. 344 Speech of Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, January 19, 1830, Herman Belz, ed., The Webster-Hayne Debate on the Nature of the Union: Selected Documents, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2000), 5. 345 Ibid, 8. 202

England.” Not only did New England vote for Western improvements, Webster declared, but New England carried the support for these improvements, while the Southern states voted otherwise. The Cumberland Road and the Portland Canal passed due to New

England’s support. The South “have done nothing, and can do nothing.”346 This initial sparring between Webster and Hayne closed on Wednesday, January 20th. Congress adjourned until the following Monday, giving Hayne time to prepare a comprehensive rebuttal to Webster’s first speech.

On January 25, Hayne opened his arguments, first attacking Webster’s discourse over the “paternal care” of the federal government on behalf of the West. He expressed surprise that Webster had shifted the conversation, accusing the Northeast of taking too much credit for Western profitability. The West had “grown great in spite of your protection,” he said caustically.347 Adopting the militant support for slavery on the Senate floor initiated by John Randolph, Hayne criticized New England’s abolition sentiments as hypocritical and dangerous. Abolition demonstrated the fallacy of New England’s

Unionist sentiments, when “moral” ministers preached against slavery and thus endangered Southerners. Yet even as Northerners decried slavery, they still “participated in the profits of [slave] labor.”348 Hayne professed the slavery positivism argument over the plight of Northern free blacks and expressed sorrow over their poverty by quoting biblical verse, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head.” Hayne worried over “this unhappy race, naked and

346 Speech of Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, January 20, 1830; Belz, 30, 31. 347 Hayne, January 25, 1830; Belz, 36. 348 Ibid., 47. 203 houseless, almost starving in the streets.”349 Slave positive theory was caught in the dilemma between calling for Northern silence on abolitionism due to potential insurrections on one hand and defending the beneficence of slavery for African

Americans on the other. Webster, however, could not deny the extreme levels of poverty afflicting Northern blacks. Northern and Southern whites united over linking black poverty with race, and this tenacious American myth protected a ready source of cheap labor long after slavery’s abolition following the American Civil War.350

Yet Hayne made a tactical error when he derided Webster for New England’s role in the Hartford Convention of 1814. Webster may have been on shakier ground over

Hayne’s slavery defense, but the Massachusetts senator was on significantly stronger ground over secession. Only low-country planters espoused the idea that Nullification would protect the Union. Almost all other Americans, including many South Carolinians, believed precisely the opposite. Hayne promoted “Nullification” rights for unconstitutional acts as “the rightful remedy” to prevent the despotism of simple majorities, or worse, a handful of Supreme Court justices.351 Hayne invoked Madison and

Jefferson for their Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions to defend the doctrine of

349 Hayne, January 25, 1830, Belz, 46. This biblical scripture is located in two gospels: Matthew 8:20 and Luke 9:58. 350 Gary B. Nash and Jean R. Soderlund, Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and its Aftermath, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, (New York: Oxford University Press, [1935] 2007); Renford Reese, Prison Race (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2006); Heather Ann Thompson, “Why Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline, and Transformation in Postwar American History,” Journal of American History 97, no. 3, December 2010. For a corresponding study of Native American racism, incarceration and legalizing inequality see: Bethany R. Berger, “Red: Racism and the American Indian,” 56 UCLA Law Review 591 (2009) and Berger, “Paul and Lorena Williams: Sovereignty and Sheep on the Navajo Nation,” Tim Alan Garrison, ed., “Our Cause Will Ultimately Triumph”: Profiles in American Indian Sovereignty (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2014). 351 Hayne, January 19, 1830; Belz, 76. Editor’s italics. 204

Nullification, and his argument was decidedly sectional.352 He pitted state against state and region against region, expressing “an ardent love of liberty” as the “most prominent trait in the Southern character.”353 When Hayne described liberty as a regional and

Southern principle, he gave Webster his opening to promote a national vision emanating from the Northeast.

The next day Webster returned with one of his most famous speeches, remembered simply as “Webster’s Second Reply to Hayne.” Webster ignored the criticisms leveled against the Northeast’s shortcomings over impoverished labor and resisting Western expansion. Instead, he brilliantly evoked the national vision that emerged after the War of 1812. Webster knew his address would resonate throughout the republic.354 Webster upheld national sovereignty in the people for Jacksonians and

National Republicans alike.

What is all this worth? Nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union afterwards—but everywhere, spread all over the characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole Heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart—Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!355

352 To his great surprise, Hayne discovered that Madison was decidedly not pleased with the South Carolinian’s interpretation of the Resolutions. After this debate Madison disputed “Hayne’s version of constitutional history and theory.” Once Madison publicly and explicitly denounced Nullification, the States’ Rights Party restricted their Resolution interpretations to the conveniently deceased and therefore silent Jefferson. McCoy, Last of the Fathers, 140. 353 Hayne, January 25, 1830: Belz, 80. 354 Skilled in shorthand notation, Joseph Gales took down the speech verbatim and his wife, Sarah Juliana Maria Lee Gales, transcribed it. Webster carefully reviewed the Gales’s manuscript, and his friend Abbott Lawrence funded its publication in pamphlet form. “Webster was anxious to spread the pamphlet through the western states.” Gales and Seaton published the first edition, and shortly thereafter the pamphlet went through twenty more editions, “numbering in excess of one hundred thousand copies.” (Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 179.) 355 Webster, January 26 and 27, 1830; Belz, 144. Editor’s italics. 205

Merrill D. Peterson, in The Great Triumvirate, declares, “Webster consecrated the

Union.”356 In a masterstroke of rhetoric, Webster successfully sent the ghost of the

Hartford Convention to its final rest. New England was Unionist, not federalist; forward- thinking, not backward looking.

By positioning himself as a Union supporter, Webster created an otherwise unlikely Northeastern alliance with Jacksonians and South Carolinian Unionists. The

Virginian Jacksonian John Campbell alerted his brother David, “The “coalesced powers” with Webster at their head move in solid column here in all questions.” Toward any anti-

Unionists, “Webster, this phantom will make battle upon them all.” Webster’s Second

Reply to Hayne unified Jackson’s supporters in opposition to Nullification. Just three weeks after Webster’s oration, Campbell directly credited the Massachusetts senator with interrupting the “would be divisions in our ranks” that otherwise would have “been the devil” to pay.357 Two months later, Jackson supporters still discussed Webster’s speech with reverence. Henry Lee, Robert E. Lee’s half-brother and a friend of Andrew Jackson, wanted to make sure that David Campbell had read the copy of Webster’s remarks, which he had sent earlier. Hayne may have been “impassioned & eloquent,” but he was no match for Webster in “point of strength.” An eye witness to Webster’s speech, Lee reminisced as if the memory was forever etched in his mind, “The part in which he kills

356 Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate, 178. 357 John Campbell to David Campbell, February 2, 1830. The Campbell Family Papers, 1731-1969, Duke University Rubenstein Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. The Campbell family supported Jackson and some were on intimate terms with the president. David Campbell was a political leader in Western Virginia. David Campbell eventually became governor of Virginia in 1837. 206

Hayne with Banquo’s ghost was tremendous.”358 From February 20 through March 27 the Greenville Mountaineer, in the Western region of South Carolina, published the debate in its entirety. Even though South Carolina editors generally felt cool about Daniel

Webster, they found cause to praise the Massachusetts senator, even if faintly. “Our opinion about it is more favorable now” and “we think some part of it very able.”359 On

March 10, the Greenville paper, however, also made clear that the debate remained integrally connected to the land. “The debate on Mr. Foot’s resolution relative to the public lands, was resumed.”360 Especially important to the outcome of the election in

1832 and the fear of disunion established by connecting Cherokee sovereignty rights with

Nullification, Andrew Jackson personified saving the Union itself.

358 Ibid. In reference to the Shakespearean Hamlet’s image of Banquo’s ghost, as an unvanquished and haunting memory, Hayne claimed: “Has the gentleman discovered in former controversies with the gentleman from Missouri, that he is overmatched by that Senator? And does he hope for an easy victory over a more feeble adversary? Has the gentleman’s distempered fancy been disturbed by gloomy forebodings of “new alliances to be formed,” at which he hinted? Has the ghost of the murdered Coalition come back, like the ghost of Banquo, to “sear the eye-balls” of the gentleman, and will it not “down at his bidding?” Are dark visions of broken hopes, and honors lost forever, still floating before his heated imagination?” (Hayne, January 25, 1830; Belz, 36). Webster returned, defending the Adams Administration and linking John Quincy Adams with non-political nationalism. “But, sir, the Coalition! The Coalition! Aye, “the murdered Coalition!” The gentleman asks, if I were led or frightened into this debate by the spectre of the Coalition—“was it the ghost of the murdered Coalition,” he exclaims, “which haunted the member from Massachusetts; and which, like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?” “The murdered Coalition!” Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference to the late Administration, is not original with the honorable member. It did not spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very low origin, and a still lower present condition. It is one of the thousand calumnies with which the press teemed, during an excited political canvass. It was a charge, of which there was not only no proof or probability, but which was, in itself, wholly impossible to be true. No man of common information ever believed a syllable of it.” (Webster, January 26, 1830; Belz, 85). 359 Greenville Mountaineer, March 20, 1830. 360 Greenville Mountaineer, February to March 1830; South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina. 207

The day after Webster’s oration, Benton reiterated his support for Hayne. He praised Hayne “as an orator, a statesman, a patriot, and a gallant son of the South.”361 He repeated his arguments that the federal government had provided little support for the

West, and he noted that Webster’s speech, as remarkable as it was, had ignored Benton’s public land concerns. Circumventing the overplayed Hartford Convention, Benton expressed surprise that Webster had even raised the question of slavery, because it had not been a part of the original debate. He suggested that Webster set a diversion from the question of Western support.

Benton further aligned with Georgia when he referred to the issue of Indian removal, currently debated in Congress over Jackson’s Indian Removal bill. Benton implicitly pointed out Northeastern support for the Cherokees in Georgia by equating all

Indians with violence. He claimed that the Northeast, “voted accordingly against every measure for the relief of the bleeding and invaded West.”362 Then Benton vied toward

South Carolina. Benton did not support Nullification, but he was willing to point out for

Hayne’s benefit the hypocrisy in the Northeastern celebration of “the People.” Even if

Webster celebrated a nationalized citizenry, Benton indicated that he had to be disingenuous. After all, Webster supported the U.S. Supreme Court as the final authority.

For Benton, the Court was too far removed from public influence to be an authority over people’s lives. In rhetoric dripping with irony and loaded with violent images of a

361 Speech of Thomas Hart Benton, of Missouri, January 29, 1830, Herman Belz, ed., The Webster-Hayne Debate on the Nature of the Union: Selected Documents, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 2000), 205. 362 Benton, January 29, 1830; Belz, 229. John C. Calhoun to Joseph G. Swift, September 2, 1825, Papers of John C. Calhoun, X:40. 208 rapacious central power, Benton argued against the sweeping supremacy of the federal courts, “Let the democracy of the North remember,” he warned that an unchecked

Supreme Court could become a “tribunal before which the States and free cities could be called” and “delivered up to military execution.” Benton refocused the discussion of tariff laws as unfairly protecting the emerging New England hegemony, although he believed such inequities could be resolved through majority rule without resorting to Nullification.

As Calhoun had predicted in September 1825 that the “blending of the Slave with the

Indian Question” could consolidate the South, Benton united the interests of the Western and Southern states to protect themselves against the “fanatics of the Federal

Government” who give weapons to “negroes” and the “knife and hatchet” to “those

Georgia Cherokees.”363 Although Hayne and Webster discussed Native American

“savagery” in general terms, Benton specifically mentioned tribal groups, labeling every one as violent, despite the Cherokee’s tremendous effort to prove themselves otherwise.

For Benton, Webster had not bested Hayne in his Second Reply. African slavery and

Indian removal could be entrusted to neither New England nor the United States Supreme

Court. The links among Nullification, slavery, secession, and Native Americans remained potent in the public sphere, and the images they invoked remained frightening for the challenges they raised before American unity.

Strong-arming the Indian Removal Bill 1830 through Congress

Although Jackson outmaneuvered him at first, Jeremiah Evarts, the Secretary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, won significant public

363 Benton, February 2, 1830; Belz, 238. 209 recognition for Cherokee sovereignty rights. Eventually Chief Justice John Marshall adopted Evarts’s arguments for Worcester v. Georgia (1832) on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty, but Evarts had originally written the “William Penn” essays, described in

Chapter Three, to combat Jackson’s Indian Removal bill. Congressional representatives used Evarts’s argument to argue effectively against the bill, which removed congressional oversight for Indian removal. Had Jackson’s 1830 Indian Removal bill gone through a straight popular vote, it might not have passed.364

New Jersey Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen invoked the significance of precedent and the exemplary George Washington for his principal arguments against

Jackson’s removal bill. He also argued that Jackson’s bill was undemocratic.

Frelinghuysen regretted that Jackson “did not pursue the wise and prudent policy of his exalted predecessor, President Washington,” who consulted with Congress and did not dictate to it.365 For Jackson, being voted president in a national election made him the people’s representative, without local prerogative. Frelinghuysen worried that Jackson’s cabinet proceeded with removal plans with neither consultation nor inquiry. By avoiding debate, Jackson claimed that he represented an unprecedented one voice for America’s

364 Ronald Satz explains that the debate over Jackson’s Indian removal bill transcended party politics. “Some Democratic congressmen found themselves caught between their desire to demonstrate loyalty to the administration by supporting the bill and their eagerness to placate aroused public feeling in their states for the Indians.” Secretary of State Martin Van Buren recognized that a significant number of congressmen absented themselves from the vote in order to avoid the conflict altogether. Democratic Tennessee Congressman Pryor Lea recognized that the administration’s victory required “one of the severest struggles, that I have ever witnessed in Congress.” Satz. American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975), 28, 30. 365 Theodore Frelinghuysen, “Speech of Mr. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, delivered in the Senate of the United State, April 6, 1830, on the Bill for an Exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their Removal West of the Mississippi” (Washington: Office of the National Journal, 1830), 4. 210 disparate opinions. Yet a sizeable population believed that the Indian bill held suspect the nation’s “faith and honor.” They felt misrepresented by Jackson’s vision of democracy, rendered invisible, and vulnerable.366

The congressional debate was heated and close. On May 24th, Pennsylvania

Senator Joseph Hemphill proposed an amendment that would provide federal protections to Native Americans against a forced removal. Such an amendment would have negated the executive power that Jackson wanted. Recording his observations in his journal,

Evarts noted that intense local interests influenced state votes on the Indian Removal bill.

Congressmen understood, for instance, that Jackson opposed federally supported infrastructure improvements that were intra-state. One such bill was the Maysville

Turnpike bill, which would provide federal funds to build a trade road in Kentucky.

Although Jackson disapproved of federal expenditures for one state alone, the president indicated that if Congress passed the Indian Removal bill without Hemphill’s amendment, he might concede the Turnpike bill.367 Congress passed the Indian Removal bill by a very slight majority of one hundred and two to ninety-seven.

The following day, Jackson vetoed the Maysville bill, antagonizing much of his

Mid-Atlantic popular support. Evarts claimed that some believed the vote on the Indian

Removal bill would have gone the other way if congressional representatives had known

366 Ibid, 5. 367 It is difficult to assess the accuracy of Evarts’ opinions over this debate, but there is corroborative evidence that congressional representatives were unclear about Jackson’s stand on Mayville as late as May 24, 1830. When discussing his own reputation in Congress, John Campbell concluded his letter to his brother David, “The President will reject the Maysville Road.” While John provided no argument for the statement, it indicates that the question was still in the public mind at this late date. (John Campbell to David Campbell, May 24, 1830; Campbell Family Papers, Duke University Rubenstein Manuscripts.) 211

Jackson was going to vote against Maysville. Evarts suggested, “Mr. Dwight and three

Pennsylvanians were probably that number.” Had these four voted with their preference,

Evarts intimated, the Indian Removal bill “would have failed in congress.”368 Regardless, the vote in favor of the bill had been close, and Jackson may have needed to resort to duplicity to pass his coveted removal bill. Popular support for Cherokee sovereignty laws held considerable public sway, and the public had firmly linked Nullification with the debates over Cherokee sovereignty.

Georgian leaders explicitly invoked their controversial application of race law to undermine Cherokee sovereignty and negate federal treaty laws with Indian nations. On

June 3, 1830, Georgia’s Governor George Gilmer issued a proclamation declaring all

Indian Territory within the state to be under Georgia’s sovereign jurisdiction. All laws of the Cherokee Nation were “null, void and of no effect” and any effort to inhibit

Cherokees from removing to Western lands would be declared a “high misdemeanor.”

Finally, no Indian would “be deemed a competent witness in any court of this state” if a white person was involved.369 The Cherokees countered with an appeal to Congress, believing that eventually “justice would be done” on their behalf.370 Although Gilmer declared that the Cherokees would be protected under Georgia’s state laws, the Cherokee

Phoenix reported that trespassing prospectors were not held accountable on Cherokee lands and “have been discharged without any punishment.” The Phoenix declared that the

368 John Andrew III, From Revivals to Removal, 230; E.C. Tracy, Memoir of the Life of Jeremiah Evarts, 376, 378, 379. 369 37 Niles’ Wkly. Reg. i 1829-1830, June 26, 1830, p. 328-329. 370 37 Niles’ Wkly. Reg. i 1829-1830, June 12, 1830, p. 291. 212

“uncontrolled movements” of Georgians on Cherokee territory was “an indelible blot on the American character.”371 The Cherokees held the United States publicly accountable for Georgians’ activities on Cherokee territory, and their efforts exposed the critical divisions in the American public mind over meritocracy and race.

The Cherokee National Council effectively coordinated the unification of

Cherokees who were driven to protect their homes. Previous administrations had encouraged the Cherokees through treaty law and public statements, and the Cherokee

Nation achieved a high level of education and prosperity. They served as good neighbors to the United States during the War of 1812, sending troops to overcome the Redstick

Rebellion. Many Americans witnessed and verified the remarkable progress of the

Cherokee people. This progress, however, was a problem, not a cause for celebration, for many American citizens bent on expansion. As tribal nations learned how to navigate the

Indian policy double standard, Jackson still tried to continue Jefferson’s public rhetoric of support for Native civilization policies. Like Jefferson, Jackson made public declarations of support and private efforts to undermine Indian success. However, the Cherokees exposed the private efforts and the double standard set against them, and a significant number of American citizens wanted to honor their publicly declared republican obligations. By refusing to protect the Cherokee Nation’s rights, Jackson exacerbated pre-existing divisions within the American populace over republican principles and racial distinctions. Ironically, although declaring the “will of the people” as his principal guide,

371 Cherokee Phoenix, New Echota, GA, Jun3 4, 1830; As quoted in 37 Niles’ Wkly. Reg. i 1829-1830, July 31, 1830, p. 404. 213

Jackson contributed to the sense of disenfranchisement of citizens who held opinions that were not his own.

The Rise of South Carolina’s Nullification

When pro-Nullifier James Hamilton Jr. became South Carolina’s governor in

December 1830, the Nullification Party rapidly widened their political base by holding constant sessions in the capital and supporting branches throughout the state. The

Camden Journal editors wondered if they needed to set up a similarly elaborate “system of counteracting clubs” in the state, simply to protect the United States Constitution and liberty. Trusting too heavily upon the “righteousness of its cause, and to the good sense and patriotism of the people, the friends of the Union have been entirely too supine.”372

Despite their small numbers, low-country planters historically dominated the political authority of the state. The Unionist editors hoped that the rise of the appeal of democratic governance might curtail planter authority, but found to their dismay that democratic rhetoric altered nothing.

Their representation dwindling, Unionists believed that those promoting

Nullification made a mockery of rational democratic deliberation. The Unionist editor of the Camden Journal realized in horror that somehow the Nullification Party re-coined the

States’ Rights Party and Free Trade Party brought South Carolina into a crisis. The party organized “every sort of machinery that has ever been resorted to for effecting revolution,” and wielded “an engine of great power and effect.” Nullifiers targeted

372 Camden Journal, September 24, 1831; South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina. 214 popular emotion, appealing to “every passion of an ardent and warm hearted people.”373

South Carolinian Unionists agreed with Nullifiers that the tariffs were unfair and therefore unconstitutional, but Unionists insisted that the state should make their case nationally by the already established guidelines in the Constitution. Low-country planters believed they had the right to nullify federal laws—specifically tariffs—they deemed unconstitutional. Despite the Nullifiers’ claims that Nullification would protect the

Union, virtually everyone else in South Carolina and the United States believed that

Nullification threatened the Union.

A widely reported Fourth of July dinner in 1830 illustrates the emotional appeals in South Carolina’s debate over tariffs and Nullification. The two principal speakers were

Union Party Colonel William Drayton and States’ Rights Party Senator Robert Hayne.

Toasts included a celebration of the Union and hopes for its “durability” that could only be sustained by “performing honestly, faithfully, and justly the beneficent purposes for which it was formed.” Additional toasts for the American Revolution and the American

Constitution suggested that the constitutional authors would have negated the revolution had they adopted an “unlimited government.” The participants toasted Washington,

Jefferson and Jackson. They did not mention Madison because he explicitly denounced

Nullification. The State’s Rights/Nullification Party sponsored the dinner. They recognized Drayton as resisting Nullification, but he did so with “chivalry and honor” having “pursued the dictates of his conscience.”374

373 Camden Journal, Camden, South Carolina, September 14, 1831. 374 Richmond Enquirer, Richmond, Virginia, 07-16-1830. 215

The Unionist Drayton’s comments were cautious and reasoned. He advocated

South Carolina’s right to protest unfair legislation, but he emphasized the value of promoting that protest within the dictates of the Constitution and as members of a federated union. He appealed to the president and the courts for redress. If the state finds no recourse, Drayton would support an “appeal to arms,” for he was “not the advocate of passive obedience and non-resistance.” If, indeed, the general government insisted upon behaving unconstitutionally, Drayton claimed, then South Carolina had “the right of the

State to secede from the Union.” Drayton believed that the tariffs were a test case for the federal government, for the tariff benefitted the few at the expense of the many. Only manufacturers benefitted from the current law.375 Yet, Drayton also remained supportive of the Union, believing that patience and persistence was the best way to achieve South

Carolina’s political goals.

Senator Hayne countered with the States’ Rights and Free Trade Party position after Drayton concluded. National majorities needed limits established by state governments. All three branches of the national government were federal and, therefore, unified to protect federal authority. The federal government could not dictate restraints upon its own powers. Legislative powers of congress should be strictly limited according to the Constitution: for defense, the Post Office, the Judiciary, and regulation of commerce as pertaining to war and peace. Hayne spoke passionately against the oppressive majority rule in the nation. It was important not to submit to oppression simply because it was upheld by a national majority. Referring to his earlier debate with

375 Ibid. 216

Senator Webster, Hayne insisted that if the National Government was “created by all the people” then “absolute acquiescence” would be required by the minority to the “will of the majority.” Hayne’s emphatic rejection of “submission” coursed throughout this speech. If a state could not resist the will of the majority of people, “what then?—Your

(sic) are bound to submit.” Hayne countered with a full rejection, no, he insisted, “you must rebel—you have still the right of rebellion.” Otherwise, Hayne warned, South

Carolinians and Southerners in general would become “slaves of some eastern despotism—rebellion!”376

Hayne’s fighting words concerned Northern leaders and Unionist South

Carolinians. Threats to the Union were longstanding, and the number of states that threatened disunion became the public’s principal touchstone over the Union’s genuine safety. Generally, Americans decided that threats to the Union were immaterial if limited to one state. Indeed, as Waldstreicher observes, the Drayton-Hayne debate followed a longstanding “dialogue of regionalism and nationalism that took shape at the beginning of the century.”377 Fears over the Union’s fragility had emerged quickly in the late eighteenth century, evident in President George Washington’s Farewell Address in 1796.

Therefore, when the nation’s first president celebrated the unifying features of manufacturing, agriculture, and the resultant commerce, these three words became a common toast in the early republican period. Washington’s Farewell Address reminded the public of the national values and the importance of unity, and newspapers republished

376 Ibid. Italics in original. 377 David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 269. 217 the text during times of national upheaval. The War of 1812 brought about its greatest resurgence, but its publication peaked again in 1832 and 1838, corresponding with the

Nullification and Cherokee sovereignty debates and, later, with Cherokee removal.378

Two markers contributed to a national sense that the Union was safe. The first was the national perception that Washington’s three pillars of unity—manufacturing, agriculture and commerce—remained strong. The second marker was that the nation could handle any one renegade state. Two simultaneously renegade states, however, brought to the surface submerged fears over disunion. Because the Cherokee sovereignty debates indicated that resistance to federal authority was spreading, the public debates over

Nullification became significantly more heated than they would have been otherwise.

South Carolina’s Unionists and Nullification advocates also agreed that the subject of race politics should be silenced for both Native American sovereignty and the abolition of slavery. Quoting a Charleston newspaper, the Camden Journal agreed that although Northerners had a constitutional right to protest Georgia’s treatment of the

Cherokees, they questioned “the propriety of such assemblages for such ends.” The editor of the National Register claimed that Philadelphia Memorialists had “an incontrovertible right to assemble and express their opinions on a question in which they believe the faith and character of the whole Republic to be involved.”379 The public could engage in public protests that they believed to be of significance to the republic. However, race- identified issues, such as slavery or Indian removal, were an exception.

378 François Furstenberg, In the Name of the Father: Washington’s Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation, (New York: Penguin Group, Inc., 2006), 12, 43. 379 Camden Journal, February 20, 1830. 218

Race politics required special restrictions to protect the safety of white citizens.

This argument harkened back to the congressional debates invoked by the Cherokee

Nation’s delegation when they negotiated a new treaty in 1824. The nation divided over whether or not the U.S. Constitution supported race-based designations. Defenders of race politics claimed that racial distinctions constrained only non-whites for the benefit of white citizens. However, Chapter Five demonstrates how race politics carried into the lives of white citizens as well, curtailing every citizen’s right to protest race-based distinctions. Therefore, South Carolinian Unionists remained unwilling to reconcile public deliberation over race politics, and their blindness to this factor demonstrates the limits of their support for majority rule. Nullification supporter Robert Hayne capitalized on this conflict over majority rule when he corresponded with Jackson in February 1831.

The Nullification Party exploits Cherokee Sovereignty

Nullification scholarship tends to ignore the significance of the Cherokee sovereignty debates in the political debates over Nullification, but pro-Nullifiers and the anti-Jackson press made significant use of this connection. As discussed earlier, in 1825

Calhoun recognized that “the blending of the Slave with the Indian question” could

“consolidate the whole South.”380 Although one state could hardly carry off a successful secession, low-country planters recognized that the debates over Cherokee sovereignty in territory claimed by Georgia could widen the debate over Nullification and secession, and

Nullification leaders seized the opportunity the Cherokee Nation presented. Certainly, the controversy over the federally abrogated Indian Springs Treaty in 1825-1826 for the

380 John C. Calhoun to Joseph G. Swift, September 2, 1825, Ibid., X:40. 219

Creeks under Georgia’s Governor Troup demonstrated how susceptible the state was to

Nullification over Indian lands.381

Shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court declined to recognize the Cherokee

Nation’s sovereign independence in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (March 3, 1831),

President Jackson and South Carolinian Senator Robert Young Hayne corresponded.

They deliberated over Jackson’s reluctance to appoint William Peronneau Finley, a

Charleston attorney, to the position of South Carolina’s attorney general. While the majority of South Carolinian delegates supported Finley’s nomination, Jackson demurred due to Finley’s association with South Carolina’s States’ Rights and Free Trade Party, which supported the principles of Nullification.

Hayne initiated a letter exchange that questioned Jackson’s reluctance to appoint

Finley. Finley had, after all, received the “recommendation of seven out of eleven of the

South Carolina Delegation,” indicating a democratically-supported majority. Hayne assured Jackson that the delegates had been unaffected by party affiliation. They chose

Finley for his “distinguished talents and high character.”382 Jackson responded with a different focus on the authority of a democratic majority. South Carolina’s States’ Rights doctrine supported the idea that one state might “declare an act of Congress void.” The voting franchise, Jackson avowed, was a better way to resolve such differences “in our enlightened country where the people rule.” Jackson further claimed that such was the

381 Michael D. Green, The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 115-125. 382 Robert Young Hayne to Andrew Jackson, February 4, 1831. Papers of Andrew Jackson, ed. Daniel Feller (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press) IX:60-61. 220 very definition of republican government, “In all republics the voice of a majority must prevail.”383

Hayne was not convinced. He wondered, what majority? The entire Southeastern region, he claimed, believed that the federal tariffs under question were unlawful. “[T]he

Legislatures of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and

Alabama, have repeatedly and solemnly denounced the Tariff laws as unconstitutional” as did all Southern tax collectors, federally responsible for garnering these taxes. The states must remain sovereign, and they “must be the guardians of their own reserved rights.” Hayne believed that any federal authority including the U.S. Supreme Court, the legislative and executive branches, all supporting federal departments, and even “a majority of the people of the U. S.” needed to protect the individual sovereignty rights of each individual state. Either a national majority rule or departmental federal authority would create a federal a government “without limitation of powers.” Hayne declared that if the “Will of the Majority” reigned supreme then constitutionally-defined checks and balances would cease to exist. Hayne was explicit. States’ rights protected minority rights, “Our past experience has served only to strengthen my conviction, of the necessity of having some better security for State Rights than ‘the will of the majority.’”384

Hayne raised the discomforting issue of the Cherokee Nation’s Supreme Court protest. At the time of this letter exchange, having lost their bid against Jackson’s Indian

Removal bill, the Cherokees turned to the courts. While Hayne and Jackson wrote back

383 Andrew Jackson to Robert Young Hayne, February 8, 1831. Papers of Andrew Jackson, IX: 65-68 384 Hayne to Jackson, February 14, 1831. Papers of Andrew Jackson, IX:73-78. 221 and forth, former U.S. Attorney General William Wirt was in the process of defending the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation before the U.S. Supreme Court. A few weeks after this letter exchange, the court declined the Cherokee Nation’s direct access to the

U.S. Supreme court, because it was a domestic dependent nation, not a foreign nation.385

Yet their presence before the United States Supreme Court was unprecedented. Cherokee

Nation v. Georgia raised important federalism questions over states’ rights and federal authority through constitutionally-protected treaty laws at the same time that South

Carolina’s low-country planters made similar claims.

In support of South Carolina’s states’ rights position, Hayne explained, “the case of the State of Georgia is too much in point to be passed over.” If Georgia could protect its states’ supremacy over federal treaty laws, then South Carolina should be likewise able to protect its right over congressional taxation. Hayne continued, What if the U.S.

Supreme Court decided on behalf of the Cherokee Nation? And what if “the will of the majority” supported these Indian treaties over Georgia’s territorial claims? If the national majority rendered such a decision upon Georgians, their state “would be driven from the

Union,” Hayne pressed further. For the first time in their mutual correspondence, Hayne

385 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. 5 Pet. 15-18 (1831). Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the majority opinion for the court. The legal definition, “domestic dependent nation” was initiated by New York Chancellor James Kent. Kent reversed a lower New York court’s decision in Goodell v. Jackson (1823). In Civic Ideals (1997), Rogers M. Smith explains that Kent adopted Vattel, to “define the tribes as “dependent” peoples.” (Smith, Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship in U.S. History, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 184.) Kent Americanized this legal phrase which was later made famous by Marshall. Smith demonstrates the direct language comparisons between Goodell and Cherokee Nation. Kent wrote, “In my view of the subject, they have never been regarded as citizens or members of our body politic, within the contemplation of the Constitution. They have always been, and are still considered by our laws as dependent tribes, governed by their own usages and chiefs, but placed under our protection, and subject to our coercion, so far as the public safety required it, and no further.” Goodell v. Jackson, Supreme Court of Judicature of New York, 20 Johns. 693; April, 1823, Decided. 222 actually wrote the politically sensitive word, “nullify” in relation to Georgia’s actions,

“[B]y undertaking as she has done, to nullify these laws, by declaring them ‘void and of no force’ within her limits, the whole country sees and feels that all attempts at coercion are out of the question.”386 Like the Cherokee Nation, Hayne pressed the point of racial politics, albeit from an opposing angle. Both Georgia and South Carolina, he intimated, would only remain in the Union if they could protect their racial distinctions. Yet

Hayne’s specific argument for Nullification was not explicitly raced-based as were

Georgia’s claims, which may have contributed to the more unified national response against South Carolina.

Perhaps recognizing that he was pressing hard on presidential prerogatives, Hayne attempted to soften his arguments with praise. He was certain that Past President John

Quincy Adams would not have supported Georgia’s states’ rights claims over the

Cherokees. “[I]t is fortunate however for the country that her destinies are in the hands of a chief Magistrate who estimates too highly the rights of the States,” which, ultimately,

Hayne believed, was the best way to protect “the peace and harmony of the union.” The

South Carolinian senator left little room for Jackson to maneuver ideologically. If

Georgia had the right to remove the Cherokee Nation from their midst, then South

Carolina had the right to negate federal tariff laws.

Personally, Andrew Jackson separated Georgia’s effort to remove the Cherokees from their territory believing it to be completely unrelated to South Carolina and

Nullification. In the framework of political debate, however, many American citizens

386 Hayne to Jackson, February 14, 1831. Papers of Andrew Jackson, IX: 77. (Italics in published volume.) 223 either affirmed the connection, or explicitly tried to diminish it. As late as 1829, Jeremiah

Evarts and John C. Calhoun had kept these issues separated as they argued for Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification respectively. John Randolph’s lone harangues in 1825 initiated their publicized connection. The simultaneous timing of these debates, and

Nullifiers’ explicit efforts to connect these debates linked them definitively in the public mind, raising concerns over sectional tensions. The possibility that a minority-held opinion might make those citizens vulnerable to extra-legal violence exacerbated fear and paranoia over possibly losing an election and questioned the viability of democratic deliberation itself.

After the Debate: Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification

For Jackson, as we have seen, Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification were completely unrelated. After the Supreme Court’s decision in the Cherokee Nation’s favor and his re-election in November of that same year, Jackson ignored the Supreme Court and vehemently denounced Nullification. He claimed that South Carolinians were verging dangerously close to treason, “Mark under what pretenses you have been led on to the brink of insurrection and treason on which you stand.”387 Although most

Americans voted for Jackson in 1832, many did so principally because they feared disunion through Nullification over their support for Cherokee sovereignty. Despite

Jackson’s re-election, in the public eye, these debates remained connected and potent. For example, in July 1830, the editors of the Daily National Journal compared Nullifiers with

387 Proclamation by Andrew Jackson, December 10, 1832. Andrew Jackson, Edited by James D. Richardson. 224 those against Indian removal. Nullifiers and friends of the Indians were similarly extremists who pushed “public opinion” to get “restless under the curb,” of more moderate points of view.388 Georgians worriedly protected Jackson’s support for

Cherokee removal. They expressed sympathy for South Carolina, but distanced themselves from this form of states’ rights ideology. Newspapers connected Nullification and Cherokee sovereignty rights well before the Worcester v. Georgia decision in 1832.

Northeastern papers, with the notable exception of one minority Vermont citizen, considered the idea of Nullification to be a politically-divisive calamity, significantly more important than the Cherokee sovereignty debates. Western states, and Upper South states, such as Tennessee and Virginia stood against Nullification, but more reservedly so, noting the unfairness of the new tax, and the importance for President Jackson to support states’ rights, albeit without supporting Nullification.

Many newspapers reprinted articles that crossed regional boundaries, but subtly shifted the meaning of these articles in their presentations. For instance, the Boston

Weekly Messenger published an article linking Georgia and South Carolina’s “Anti-Tariff

Measures” from the Charleston Mercury.389 Although the title linked the states, the text of the article only reported a South Carolinian rally that focused on tariffs but additionally discussed Nullification. Georgians were absent from this rally. Further, the

Boston paper mentioned that other Southern states sent letters of support. The Boston

388 Daily National Journal, Washington D.C., July 01, 1830. 389 Boston Weekly Messenger, Boston, Massachusetts, January 01, 1829. 225 reprint positioned the article to imply a more united South than the Southern papers themselves indicated.

Most writers outside the South suggested that Nullifiers were among the worst radicals. One notable exception published in a Vermont paper Burlington Sentinel suggested that ignoring federal treaties was more important than Nullification. Despite

Jackson’s strong stand against Nullification, he was not a good president because he did not uphold the federal treaties established for the Native Americans. Adopting the pen name, “An Elector,” this singular letter represented an alternative view of an apparently small minority within the state and may have been precipitated by Chief Justice John

Marshall’s recent decision Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (March 5, 1831).390 The respectful presentation of the Elector’s opinion may simply reflect the unusual nature of the writer’s opinion, “Certainly,” the writer stated, “your paper has been hostile to the cause of the Indians.” The paper’s editors, however, tried to find a common ground with

“An Elector” by agreeing with the writer’s views on agriculture, manufacturing,

“constitutionality and expediency of Internal improvements,” Supreme Court, and national character. But they disagreed with the writer on the point that compelling Indians to remove was wrong. Although Native Americans had to remove from their homes, the government was justified in doing so since Western tracts were set aside for them.

390 Vermont Centinel (or Burlington Sentinel), Burlington, Vermont, March 25, 1831. Marshall determined, in this case, that the Cherokees could not take a case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, because they were not a foreign nation, but a domestic dependent nation. The following year, Marshall will determine in the Cherokee’s favor, that they were sovereign, even as they were dependent upon the United States’ goodwill. 226

Significantly, the editors printed the letter in the name of free speech, not agreement. They concluded with a response to “An Elector” that “every man has a right to be heard on questions affecting the honor and welfare of the country, though we cannot agree with him.” The editors of the paper suggested that treaties should be upheld, and the government should prevent states from disobeying treaties. Yet, the editors feared disunion more. They hoped that the nation “may never be stained either with the infamy of a violated faith, or the blood of civil war.” This letter from “An Elector” appeared to be an unusual position regarding the importance of treaties over Nullification. Most citizens believed that the conflict over Nullification was the greater problem, and historians have generally agreed with this claim.391 Yet, the crisis over Nullification did not develop into a crisis until increasing numbers of American citizens recognized that

Georgia and South Carolina, two states, were threatening the Union. Had these crises remained separated, neither one by itself would have raised such fears.

391 Historians have often presented this moment as a choice for Americans, and that Americans chose the Union over the Cherokees, or that the Cherokee cases were simply not as significant as Nullification. William McLoughlin suggested as much when he wrote that the imprisoned missionaries on behalf of the Cherokees would “sacrifice the Cherokees to save the Union.” McLoughlin, Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 446. Like McLoughlin, Jill Norgren reported that “American politicians who had served as factotums for the Cherokee cause quickly broke ranks with Ross and the missionaries” fearing disunion. Norgren, The Cherokee Cases: Two Landmark Federal Decisions in the Fight for Sovereignty, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 126. William Freehling claims that the Cherokee case, while tragic, was limited to their isolated interests. “Georgia’s “Nullification” affected only Indians in the state, whereas South Carolina’s veto would have disrupted a national revenue system.” Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina 1816-1836 (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1965), 233. Like Freehling, Joseph Burke suggested that Marshall’s was sympathetic to the Cherokees, but unwilling to risk court authority for Native Americans who were less important. “It was not that the Justices and lawyers such as Wirt loved the Indians less, it was only that they loved the Court more.” Burke, “The Cherokee Cases: A Study in Law, Politics, and Morality,” Stanford Law Review, 21 (Feb., 1969), 530. Robert Remini explained that Jackson understood the dilemma and pressured Lumpkin to free the missionaries. “The last thing Jackson needed was a confrontation two another state, so he quietly nudged Georgia into obeying the court order” and free the missionaries. Remini, Andrew Jackson and his Indian Wars (New York: Viking, 2001), 257. 227

Another Vermont paper, the Vermont Gazette, also presented John Calhoun’s views on Nullification in a straightforward manner, more similar to Virginia’s papers than to other New England papers. The Gazette editor noted the importance of states’ rights to Calhoun. The writer hoped that Congress would modify the current tariff but avoided supporting “at present” state authority denouncing national. The Gazette reported that it was a “friend to manufactures, and disposed to give them all possible incidental protection.”392 Editors in the Vermont papers appear, like Virginia, to avoid the sensational and derogatory presentations of South Carolinians or other Vermont citizens that might hold a minority view. New Hampshire, like Massachusetts and New York, looked for divisions. The New Hampshire Sentinel, as one example, when reporting a

Washington dinner in honor of Thomas Jefferson noted that even though the dinner had been promoted as a “feast of reconciliation,” it was a one-sided affair that negated everything “except Nullification.”393

The anti-Jacksonian Rhode-Island American believed that neither Nullification nor Indian removal reflected a “liberal and humane policy towards the Indians.” Yet, they lamented, appropriate responses to the law had no influence “with the men who now govern this nation.”394 The Baltimore Patriot compared Georgia’s Cherokee removal and

South Carolina’s Nullification efforts directly, claiming that Georgia’s “Nullification” was hypocritical regarding the federal laws protecting Indians. The Baltimore paper

392 “Mr. Calhoun; Richmond Whig; South Carolina; American,” Vermont Gazette, 08-30-1831, Vol. XLIX; Issue: 2508, p. 3. 393 “Jefferson’s Birthday Dinner,” New Hampshire Sentinel, 04-23-1830, Volume XXXII, Issue 17, p. 3. 394 Rhode-Island American, Providence, Rhode Island, August 06, 1830. 228 relied on quotations that they gleaned from a South Carolina newspaper, the Winyaw

Intelligencer, from Georgetown, South Carolina.395

Once elected in December 1831, Georgia Governor Wilson Lumpkin tried to extricate his state from South Carolina’s Nullification claims, but the state itself seemed divided. George Troup supported state secession and Nullification claims, as governor from 1823 to 1827, and then senator until 1833. In September 1832, on the verge of

Jackson’s re-election, Troup wrote to General Edward Harden, nullifier in South

Carolina:

You would have my opinions freely & fully if they would be of the least public benefit. They would be more likely to do harm than good. They have been often generally given & you maybe assured that so far from being changed they are more confirmed than ever—It is because our People are unprepared for a decisive measure that I would have nothing to do with the matter. You will perceive the awkwardness of advising People to do that which you know they are not prepared to do and I trust you know me sufficiently to believe that I would advise no measure which would be likely to end in abortion & disgrace—If after the expression of this general Idea you want my views you shall have them of course but do not carry me to the Press I beseech you because I ought not to be the instrument of exposing to the world that [ ] can do nothing effectual to remedy our grievance. Yr Friend G. M. Troup396

The letter indicates that presidential support for Cherokee removal dissolved whatever secession interests Georgia citizens may have held against the federal government. It is difficult, from this letter, to determine precisely how widespread Georgia’s secession interests existed in the state. Troup himself was so dedicated to secession that he may have overestimated the state’s potential investment in his cause. Certainly, Jackson’s

395 Baltimore Patriot, Baltimore, Maryland, August 16, 1830. 396 George M. Troup to Edward Harden, September 20, 1832. Harden Family Papers, Duke University Rubenstein Rare Books and Manuscripts. 229 support for Georgia’s interests mitigated the state’s consideration of secession. At the same time, had Jackson approached South Carolina’s secession interests with less militancy, he might have simultaneously fostered the state’s unionist sympathies there as well.

However, Wilson Lumpkin held a strong influence over Georgian presses.

Wanting to protect his state’s favor with the likely-to-be-reelected Jackson, the Macon

Weekly Telegraph pointedly attacked former Governor Troup for all their current Indian woes. All the excitement over South Carolina’s tariffs was a “mere trick of the Troupers” and had taken away the importance of Georgia’s issues, such as the missionaries, the

Supreme Court, Cherokee removal, and the Gold mines. According to the Macon Weekly, the battle in Georgia was over the Troup-Clark faction, and for unity and to prevent civil war, it was critical to avoid subsuming Georgia’s interests with South Carolina’s.397

Lumpkin’s party made inroads into non-Georgian presses with their views. A New York paper reported that Georgia believed it had jurisdiction over Cherokee lands, but that

South Carolina’s efforts at Nullification were “baneful doctrines.”398 Other articles appeared non-committal regarding the association between Georgia and South Carolina, but the paper also published pieces that spoke of both, even without explicitly connecting the issues.399 Indian activities, particularly civilization efforts or failures, remained a U.S.

397 Macon Weekly Telegraph, Macon, Georgia, September 26, 1832. 398 New-York Spectator, New York, New York, December 10, 1830. 399Columbian Register, New Haven, Connecticut, December 18, 1830. 230 concern throughout the nineteenth century; some newspapers combined reports on the

Nullification crisis with Indian news, even if not connecting these two issues explicitly.400

Conclusion

South Carolina itself was hardly united behind Nullification. Neither had the

United States yet reconciled extralegal violence among the citizenry, well-documented through the eras of the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Indeed, the invisibility of South Carolina Unionists in the eyes of Northerners simply increased their vulnerability. Despite South Carolinian Unionist efforts to stake their presence,

Northerners kept talking about Southern radicalism while ignoring Southern unionism.

Nullification supporters Robert Hayne and John Calhoun were low-country and piedmont planters respectively, but their power base was Charleston. The rest of the state, actually the majority of the state, initially was pro-Jackson and anti-Nullification. Yet, the States’

Rights and Free Trade Party, or the Nullification Party, built a powerful political bloc that eventually took the state, if only by a slight majority. Even Charleston, Nullification’s stronghold, remained deeply divided.

For example, in Charleston, Unionist Mary Scott Saint-Amand feared violence from the Nullifiers and worried over the subsequent direction of the state. Charleston

Unionist’s despaired over their own minority rights, especially since the States’ Rights and Free Trade tactics celebrated militant heroics over reasoned debate. In a perversion of

400 “News/Opinion,” Portland Advertiser, Portland, Maine, 09-24-1830, Volume VII, Issue 97, p. 2. The Advertiser lists a group of news summaries that include a few statements about Nullifiers attacking an “anti Nullification candidate;” shortly afterwards, a few remarks about the “Temperance Society” among the Tuscaroras and Onondagas. The link is not explicit, but the summaries reflect the multiple issues that people attend to simultaneously. 231 political idealism, the Nullification Party promoted the protection of minority rights while it remained in the minority, but was unwilling to make allowances for minority interests when it became the state’s majority. Even after the height of the Nullification controversy had passed, in December 1833 Saint-Amand claimed that men on opposing sides “do not speak on politics to each other.”401 Unionist proponents tried to focus on reasoned deliberation, respecting the personal integrity of their nullifying adversaries. Nullification papers tended to treat all arguments against Nullification as patently absurd. When past

President James Madison pointed out how Nullifiers misinterpreted the U.S. Constitution and the constitutional debates, Nullifiers derided Madison as aged and senile.402

In the state of Georgia as well, the missionaries for the Cherokees found themselves increasingly at odds with their white Georgian neighbors. Jockeying for power to become the majority opinion was not just about winning elections. It became a claim for basic citizenship rights and protections. The political instability over Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification for the Union contributed to a pervasive extra-legal borderland culture that fostered violence against the Cherokee Indians and the American citizens who supported them.403

401 Mary Scott Saint-Amand, A Balcony in Charleston (Richmond, VA: Garrett & Massie Inc, 1941), 25- 32. 402 Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 122. 403 Important studies in regard to eastern borderland violence are: Peter Silver, Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008) and Patrick Griffin, American Leviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier (New York: Hill and Wang, 2007). The destabilized territory in Cherokee country in the 1830s demonstrates that even after established statehood, borderland violence continued. 232

CHAPTER 5 1830-1833: “FRAUGHT WITH DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES FOR OUR COUNTRY”: IRRECONCILABLE POLITICS AND CITIZEN VIOLENCE

Introduction

On November 24, 1832, after President Andrew Jackson’s re-election, the legislative body of South Carolina published an ordinance that declared its state’s right to nullify any federal legislation it deemed unconstitutional and further declared that any court appeal, even to the U.S. Supreme Court, would be viewed as “contempt of the court.” Many Americans agreed with South Carolinians that the recent series of congressional tariffs protected the interests of Northeastern industry at the expense of the rest of the nation, but they were appalled over Nullification. However, South Carolina low-country planters continued their divisive protest and proclaimed their state’s supremacy. The South Carolina Ordinance declared that federal tariffs violated “the true meaning and intent [of the U.S. Constitution] and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State.”404

A little over two weeks later on December 10 President Andrew Jackson issued his Nullification Proclamation against the state of South Carolina. Jackson claimed that

South Carolina’s Ordinance was “unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and violate[d] [its] true meaning and intent, and [were therefore] null and void, and no law.” In his proclamation, the president said “constitution” eighty-seven times. Jackson avowed “that the laws of the United States, its Constitution, and treaties made under it,

404 South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, November 24, 1832. 233 are the supreme law of the land,” and “that no federative government could exist without” such provisions. Fundamentally, Jackson argued that his constitutional authority as “first magistrate”405 empowered him to protect the Union from illegal acts of renegade states.

However, the president did not mention Georgia, Indians, or the Cherokees at all.

On the contrary, in his Nullification Proclamation, Jackson honored the Constitution and professed the U.S. Supreme Court’s supremacy over South Carolina’s Nullification

Ordinance but ignored the recent decision from the Supreme Court on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty. The U.S. Supreme Court was explicit and firm in its decision on behalf of

Rev. Samuel A. Worcester, Dr. Elizur Butler, and the sovereignty rights of the Cherokee

Nation. On March 3, 1832, in Worcester v. Georgia the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the missionaries were unlawfully imprisoned and the treaties established by the United

States of America, “acknowledge the said Cherokee Nation to be a sovereign nation.”

Marshall avowed that the “whole of the territory now occupied by the Cherokee nation, on the east of the Mississippi, has been solemnly guaranteed to them; all of which treaties are existing treaties at this day, and in full force.”406 Georgia and the president ignored the U.S. Supreme Court’s Worcester decision. Although two states defied federal authority, the president supported Georgia’s defiance, while simultaneously condemning

405 President Jackson’s Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832. 406 Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 6 Pet. 539 (1832). For discussion of the significance of Worcester v. Georgia, especially in relation to the earlier decision, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia see, Nancy Morgan, “Jeremiah Evarts: The Cherokees’ Forgotten Counsel,” ed. Tim Alan Garrison, “Our Cause Will Ultimately Triumph”: Profiles from the American Indian Sovereignty Movement (Durham: Carolina Academic Press), 27-38. For an excellent discussion of Dr. Elizur Butler’s political career see, Kevin T. Barksdale, “The Cherokee’s Obedient Servant: The Missionary Life of Dr. Elizur Butler, 1821-1839,” Master’s Thesis, Western Carolina University, 1999. 234

South Carolina’s. Unable to separate the public connections between Cherokee sovereignty rights and Nullification, and unwilling to bow to the authority of the U.S.

Supreme Court, Jackson contributed to the public perception that two states simultaneously threatened the Union.

Despite every effort to control Jackson’s problematic position, his inconsistencies exacerbated extralegal violence within Cherokee territory against both the Cherokees and the American citizen missionaries that supported them. While Cherokee supporters compromised strongly held values to save the Union, their sacrifice weakened the ideological underpinnings of a constitutional government, and in this way, contributed to fears over sectional incompatibility. The president put forth his best efforts to smooth over the sectional anxieties from the two-state challenge. His supporters validated his actions as much as possible through the press. Georgia’s governor employed astute leadership over Cherokee territory, and the president consulted with respected legal authorities to defend his decisions. Friends wrote to Jackson, affirming his views and protecting his electability.

This chapter explores how American citizens experienced President Jackson’s inconsistent application of constitutional authority and how citizens responded to

Cherokee constitutional rights without presidential support. Instead of exploring the genuineness and depth of citizen support for the Cherokees, this chapter considers effects on American citizens of one particular thread in an evolving American political culture and rhetoric: the perception that the American Indian was a lost cause, incapable of

235 resolution beyond extermination and/or assimilation. Simultaneously, the divisions over slavery continued to exacerbate and shape the same political climate.

An intractable planter authority contributed to American law, politics and society, especially when planters engaged in land speculation.407 The planters’ narrow value system increasingly resisted dissent as treacherous. Therefore, opposing viewpoints, such as that of the Reverend Samuel Austin Worcester who resisted perceiving American

Indians as a lost cause, were not simply different, they were dangerous. Planters and their supporters dismissed the Cherokee Nation itself, even though it validated race-based plantation slavery.

Republicanism envisioned with Planter and Land Speculator Authority

As noted in Chapter Two, planters and land speculators held considerable political sway in the Western states. Their followers demonstrated support for planter and land speculator interests in order to gain access to that authority. Judge John Kelly from

Alabama vied for recognition from Jackson’s friend and political ally, Surveyor General

John Coffee. Kelly wrote to Coffee to suggest his associate, Colonel John D. Tirrell, as an appropriate confidential agent to the Indians, and Coffee made a note of Tirrell on the letter itself. On September 19, 1829 when Kelly wrote his reference, he introduced himself first by demonstrating his unquestioned loyalty for all of President Jackson’s policies, including the president’s Indian policy, “as well on other subjects & working to support and aid him while we can.” Kelly attacked those who challenged Jackson as self-

407 G. Edward White, Law in American History: Volume 1: From the Colonial Years Through the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 245-291. 236 interested and unpatriotic and, further, suggested that those against him should be investigated and countervailed. The planter and land speculator network developed into a system that tolerated no dissention and leaders were determined to succeed through a system of ruthlessness and absolute loyalty.

As one of many aspirants for Coffee’s approval, Kelly expressed his negative opinion of the missionaries in Indian Territory. He defined them as un-republican claiming they should be actively prevented from further influence. In a zero-sum game of either us or them, proving dissenter disloyalty was more important to planter and land speculator republicanism than the diplomacy of understanding or validating dissenting opinion. As outlined in Chapter One, just eight years earlier in 1821 Secretary of War

Calhoun complemented the missionary efforts at Indian civilization, but official supports rapidly turned on them. In 1829, Kelly warned that “[T]he missionaries are secretly using their influence to prevent a removal.” Preventing removal, Kelly suggested, was the

“Talisman” that missionaries used to attract converts, and the missionary zeal for converts determined that “they are as false to their country as their God.” He believed that a “competent confidential agent” such as Tirrell would prepare the “Indian mind” for removal. Kelly also targeted missionaries for further scrutiny and likely harassment. For example, he wrote “The course presented by missionaries & other white persons should be inquired into and a correction applied if necessary.”408 In short, according to Kelly, white missionaries to the Indians and all white citizens who supported them were

408 John Kelly to John Coffee, September 19, 1829, John Coffee Papers, LPR27, Alabama Department of Archives and History. 237 unpatriotic and selfishly inhibiting Indian removal for personal interests. Their activities needed to be “inquired into” and corrected.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the Right to Dissent In 1812, a determined group of Calvinist graduates from Williams College decided that the United States needed its own missionary society to bring civilization and

Christianity to non-western peoples. The results were the American Board of

Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), which became one of the most significant political backers of the Cherokees through its missions, schools, and publications. Although promoted as a national agency, the American Board was principally supported by New England reformers with Federalist leanings, with their curious mixture of ideals for a moral economy and market expansion. The historian

William McLoughlin explains, “The expansion of international commerce, republicanism, evangelicalism, and free enterprise capitalism were to be harnessed for the advance of patriotism, empire and the millennium—all in the name of ‘benevolence.’”409

The Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams Administrations were fully invested in Indian removals, but wanted to protect the constitutional precedents they believed were essential to uphold federal authority on behalf of union stability. Likewise,

Some Northeastern missionaries some spoke openly with the Cherokees about resisting the quasi-legal removal strategies that Jackson employed. As discussed earlier in Chapter

One, Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury initiated a partnership between the federal government and

409 William G. McLoughlin, Cherokees and Missionaries, 1789-1839 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, [1984] 1995), 104. 238 the American Board in 1816, during the last year of Madison’s presidency when William

Crawford was secretary of war. However, under Monroe’s tenure, when Secretary of

War Calhoun heard of missionary support for resistance, he wrote furious letters to

Kingsbury, questioning the missionaries’ right to circumvent government policies favoring removal.

Recognizing the importance of federal support and funding, Kingsbury successfully quelled official doubts, but the quieted missionaries of the American Board, as they interacted on a daily basis with Cherokee families, had trouble promoting a federal government Indian policy that touted civilization and pushed for removal. Writing to Dr. Samuel Worcester, the uncle and namesake for Rev. Samuel Austin Worcester,

Rev. Ard Hoyt tried to separate the political and spiritual lives of their Cherokee clients.

Hoyt knew that removal would “greatly distress” the Cherokees, but “we hold ourselves bound not to interfere with state affairs.”410 Although he tried to support them, even

Kingsbury winced over the blatant inconsistencies in state policies.

The Indians say they don’t know how to understand their Father, the President. A few years ago he sent them a plough and a hoe and said it was not good for his red children to hunt, they must cultivate the earth. Now he tells them there is good hunting in Arkansas, if they go there he will give them rifles.411

The missionaries struggled with the double standard Indian policy for as long as they worked with the tribes at the behest of the federal government. Monroe and Adams pushed for removal, but not against precedent or constitutional restrictions. In 1824, when the Cherokee delegates won congressional support to ratify their 1804 land sale

410 Ard Hoyt to Samuel Worcester, July 25, 1818; McLoughlin, Cherokees and Missionaries, 115. 411 Cyrus Kingsbury to Samuel Worcester, May 25, 1818; Ibid. 239 treaty, Monroe urged congress to find an honorable resolution to the Indian policy inconsistencies. As the Creeks succeeded briefly against the 1821 Indian Springs treaty, and the Cherokees managed in 1824 over their forgotten 1804 treaty, tribal nations developed the diplomatic skills needed to make navigate successfully through the double standard policies. At any rate, the missionaries and Monroe and Adams administrations managed to work together in an uneasy truce until Jackson’s tenure, at which point the new president preferred unilateral executive control over Indian policy instead of congressional resolution. The troubled relationship between the American Board and the federal government collapsed with Jackson’s presidency.

Jackson’s reputation as an Indian fighter emboldened Georgia’s authorities and militia to harass the missionaries who protected the Cherokees. Repeated arrests of the missionaries and Jackson’s disavowal of missionary agents left many vulnerable to extralegal injustices. Harassed by the Georgia militia, missionaries were repeatedly subject to inspections and having their government papers scrutinized. The frequent arrests interrupted their work and caused considerable anxiety. The missionaries were generally husband/wife teams with their own children witnessing these abuses. Instead of a negotiated process, the different visions between the missionary federal agents and the executive branch devolved into a test of wills. Missionary for the Cherokees, Rev. John

Thompson doubted that the laws to protect American citizenry would be upheld on their behalf. They continued to endure harassment hoping that national awareness of the unfair treatment of missionaries would influence the Jackson administration to offer protection for the missionaries as citizens. Thompson hoped for “protection if a legal process were 240 undertaken upon the sanction of Government,” but he concluded that “the law which affected me was arbitrary.” Just as Adams recognized that Jackson’s Indian policies were of questionable legality, the missionaries experienced the results of this relaxed legal precedent through societal disintegration and as targets of the Georgia Guard.412

Eventually Thompson succumbed to local pressures and left for Ohio, citing his wife’s poor health. He could find no way to get along with his white neighbors in Georgia.

Many were disorderly, and those who counseled him in friendship simply encouraged him to leave the region, preferring “to have me evade the law rather than be taken again.”413

The sustained poverty after the Panic of 1819 exacerbated the frustrations felt by

Georgian neighbors toward the missionaries because of their access to government largess. Missionaries received significant supplies for their missions, including imported foodstuffs such as corn and sweet potatoes. The Georgian neighbors who wanted

Cherokee land found it difficult to justify government support for missionary subsistence, when they received none for themselves. Before the Panic of 1819, some Georgian philanthropists provided financial support to local missions, but the plummeting value of cotton ended abruptly that good will gesture. Disaster struck the Southeast again in 1831 with drought and cutworm. Missionary J. C. Ellsworth reported to the executive committee of the American Board, the Prudential Committee, that people were exchanging their linens for food corn. “The crops suffered considerably from the

412 John Thompson to David Greene, May 25, 1831; ABCFM 18.3.1 Cherokee Mission, Unit 6, Reel 742. 413 Thompson to Greene, July 1, 1831; ABCFM. 241 droughts last year, particularly uplands,” he noted.414 As local pressures against them intensified, the missionaries felt increasingly isolated. Missionary work involved years of education, training and discernment, and the rapid change in political climate caught many of them unprepared for persecution from fellow Christians. The most uplifting news that they could share among themselves was the possibility that Jackson might not win a second term in office. Indeed, many claimed that a significant number of Georgians were uncomfortable with the president’s strong arm tactics. Some Georgians professed their friendship toward the Indians, but believed that despite any pressure that might arise from the federal judiciary, the federal legislature and the local population “will become more stern, instead of relaxing in any of their measures toward the Cherokees.”415

The dominant political culture of Georgia supported Indian removal. Yet part of

Georgia’s unity for removal was established via social violence. The Georgia Guard’s harassment of the missionaries demonstrated that citizenship status would not protect any individual resistance to the prevailing opinion. Political dissent invited ostracism and vulnerability. Even though some missionaries tried to stay out of politics, the militia and their neighbors harassed them all, regardless of their political position. Missionary Isaac

Proctor caustically proclaimed that “wicked men should call one a ‘good citizen’” if they simply adopted the measures supported by the local militia and the federal authorities.

Even though Proctor tried to “convince the people of Georgia by words & actions that I had nothing to do with their political concerns or those of the Indians,” his suffering at

414 J.C. Ellsworth to David Greene, May 25, 1831; ABCFM. 415 Ibid. 242 the hands of the local militia was due to his Cherokee associations.416 Despite their white citizenship status, the dissenting missionaries functioned as one group exposed to prejudicial opinions and harassments that negated their individual responses to local societal pressures.

Although the harassments against the missionaries were unfair and illegal, the missionaries had their own set of blinders regarding their white neighbors. When John

Thompson found himself pushed out of his home by the Georgia Guard, missionary,

Catherine Fuller was angry over this violation of their property and wrote, “The corn in the fields is destroyed. A patch of land, on which sweet potatoes were growing where I left (not six! weeks ago) has been ploughed and sowed with turnips by them [the Georgia militia].”417 It seems odd, of course, that the local farmers would dig up six-week-old crops in the middle of a drought to plant an entirely new crop. However, sweet potatoes take approximately seventeen weeks to mature, while turnips can be harvested in six. In addition, one can eat the turnip greens culled to thin the crop as it matures. Fuller’s account demonstrates that she was unfamiliar with local farming techniques and perhaps more dependent upon farm subsidies that were inaccessible to her poorer white neighbors. Although justifiably angry over her expulsion, her indignation also shows evidence of the missionaries’ class-based conflicts with local white poverty.

The civilization program developed by the War Department and the influential

American Board did not take into account how their joint actions would be perceived by

416 Isaac Proctor to David Greene, August 23, 1831; ABCFM. 417 Catherine Fuller to David Greene, September 10, 1831; ABCFM. 243 the white laborers and farmers residing near the Indian tribes. The gradual economic recovery from the Panic of 1819 just twelve years earlier did not benefit all American citizens. Indeed, despite Jackson’s proclamation on behalf of the common man, his terms in office simply marked the increasing gulf between the rich and poor in America. The government subsidies for missionary work on behalf of local Native American populations could not win over the hearts and minds of the Southern working poor or

Western land-hungry settlers. The American Board garnered thousands of dollars from the wealthy elite and middle-class reform minded citizens over the exotic excitement of

Christianizing the world’s heathen populations. Providing reasonable living and working conditions for their poorer fellow citizens seemed significantly less fundable. There is no excuse for the virulent racism committed by the Georgia Guard or the frontier settlers.

Yet the class-based judgments of America’s reformers contributed to the miscommunications and lack of mutual supports across wealth disparity.

Samuel Austin Worcester: Reforming Vision of Republicanism

Dangers increased for missionaries when advocates for planters and land speculators such as Judge John Kelly attacked the missionaries’ patriotism in the unstable social world within Georgia’s borderlands. Few attempted to rise to the challenge and those who did paid a heavy price. The missionaries had settled and established positions as government employees. Reasonably convinced that Jackson did not approve of the missionary work, the Georgia Guard repeatedly interrogated and arrested the missionaries, and then would let them go when they proved that their papers were genuine. Eventually, Jackson unilaterally rescinded their government positions and 244 financial supports, but by that time, most of the mission funding came from private sources. Georgia’s legislators stepped up the pressure against missionaries by passing a law of questionable constitutionality. The state required all American citizens residing on

Indian land to submit to Georgia’s sovereign authority. Missionaries who signed the document were ordered to leave the state. The missionaries recognized that to promote

Indian removal, Georgia infringed upon the rights of American citizens. Rev. Samuel

Austin Worcester and Dr. Elizur Butler were imprisoned by the Georgia Guard because they were no longer protected as federal agents and they refused to declare the state of

Georgia sovereign over federal treaty law. They believed that Georgia’s actions defied basic citizenship rights and threatened the Union itself. In September 1831, at the time of the missionaries’ arrest, Georgia alone defied United States’ federal laws. The missionaries predicted that if citizens like themselves were willing to challenge the state,

Georgia would eventually have to accept the federal laws, and the Union would remain strong. Although Judge John Kelly would have denied it, the missionaries’ willingness to endure imprisonment on behalf of the Cherokees and the United States itself was indeed a profound act of patriotism.

Worcester’s prison journal illustrates how the debates over Cherokee Removal and South Carolina’s Nullification Ordinance influenced one another in the minds of

President Andrew Jackson’s detractors and supporters. Although Jackson personally disavowed any connection between the debates over Cherokee sovereignty and

Nullification, historian Robert Remini acknowledged that Jackson recognized the political importance to remove the missionaries from prison. “The last thing Jackson 245 needed was a confrontation with another state, so he quietly nudged Georgia into obeying the court order and freeing Butler and Worcester.”418 However, had Georgia’s Governor

Wilson Lumpkin upheld the federal court order, it would have been the death of his political career to accept national judicial authority over state sovereignty. Lumpkin needed to find a way to get the missionaries to leave prison through their own initiative, and he succeeded.

When Worcester wrote in his journal, “fraught with disastrous consequences for our country” (December 5, 1832), he decided to withdraw his prison protest on behalf of the Cherokee Nation because South Carolina proclaimed its right to nullify federal law in

November 1832. Although Andrew Jackson’s supporters publicly claimed that the two issues were unrelated, evidence in the text indicates that Jacksonians, Nullifiers, and everyone else recognized the link between Worcester’s imprisonment and South

Carolina’s Nullification Ordinance.

Worcester was born in Peacham, Vermont. He attended the University of

Vermont and the Andover Theological Seminary, following the family tradition of service in the ministry. Worcester was named for his uncle, Dr. Samuel Worcester (1770-

1821), one of the founders of the American Board. In 1825 the American Board sent

Worcester to its most successful Cherokee mission, Brainerd in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Soon after his arrival, Worcester learned to speak the Cherokee language and developed a working knowledge of Sequoyah’s recently invented Cherokee syllabary. Worcester was an important missionary to the Cherokee Indians for several decades in the nineteenth

418 Robert Vincent Remini, Andrew Jackson & His Indian Wars (New York: Viking, 2001), 257. 246 century. He helped found and produce the first bilingual Native American newspaper published in the United States, the Cherokee Phoenix (1828-1835). As Worcester outlined in the prospectus he wrote regarding the creation of the Phoenix, the newspaper’s goals included educating the Cherokees concerning their nation’s laws and documents. The paper intended to share information on all aspects of Cherokee life and history. It would inform Cherokee citizens and interested others on the news of the day.

The Phoenix had subscribers throughout the United States and Europe.

Worcester was a pivotal figure in the Indian Removal Crisis of the 1830s, and the primary defendant in the noteworthy U.S. Supreme Court case Worcester v. Georgia

(1832). Worcester preceded the Cherokees on their “Trail of Tears,” and helped reestablish the Cherokee Nation in what is now Oklahoma. He was an articulate commentator on the states’ rights and Nullification movements during the American antebellum era, an eyewitness to the controversial political murder of the former Phoenix editor, Elias Boudinot, and an observer of the early stages of the Cherokee Civil War.

The Cherokees named Worcester “the Messenger” for his ministry and support. When he died at the age of 61, he was buried in the Park Hill Cemetery in Oklahoma. Worcester’s journal includes his personal observations about his life, his times, his social and ministerial activism, and his participation in some the most momentous events in

American history and law.

In the 1820s politicians in Georgia began pressuring the United States to remove the Cherokees out of the state to the Western territories, and as a young missionary,

Worcester did not hesitate to engage in Cherokee politics. Despite Jacksonian claims to 247 the contrary, President Jackson’s supporters recognized the connection between Cherokee

Removal and South Carolina’s Nullification policies. The 1831-1833 journal describes

Worcester’s role in the progress of the famous “Cherokee cases” of Cherokee Nation v.

Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), which established the modern foundation of tribal sovereignty. Worcester was first arrested for a short time in March of

1831. His July 1831 arrest was longer and more arduous. Worcester published an epistle describing this second arrest by the Georgia Guard. He and several other missionaries were chained and forced to walk for miles to their holding prison. However, Georgia’s

Justice Augustin Smith Clayton released the missionaries because they were employed by the U.S. government. Responding to Clayton’s ruling, the Jackson Administration terminated the missionaries from federal duties.

In September 1831, the Georgia Guard arrested Worcester for the third time.

Worcester and his associate Dr. Elizur Butler were sentenced to four years of hard labor in the Georgia Penitentiary. Worcester and Butler remained in prison for sixteen months,

September 1831 until January 1833. Worcester’s reflections on this third arrest indicate that the Georgia legislature learned important lessons from the earlier two. The Guard treated the missionaries less abrasively. They were tied loosely with cords, not chained, and they slept indoors in taverns along the way to the penitentiary. Wilson Lumpkin, running for the Georgia governorship at the time, slept in the same tavern as the missionaries. Lumpkin expressed a wish to meet with them, but felt it impolitic to do so.

Lumpkin’s interest in the missionaries is an important back story in Worcester’s prison journal. Many American Board missionaries suffered under repeated arrests, 248 indiscriminately applied. With or without chains, they were arrested or threatened with arrest at odd hours of the day or night, carried or force-marched for miles, and left far from home upon release. The experience was humiliating. That only two of them, Samuel

Worcester and Elizur Butler, willingly endured imprisonment leading to the Worcester decision should not render invisible the multiple arrests of several missionaries throughout the course of Jackson’s first term as president.

Fired up with republican ideology, Worcester recognized that the fate of the

Cherokees was bound to the ideals of the United States as expressed in the Constitution.

He worried over the fate of a nation that manipulated constitutional interpretation according to a malleable and fluctuating public will. The United States Supreme Court was unwilling to recognize the Cherokee Nation as an independent foreign state, and therefore, declined to write an opinion on Cherokee sovereignty in the earlier case,

Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (March 1831). However, under the jurisdictional umbrella of the missionaries as U.S. citizens, the United States Supreme Court recognized Cherokee territorial sovereignty and rendered the ground-breaking decision: Worcester v. Georgia,

(1832). The court declared that the Cherokees constituted a sovereign nation and that the state had illegally violated its political autonomy and territorial integrity.

In prison, shortly after the Worcester decision, the missionary reflected, “To defend the Indians the United States are bound by the most solemn obligations, and to neglect it is a most flagrant violation of national faith.”419 Worcester was not alone in his

419 Worcester, S. A. 1798-1859, Journals: 1831-1841, MF POS. 1247, Presbyterian Historical Society, March 29, 1832. 249 concerns over the weakening of the Union by diluting constitutional authority. As presidents, both James Madison and John Quincy Adams negated treaties that they believed were unconstitutional. Monroe had also equated upholding constitutional treaty law with national honor and viability. During the 1832 crisis, Madison greatly feared the debilitating implications of the Nullification crisis over the delicate balance of American republicanism, as one historian explains, “his characteristic equanimity was more than ruffled by a new generation’s reckless disregard, even contempt, for the sobering lessons in their [revolutionary] father’s experience.”420 Instead of quietly acquiescing, when the political leadership of Georgia pointedly ignored the federal judiciary’s decision on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty, many Americans believed that the renegade state established a dangerous precedent that questioned the nation’s viability, despite Jackson’s insistence otherwise. When President Jackson put off compliance with the Worcester decision and simultaneously declared that he was upholding the constitution against

Nullification, he was simply continuing frontier politics in which planters and land speculators defined state constitutions according to their wishes.

Alternatively, when Worcester assisted Cherokee opposition to removal and counseled the Cherokee Nation’s leaders on resistance strategies he was also protecting, in his own mind—and in the mind of the federal judiciary, as it turned out—the interests of the United States. In 1831, the Cherokee Nation stood before the U.S. Supreme Court with two claims: first, federal treaty laws recognized their status as a foreign nation, and

420 John Quincy Adams, First Annual Message, December 6, 1825; Charles C. Royce, The Cherokee Nation (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1975), 78; Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 39. 250 second, Georgia trespassed on their territory, which was protected by federal treaties.

Writing for the court, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), Chief Justice John Marshall explained otherwise, the Cherokee Nation was a “domestic dependent nation,” under the authority of the United States, and therefore the court could not render a decision regarding Georgia’s trespass. When the missionaries who were American citizens became primary targets of Georgia’s animosity, the state’s legislature prohibited non-

Indians from residing within its borders without a license from the governor. Worcester and his associate Dr. Elizur Butler were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to four years at hard labor for violating the license statute. Worcester repudiated this law as unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court, in this case, agreed.

The Georgia courts sentenced Worcester and Butler to prison in September 1831 for refusing to recognize the states’ jurisdiction over Cherokee territory. The Supreme

Court repudiated Georgia’s actions in March 1832, but the court was limited in its ability to enforce decisions. Therefore, the missionaries remained in prison for another ten months until January 1833. As a single state defying national will, Worcester believed that eventually Georgians would bow to the rest of the nation and the federal judiciary, obey federal law, and let the Cherokee Nation remain sovereign in their homeland, according to federal treaty law. However, when Worcester did leave prison, Georgia’s political leadership remained unbowed. Worcester voluntarily left prison in January 1833, not because Georgia capitulated to Supreme Court demands, but because he believed his presence in prison might cause civil war.

251

As the newly-elected governor of Georgia, Lumpkin recognized that he had to resolve the missionaries’ imprisonment because it impeded public support for Jackson’s

Indian removal policies. Publicly Lumpkin attempted to diffuse the controversy at its foundation when he portrayed Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification as separate issues.

Lumpkin denounced South Carolina’s Nullification as a “mystical doctrine of

Nullification.” Nullification bewildered “the minds of the people, inflame[d] their passions, and prepare[d] them for anarchy and revolution.” Alternatively, Cherokee sovereignty, he claimed, was a product of a misguided U.S. Supreme Court, “Its fallacy, its inconsistency with former decisions, and its obvious tendency to intermeddle with the political rights of the States,” was in the mind of the Georgia governor, an entirely different matter.421 However, Lumpkin’s argument remained unwinnable in the public sphere.

Maine’s American Advocate, among many papers, firmly linked South Carolina’s

Nullification Ordinance and Cherokee sovereignty, and indeed, located the source of the conflict with the recently-re-elected President himself, by asking, “Who is the author of

Nullification? ANDREW JACKSON.” When the president ignored the Worcester decision, the Advocate’s editors claimed, his action “was precisely the same . . . now taken by South Carolina with relation to the Tariff laws.”422

The Richmond Enquirer’s Thomas Ritchie, a Jackson supporter, stated firmly that

“we abhor the doctrine of Nullification, as neither a peaceful nor constitutional remedy.”

421 New-York Mercury, New York, NY November 21, 1832. 422 Hallowell, Maine, American Advocate, 01-02-1833. Emphasis in the original. 252

He recognized how difficult it was to keep the sovereignty and Nullification issues separated, but deflected the cause of the controversy away from constitutional authority and focused instead on human error and Cherokee belligerence. The strength of the

Cherokee resistance was due to the inept management by a few U.S. agents. The

Cherokees were trying to “bring the State and the General Government into conflict,” while the United States was trying to avoid conflict.423 Months later, however, Ritchie conceded that the conflicts held international repercussions. London newspapers suggested that the controversies over Georgia and South Carolina weakened the entire

U.S. federation. Quoting the London Globe, the Enquirer reported that the compromise of

South Carolina at the expense of Georgia “will settle nothing as to the stability of the federation, unless it can overcome the extraordinary proposition that any single member of a large numerical Union can terminate it at pleasure.”424 Thus Ritchie indicated he also worried that Jackson’s tactics and inconsistency may have weakened national unity.

To develop his legal arguments on behalf of Indian removals, Jackson chose

Maryland’s Roger B. Taney as his attorney general for the United States. Like Jackson,

Taney believed that the U.S. Constitution could be interpreted to support limited authority of treaties with Native Americans. In a November 1831 report to the president,

Taney explained that Indian treaties were made with land sales in mind, “The reserves in question are not made on the condition of remaining and becoming citizens, but are

423 [Thomas Ritchie], Richmond Enquirer, 12-11-1832. 424 “Speculations Across the Water!”, Richmond Enquirer, 04-09-1833. 253 absolute and made in favor of persons who may be expected to remove.”425 On March 1,

1832, shortly before the Worcester decision, Taney likewise suggested that when a state applied their sovereignty over Indian territories, the state’s laws ruled supreme over

Indian laws or any other federal interference.426 In this way, Taney’s opinion on applied state sovereignty over federal laws may have contributed to Georgia’s harassment of the missionaries in order to establish its authority.

Private Jacksonian Efforts to Diffuse the Connection between Cherokee Sovereignty and Nullification

The anti-Jacksonian press insisted that Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830 and

South Carolina’s Nullification Ordinance were complementary acts of Nullification.

Alternatively, Jackson’s supporters denied any relation between Georgia’s Cherokee sovereignty claims and South Carolina’s Nullification doctrine. Georgia’s Governor

Wilson Lumpkin worked tirelessly to deny the comparison as well. However,

Worcester’s prison journal indicates that the Worcester decision compelled President

Jackson’s supporters privately to recognize a genuine political connection between

Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification. As long as the missionaries remained in the

Georgia Penitentiary, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court had decided against the state, it became more difficult for Jackson to support Georgia’s Cherokee removal efforts.

Quiet and insistent, many pro-Jackson citizens worked to convince the missionaries to

425 Roger Brooke Taney to Andrew Jackson, November 1, 1831; The Papers of Andrew Jackson, A Microfilm Supplement, ed. Harold D. Moser, MS 3426 (University of Tennessee at Knoxville: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1986). 426 Roger Brooke Taney to Andrew Jackson, March 1, 1832; The Papers of Andrew Jackson, A Microfilm Supplement. 254 leave prison, which would also free President Jackson to address South Carolina’s

Nullification doctrines more directly.

Worcester endured prison for both the Cherokee Nation and the United States. He was convinced that the strength of the Union depended upon it upholding a just system of laws. The missionaries believed that by protecting the interests of the Cherokee Nation they were simultaneously upholding the interests of the United States. He wrote, “To defend the Indians the United States are bound by the most solemn obligations, and to neglect it is a most flagrant violation of national faith.”427 Worcester and Butler believed that Georgia as a solitary state would eventually yield without bloodshed, and the integrity of both nations would be safeguarded as a result.

When the missionaries arrived at the penitentiary, the Principal Keeper, Major

Philip Cook, was polite but distant. He supplied writing materials reluctantly and resisted the missionaries’ efforts to hold worship services. However, Worcester and Butler were well fed, their fellow inmates were hospitable, and overall they were content. Worcester wrote, “We are better provided with food than most of the prisoners” and “many of them are forward to show us acts of kindness.”428 As a missionary, Worcester described his experience in religious terms, comparing his prison experience to that of the Apostles.

Worcester received many visitors who urged him to give up his course of action. They suggested that Marshall’s earlier decision, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (March 1831), demonstrated that the missionaries were wasting their time. Worcester and Butler

427 Worcester journal, circa March 1, 1832. 428 Worcester journal, September 30, 1831. 255 gambled that as U.S. citizens in prison on behalf of the Cherokees, they might give the

Cherokee Nation indirect court access. The American Board supported the missionaries in their protest and worked to promote their case before the court and public.

In January 1832 Wilson Lumpkin replaced John Forsyth as Georgia’s governor.

Lumpkin like Forsyth was pro-Union; therefore, Worcester hoped that the Lumpkin administration would uphold the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, if that decision would favor the missionaries. The missionaries were under great pressure from a consistent stream of visitors to relinquish their principled stand on behalf of Cherokee sovereignty.

Worcester realized, however, that these visitors were there to persuade, not engage in an honest give-and-take. Penitentiary personnel monitored Worcester’s journal and as a result the missionary may have avoided airing speculative judgments. Regardless,

Worcester remained firm against his visitors’ pressures. For example, on November 15,

1831, Dr. Church urged the missionaries to leave prison, claiming that they were only hurting the missionary cause in the United States by their imprisonment, were certainly not helping the Indians, and the U.S. Supreme Court would not support them anyway.

Worcester reflected afterwards, “We are not convinced.”429

Occasionally, American Board associates visited as well. Certainly Worcester felt supported by the occasional visits from the exhaustively peripatetic William Potter, a fellow missionary and attorney for the American Board. Unlike most of Worcester’s visitors, Potter insisted that the missionaries were widely supported for their actions, and

Worcester was more inclined to adhere to the advice of his friend. Potter claimed that

429 Worcester journal, November 15, 1831. 256 every state except Georgia supported the missionaries, and even South Carolina remained divided over the issue. He reported that the influential New York jurist Chancellor Kent

“expressed a decided opinion that the course we have pursued is right. 1500 were already subscribed in the city of New York towards sustaining the expense of our trial at

Washington, & even at Augusta in this state some individuals were contributing for the purpose.”430 These occasional visits from friends such as William Potter helped to sustain the missionaries’ resolve. However, in December 1831, Worcester’s prison experience wore thin. Some prisoners had evidently taken advantage of the missionaries’ privileges and goodwill. They made a jail break through Worcester’s room and Major Cook held the missionaries accountable for the escape. As punishment, Worcester’s access to quill and ink were severely limited, and they were forbidden to preach anymore. Fellow inmates seemed less willing to consort with the missionaries and Worcester began feeling despondent. But things quickly turned for the better.

On January 1, 1832, immediately upon the start of Lumpkin’s administration,

Colonel Charles C. Mills replaced Major Cook as Principal Keeper. Mills was considerably friendlier toward the missionaries and became Worcester’s principal confidante for the rest of his imprisonment. Mills was an elder in the Presbyterian Church and served a judgeship as well. After the wearing distrust they had experienced from

Cook, Worcester was understandably grateful for Mills, believing the new warden’s appointment to be an act of Providence. Most important, Worcester’s guarded behavior relaxed significantly in the presence of the new Principal Keeper, who encouraged the

430 Worcester journal, November 24, 1831. 257 missionaries to preach to the inmates and attended the prayer services himself. The stream of visitors continued, pressing the missionaries to abandon their prison protest.

Meanwhile, Worcester recorded regular conversations with Mills, indicating a steadily growing familiarity. Mills provided all the ink and paper that the missionaries desired, as well as reading materials. Mills indicated respect for the missionaries’ actions, even as he differed from them. Shortly before Marshall’s Worcester v. Georgia decision on behalf of the missionaries and Cherokee sovereignty, Worcester and Mills debated the nature of

Providence. Mills believed that Providence was powerful enough to “bring good out of evil” human actions. But he also acknowledged that the missionaries were righteous, and

“he admitted the soundness of the principle” that Worcester felt compelled to follow.431

On March 12, 1832, the missionaries learned of Chief Justice John Marshall’s landmark decision on their behalf. In Worcester v. Georgia, Marshall announced that the

Georgia laws “have no force to divest the plaintiff [Samuel Worcester] in error of his property or liberty.” The state laws were “repugnant to the Constitution of the United

States and the treaties and laws made under it.” Georgia did not have the right to remove the missionaries from Cherokee lands, and the state’s actions were void and unconstitutional. Marshall, however, did not simply free the missionary prisoners, he declared the Cherokee Nation sovereign. “The Cherokee nation is a distinct community occupying its own territory,” Marshall declared. “The whole intercourse between the

United States and this nation is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States.” The treaties established by the United States “acknowledge the said

431 Worcester journal February 29, 1832. 258

Cherokee Nation to be a sovereign nation,” Marshall avowed, “authorized to govern themselves, and all persons who have settled within their territory, free from any right of legislative interference.” Marshall continued, “The whole of the territory now occupied by the Cherokee nation, on the east of the Mississippi, has been solemnly guaranteed to them; all of which treaties are existing treaties at this day, and in full force.”432 It appeared in that moment the missionaries had gambled and won a great victory for both

American federal law and the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. Worcester was elated when Mills gave them the news, and uncharacteristically underlined it twice. “In the morning Col. Mills informed us that the decision of the Supreme Court had been announced in the Washington papers as being in our favor.”433 Yet Jackson’s supporters managed to snatch the missionaries’ victory from defeat by convincing them that remaining in prison would hurt the Union, not protect it.

Setting up the Sting: Dinner at the Governor’s, March 13, 1832

Shortly after the Worcester decision, Mills informed Worcester that they would most likely remain in prison until after President Jackson’s re-election. Mills claimed that the general public believed that the missionaries’ imprisonment was a “political effect” against Jackson, but it would not work. Mills then related a conversation over dinner with

Governor Lumpkin, Col. William W. Williamson and “Mr.” Dr. D. H. Reese.434

432 Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 6 Pet. 596 (1832). 433 Worcester journal, March 12, 1832. 434 Williamson served as an aide de camp for General John E. Coffee, who oversaw the occupation of the Cherokee territory. General John E. Coffee in Georgia was a cousin to General John R. Coffee of Tennessee and Alabama. 259

Col. W. to Col. M. You are greatly taken in by Worcester. He can tell a thousand lies.

Col. M.—Col. W., I know Mr. Worcester better than you do. You have no doubt heard such things from some persons, from Col. Nelson perhaps. I could not take Col. N’s ipse dixit for any thing.435 I would as soon take Worcester’s word as that of any man in the United States. I may be deceived in the man, but if I am I am grossly deceived.

Mr. R. I am altogether of your opinion. I know Mr. W. too. . . .You may reason with these men, and convince them of what is right, and they will do it, but you cannot force them.436

The story as related by Mills deeply touched Worcester, and he believed that under different circumstances, “humility would forbid [his] recording” the conversation. He worried that “my character is undergoing so severe a scrutiny,” that he related this story in his journal to ease any of the misgivings that his family might hold over his actions.

For reasons yet unknown, in fact, in this recollection Mills explained to Worcester the precise strategy that Lumpkin’s supporters would employ to ease the missionaries out of prison. They recognized that they could not wear the missionaries down from their resolve. They needed to change the political situation so that Worcester would be convinced that leaving prison, not remaining there, was the right thing to do. Worcester found Mills’s personal conclusions perplexing, although he certainly deliberated over

435 Ipse dixit: Latin: “he himself said it” meaning, an assertion made but not proved. The viability of the statement, therefore, depends upon the reputation of the speaker, making the statement acceptable or not. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ipse%20dixit. Colonel Charles Haney Nelson was a principal instigator of trouble for the Cherokees and their missionaries. The worst atrocities were usually initiated under his supervision. When John Howard Payne was arrested by the Georgia Guard in 1835, he referred to Nelson and his men as “banditti.” John Howard Payne, John Howard Payne to his Countrymen. Clemens de Baillou, intro. and ed. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, [1835] 1961). It is significant that the political leadership of Georgia relied on Nelson to harass the Cherokees and missionaries, but they did not trust him. Nelson’s untrustworthy “usefulness” indicates both the problems and benefits of employing extra-legal violence. 436 Worcester journal, March 13, 1832. 260 them. He believed that Mills was “evidently very painfully affected in view of the decision of the Supreme Court” and wondered if the missionaries were motivated “by political motives.” Worcester worried over this judgment because Mills had been so kind to them and their family when they visited. He wrote a prayer hoping that God would give Mills the insight to understand the missionaries’ patriotic motivations, and it is likely that Worcester expected Mills to read this reflection at some point and believe his inward prayer. Mills believed that the Supreme Court wrote their opinion in order to influence the election against Jackson, but Worcester found this opinion unfathomable. “It is indeed utterly astonishing to what degree prejudices are carried, and what scheme and motives are imparted to those who endeavor to sustain the cause of justice on behalf of the oppressed Indians.”437 There are, of course, historians today who wonder along with

Mills’s suspicions. Worcester may have been naïve, or Mills may have been jaded, but

Worcester’s journal provides some justification to re-visit Marshall’s writings and re- consider the Chief Justice’s motivations behind the Worcester decision.

As the months proceeded, Mills increased the missionaries’ comfort. He gave them a private room in the prison with no guards to stand over them. After all, why lock them in when Georgia wanted more than anything for the missionaries to leave prison?

Representatives from the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina visited the missionaries in late April. After the Worcester decision, visitors developed new arguments attempting to encourage the missionaries to leave prison. Now the missionaries should leave prison since they have made their point by winning the case. However, in May the American

437 Worcester journal, March 23, 1832. 261

Board governing committee, the Prudential Committee, sent them a letter that encouraged the missionaries to remain firm. Likewise, Mills encouraged the missionaries to defend their position. He gave them extra materials needed to write public responses. Butler asked Mills if it was right for the missionaries to defend their position, since they were

“convicts in prison.” Mills responded that “there is a wide difference between those who are sent to prison for the commission of crime, and those who have committed no crime.”438 After the Worcester decision, Worcester recorded significantly more conversations with Mills, indicating their increased camaraderie. They continued to differ about political interpretations of events, but their differences also indicated mutual respect.

Mills encouraged Worcester and Butler to make themselves as comfortable as possible, and claimed that the missionaries had patrons who would spare no expense for their comfort, although he declined to name them. Worcester learned through Mills that the Jackson administration increased their efforts to formulate a removal treaty, but the

Cherokee Council refused to treat at that time, responding that the government should discharge the missionaries in accord with the Supreme Court judgment.439 In August,

Mills told Worcester that “no one could be more desirous than he for [their] release,” and

438 Worcester journal, May 21, 1832. 439 James William Van Hoeven biography of Rev. John Schermerhorn describes his support for Jackson’s Indian policies as an evangelical missionary to help counteract the impact of the American Board and the missionary arrests. Schermerhorn was instrumental in the New Echota Treaty of 1835. “Salvation and Indian Removal: The Career Biography of the Rev. John Freeman Schermerhorn, Indian Commissioner (PhD diss., Vanderbilt University, 1972). Ronald Satz describes the efforts of a newly formulated New York Indian Board to defend Indian removal as a humanitarian gesture. The Jackson administration subverted funds designated for Indian education to publish the Board’s pamphlets. Satz, American Indian Policy, 15. 262 even Governor Lumpkin wished that he could provide for their comfort out of prison.440

In September, the American Board approached the Governor about the possibility of a parole for the missionaries. Lumpkin turned the suggestion down, but invited the missionaries’ friends and family to dinner at his home. When the missionaries’ families visited them in prison, Mills invited Worcester and Butler to breakfast in his own home, where they had unsupervised time to relax in his library and converse with family. Mills indicated that the governor believed that the missionaries would not remain in prison much longer. Land sales would commence soon, and there would be no more reason to keep them. In October and November, the missionaries’ visitors increased in number.

Worcester recorded several instances in his journal over Mills’ prediction for the missionaries’ release. Although Worcester did not complain in his journal over his imprisonment, it is likely that he longed for freedom. Worcester and Butler remained in prison out of a sense of duty. They wanted the state of Georgia to recognize its error and release the missionaries in submission to the Supreme Court decision on their behalf.

Lumpkin was convinced that it would be political suicide to admit federal sovereignty over state sovereignty. Ultimately, few people wanted the missionaries to be imprisoned.

The conflict was over the political effect of their release.

It is worth noting that the heightened public fears over disunion did not surface until South Carolina’s Ordinance in November 1832, and these fears subsided shortly after the missionaries’ release. Thus, single state challenges appeared to be significantly less threatening. Georgia’s challenge to the Supreme Court through land sales and South

440 Worcester journal, August 16, 1832. 263

Carolina’s bluster over nullifying the legislative Force Act in March 1833 were, in both cases, acts of single state protests, once the missionaries were out of prison. Worcester and Butler’s imprisonment was a significant act in the Nullification crisis.

Meanwhile, the American Board worked feverishly on behalf of the missionaries and Cherokees. Worcester understood that the Governor and Georgia’s state legislature were unlikely to respond positively to the Worcester decision, “as numbers of

[legislators] were quite anxious that nothing should be done which would seem to compromise the interest of the state.”441 Until Jackson presented his Force Bill of 1833 to

Congress, shortly after the missionaries left prison, the U.S. Constitution did not explicitly provide the U.S. Supreme Court or the Executive the authority to force states to comply with judicial and legislative decisions. It is reasonable to question why it took so long for the state to have to confront the Worcester decision directly.

Law historian Tim Alan Garrison provides tantalizing evidence that a legal associate for the Cherokee Nation and the American Board, Elisha Chester, double- crossed the missionaries and may have circumvented the American Board’s effort to pressure the Supreme Court and force Georgia’s hand through a second Writ of Error.

Born in Connecticut, and schooled in Vermont, Chester moved to Georgia to practice law. He was generally well-regarded and acted as advocate for the Cherokee Nation. The

Cherokees eventually invited to Chester to accept a retainer on their behalf. Indeed,

Chester’s firm represented the American Board missionaries at the state level, and the

American Board relied heavily upon Chester’s guidance. Chester had a successful

441 Worcester journal, November 28, 1832. 264 practice in Georgia, but suffered socially and financially for his Cherokee support. The retired Attorney General William Wirt represented the missionaries at the federal level, but Chester provided significant assistance. Indeed, Marshall appointed Chester to bring word of the Supreme Court’s Worcester decision to Georgia, but the Georgia courts refused to acknowledge the decision or free the missionaries. According to Garrison, shortly after Chester vainly entreated Jackson or Governor Lumpkin to uphold the

Worcester decision, he made quiet overtures to assist with removal efforts. Chester focused on negotiating the best removal deal he could for the Cherokee Nation. Chester’s change of heart appeared to have a similar effect on the American Board.

Some historians have suggested that the nation’s support for the Cherokees was partisanship against Jackson in disguise. In this interpretation, the debates over the

Cherokee sovereignty were not critically important themselves, they were primarily an excuse. This is mostly a chicken-egg argument because some evidence suggests that the choice between Jackson and Clay may have been driven by which candidate could best protect the Union. As Garrison demonstrates, Chester argued for Jackson, because he would most likely demolish the U.S. Supreme Court “& the Govt virtually dissolved.”

Clay, on the other hand, might actually try to protect Cherokee sovereignty, and removal opponents “would exult in such an opportunity of ending the Union.”442 Chester leaned toward Jackson, not because of partisanship, but because of the significant impact of

Cherokee sovereignty on American politics at this time.

442 Elisha W. Chester, “Reasons Why the Cherokees Should Make a Treaty Now,” May 1832, ABCFM Archives, ABC 18.3.1. vol. 7, item 187; as quoted in Garrison, “Shades of Loyalty,” 145. 265

Thus supporting Jackson, Chester slowed down his efforts, intentionally it turns out, to provide support for the Cherokee Nation. The Supreme Court adjourned before

Wirt could submit the necessary papers, which put off the Writ for almost a year, until

February 1833, at which point, Jackson was re-elected and embroiled in South Carolina’s

Ordinance.443 As late as November 29, 1832, Worcester was clear in his own mind that he would not be forced out of prison despite all these delays.

All prospect of being discharged before the Supreme Court act further upon the subject is, in my apprehension, helped away, and to what extent our imprisonment will be protested we cannot tell. May God give us grace to act rightly, and suffer patiently.444

When William Potter visited the missionaries they discussed the legal strategies available to them in order to push the state and federal legislature for their release. They were unsure how best to proceed, and it was a mark of Worcester’s trust in Mills’s judgment that he confided in the Principal Keeper for his advice in the matter. Worcester received some intelligence about an ad hoc Cherokee Delegation (not the officially recognized Cherokee National Council) which intended to establish a treaty. This Ridge faction would eventually negotiate the New Echota Treaty in 1835 with the U.S. government, although the Cherokee Council as well as the majority of the Cherokee

Nation were adverse to such a treaty. While the Ridge faction did not have legitimate authority to sanction a treaty, congress passed it—barely—and Jackson ratified it. In

November, a significantly larger number of sympathetic advocates had access to meet

443 Tim Alan Garrison, “The Shades of Loyalty: Elisha W. Chester and the Cherokee Removal,” Signposts: New Directions in Southern Legal History, edited by Sally E. Hadden and Patricia Hagler Minter (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2013). 444 Worcester journal, November 29, 1832 266 and talk with the missionaries, generally stating that most Americans supported their cause, but were more concerned about tariffs and therefore voted accordingly. While the rest of the nation acquiesced to Georgia’s choices, visitors to the missionaries realized they would remain unyielding. On December 2, a legislator named Col. Harrison shook

Worcester’s hand with great warmth and sincerity, and called him “brother.” Unaware of the rising threat from South Carolina, Worcester and Butler steadfastly remained political prisoners on behalf of the Cherokee Nation and the United States.

The Sting: Cherokee Sovereignty and Nullification, December 3, 1832

On December 3, Judge John A. Cuthbert requested a private conversation with the missionaries. He respected Worcester and Butler’s strength of purpose but believed that the time had come, for the good of the nation, for them to relinquish their prison protest.

Cuthbert explained that “he was perfectly convinced of our sincerity and conscientiousness.” He admired their resolve and lack of ill-will toward those who persecuted them. Cuthbert frankly agreed with the rightness of their cause and “felt deeply wounded in the reproach to the state of shutting up those men in prison.” He, therefore, had made many private efforts to seek their release. After establishing his support for the missionaries, Cuthbert explained why he felt that the time had come for them to choose to leave prison. He worried that they now jeopardized all they stood for: the Cherokees, their country, and their missionary work. Cuthbert revealed to the missionaries the November 24th Ordinance of Nullification from South Carolina that declared its unilateral state’s right to decide the constitutionality of federal tariff legislation. The authority of two federal branches of the United States government, the 267 judiciary and the legislative, were directly challenged by two separate states. Cuthbert feared that the states’ rights challenges against the federal government would continue to spread. He worried that Georgia would restrain from military confrontation for a while, but “was apprehensive that if, in addition to the tariffs, the people were irritated by further controversy with the Supreme Court, it would be impossible to restrain the spirit of disunion.” At this point, Cuthbert suggested that the missionaries’ principled resolve had unintentionally become a matter of personal pride that to appear as “firm and consistent men” they might in fact be jeopardizing the safety of the nation.445

Worcester reflected over the news of South Carolina’s Nullification Ordinance.

The state “had set herself in open defiance of the United States” and Georgia, while temporarily restrained, would only follow suit if the courts were to press for the missionaries’ release. Georgia was no longer an isolated state. Two states challenged federal authority simultaneously. Likely in a state of shock over this sudden turn of events, Worcester wrote nothing beyond reporting Cuthbert’s claim on December 3, and he made no entry on December 4. The next day, on December 5, Roswell King from

Darien County and a member of the Georgia State House interviewed the missionaries and repeated Cuthbert’s plea to the missionaries.

He stated that he was a member of the Presbyterian church, and he was one who disapproved the whole course of measures pursued by the state of Georgia in relation to the Cherokees and to ourselves, and approved the decision of the Supreme Court in our case. But he thought that our prosecuting the case farther would be fraught with disastrous consequences for our country, and that no good could possibly result from it. The apprehension that further collision with the

445 Worcester Journal, December 3, 1832. 268

Supreme Court would lead Georgia to join with South Carolina was much insisted on both by him today, and by Mr. Cuthbert two days ago.446

After this second meeting, Worcester asked for Mills’s opinion on the subject. “I had a little conversation with Col. Mills,” the missionary wrote. It is critical to note how rapidly

Mills had shifted from friendly confidante to accuser. Mills’s judgment was caustic. It hit

Worcester hard, for the missionary devoted more space to reciting this conversation than any other, as if every word had been seared into his memory:

The idea that we would rather be released by the power of the Supreme Court at the expense of civil war than receive an unconditional discharge, (for in this light it is viewed) excited the most angry feelings against us. Col. M. thought us very wrong. The case was doing immense injury to the cause of religion. The part which the American Board had taken in the case would be explored, and the influence of that Board would be prostrated. In three years it would cease to exist. Presbyterian ministers in the state were prepared to lay the case before the General Assembly, with a view to compel the Board to retract, or to withdraw from it the patronage of the Presbyterian church. The Board, it was evident had undertaken in the outset to prevent the emigration of the Indians. They had interfered in [ ] matters, where they have no right. Our friends were leading us astray. He had been informed by Col. Cook that the Northern men in Augusta were the most bitter against us. They had been to visit their friends, and returned chafed by angry disputations. They reported, too, that there was a great division of sentiment on the subject at the North, particularly in the state of New York; people had taken sides, the dispute was violent, and it was very doubtful which side was strongest. . . . He also stated that my character was spoiled with the charge of obstinacy—that some of my college acquaintance (sic) had reported that I was always obstinate—that when I set out for any thing there was no moving me—and that such, indeed, was a general characteristic of the Worcesters.447

Mills attacked Worcester in his three most vulnerable places: his patriotism, his faith, and his character. The sudden turn of Mills against Worcester is especially jarring when compared to his earlier solicitous responses. What was behind this change? Did South

446 Worcester Journal, December 5, 1832. My italics. 447 Worcester journal, December 6, 1832. Worcester’s underlining. 269

Carolina’s proclamation alter Mills’s perception this significantly? Did he know the effect his opinion would have on Worcester? More pointedly, was Mills part of a set-up against the missionaries’ resolve, springing the trap that had been set in motion after the dinner conversation at the governor’s house in March 1832, when Dr. Reese explained,

“You may reason with these men, and convince them of what is right, and they will do it, but you cannot force them.”448

Whatever Mills’s motivation for criticizing Worcester’s actions and integrity, it had the desired effect. The missionaries were suddenly willing to sign virtually any document to get out of prison. Indeed, considering Gov. Lumpkin’s earlier entreaties to the missionaries to leave prison, one might have expected the governor to be overjoyed that the missionaries were finally willing to leave. But Lumpkin appeared hesitant, requiring apologies before release. Cuthbert reported that Lumpkin was “very angry at our thus declaring our conviction of the justice of our cause.”449 Shaken and perhaps caught off guard, the missionaries asked for Governor Lumpkin’s pardon, requesting his magnanimity, which he granted on January 14, 1833. Two days later on January 16,

Jackson presented the Force Bill of 1833 to Congress. With the missionaries out of prison and no longer creating an issue, congress passed the Force Act and Compromise Tariff, which Jackson signed into law on March 1, 1833. The Force Act gave both the executive and judiciary the authority to enforce their decisions. Increasingly isolated, South

Carolina rescinded its Nullification Ordinance against federal tariff law on January 21,

448 Worcester journal, March 14, 1832. 449 Worcester journal, January 8, 1833. 270

1833. On March 7, South Carolina’s legislator’s nullified the Force Act, but it hardly mattered at this point. The missionaries had left their Georgia prison, and therefore no one worried over a lone state resisting federal law.

Years later, Worcester added an undated postscript to his prison journal, recording his regret over the letter he signed for his release. Their pardon had been misconstrued as an apology, which they did not intend. Worcester did not regret withdrawing their suit against Georgia’s unconstitutional legislation, for even in hindsight he was convinced that “Nothing could have been gained by its further prosecution.”450

Conclusion

The missionaries indicated a significant indifference to the livelihood struggles of white Georgians residing near Cherokee territory. They also recorded atrocities committed against the Cherokees by American citizens. For example, Rev. Daniel Sabin

Butrick reported the rapid demise of the respected Old Fields family through the handiwork of the Georgia militia. Old Field was a former captain of the Cherokee

Lighthorse militia and a valued member of the Hightower community, “He and his family were industrious, and had acquired a handsome property. He was a firm friend to the government of his own nations, and adhered strictly to the advice of the council & principal chief.” When a lieutenant of the Georgia Guard told Old Field that he should arrest any Georgians that trespassed on Cherokee territory, the Cherokee captain took him at his word. However when Old Field followed through with that order, he was subsequently prosecuted for false arrest. The Georgia militia took everything that his

450 Worcester journal, Postscript, circa, 1843. 271 family owned: property, livestock and produce. When the family remained in the homestead, the militia abducted his wife and dragged her about “with a rope around her neck, etc. until at length, finding all their exertions to defend themselves fail, they concluded to leave that part of the country.” One can only imagine what Butrick meant by “etc.” when the soldiers tied and dragged Mrs. Old Field about. Butrick lamented,

“While the white man can go and come without fear of robbery, oppression and murder, the poor Indian must watch night and day to preserve one little poney (sic) to plough his field.” Indian patriarchs “must watch his wife and daughters with an eagle eye, or they will be betrayed, debauched, and worse than murdered by American citizens.” Through his journal Butrick cried out, “If American citizens were not insensible to shame, they would blush at the recital of their deeds.” Yet, he concluded, “All the eloquence of heaven could not move them to compassion, or incline them to justice.”451 The missionaries were powerful witnesses to the blatant disregard for human life on Cherokee land. Also important, the missionaries themselves, respected citizens of the United States, received scant protections during their protests against militia atrocities.

The missionaries felt powerless in their protests against the incredible atrocities committed upon Native Americans. Yet, the missionaries also offered little understanding of the plight of many American citizens who found it increasingly difficult to prosper in the rapidly expanding nation. Yet this juxtaposition was precisely the political climate of the antebellum era. Neither the planters, land speculators, nor the missionaries held much hope for relief among an increasingly impoverished American citizenry. Even those who

451 Daniel Sabin Butrick Journal, January 11, 1832 and August 15, 1832; ABCFM. 272 had worked on behalf of the Cherokee Nation in this heady year 1832 over declarations of constitutional authority eventually decided that their battle had been purposeless—and they hoped—immaterial. For if the Cherokee cause really did not matter, then maybe the

Union would survive after all. With every depressed business cycle, there was decreasing evidence of prosperity rewards for republican virtue and industry. Frustrated and ineffectual, the voting public rejected president after president after Andrew Jackson, and voter dissatisfaction became normal politics in the antebellum era that subsequently emerged.

273

EPILOGUE MULTIDIRECTIONAL MEMORIES AND THE LOGIC OF SCARCITY

January 1833 marked the official resolution over the Cherokee sovereignty and

Nullification Debates. Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler left the Georgia Penitentiary on January 14. On January 16, Jackson requested that Congress grant him additional powers to protect tariff collectors and increase military readiness for force if needed. In

February, Congress passed the Force Bill and the Compromise Tariff, both of which

Jackson signed into law on March 1. The crisis was averted and the Union saved.

Intriguing to the legacy of the crisis, American leaders once embroiled in these simultaneous conflicts began to dissociate Cherokee sovereignty from Nullification by diminishing the significance of the former crisis. Nullification loomed increasingly larger as a precursor to Southern secession, and the debate over Cherokee sovereignty simply dissolved into the collective memory of multiple American Indian removals.

It is striking to note how each crisis grew increasingly entwined with the other until January 1833. Once Worcester left prison and congress passed the Force Act, it is equally striking how individuals involved tried to dissociate the two conflicts. Samuel

Worcester and John Quincy Adams both diminished the importance of Cherokee sovereignty in America’s political debates.452 In their writings, their efforts to forget

452 William Wirt, the attorney who represented the Cherokee Nation and Worcester in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), also engaged in this process of forgetting. Wirt died two years later in February 1834. His associate, John P. Kennedy published Wirt’s memoirs fifteen years later. It appears to be an authorized biography of Wirt, because Kennedy worked closely with the retired attorney general over the content. In a two volume set comprising of almost 800 pages, only two of these pages are devoted to the Cherokee cases. These two pages are predominantly a discussion of Marshall’s decision, not a reflection over the significance of these cases. Instead of a culmination of a long career of judicial influence, Wirt’s view of the Cherokee cases appears to be an afterthought, mentioned briefly for the sake 274 indicate an attempt to contain the crisis as one essential problem over Nullification. They identified corresponding villains, innocents, or resolutions that suggest the limits of their vision over what was necessary to protect the Union. Considering the widespread forgetting over the connections between Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification Debates, there is little wonder that historians have lost track of the parameters contributing to this brief period of crisis. Since the process of “forgetting” became a critical dénouement for the 1832 crisis, a reflection over the process itself may provide insight into the nature of

Cherokee sovereignty’s significance in American politics. Theorist Michael Rothberg suggests that “forgetting” is a formulation of the zero-sum game, which he calls the

“logic of scarcity.”453

The logic of scarcity encourages the imposition of a “hierarchy of suffering.”

This hierarchy of suffering is analogous to a hierarchy of significance in studies of political history. Newer political histories countermand this process of forgetting by recognizing the multiple forms of agency applied by the non-elite, such as enslaved

Americans, Native peoples, women and the poor on their contemporary politics, and this study has benefitted greatly from these earlier efforts.454 Rothberg explains that when

of comprehensiveness. However, Kennedy still recognized the connection between the political acts of Georgia and South Carolina. He claimed, “The judgment was treated as a nullity, and the Missionaries were still retained in the penitentiary, until the Governor of Georgia thought proper himself to release them.” Kennedy concluded, “After some eighteen months, this day arrived. The contest had grown hopeless to the weaker party. The Missionaries were released; and here ended this extraordinary chapter in the history of our free government.” John P. Kennedy, Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt, Attorney General of the United States, in Two Volumes, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1849) II: 372, 373. 453 Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 2. 454 The fields of social history, cultural history and the new political history developed methodologies to combat the unintended negating of historical agency. At the same time, in our rush to ascribe agency to those rendered invisible in elite political histories, Walter Johnson cautions against misapplied agency. 275 people feel overwhelmed by a series of crises, they may embrace logic of scarcity to gain some level of control and insight. The specter of disunion may have frightened so many

Americans that they chose to forget Cherokee sovereignty’s significance after the rise of the Nullification. Oversimplifying the narrative of Nullification without Cherokee sovereignty, embraced a “zero-sum game of competition with the memory of other histories.” This process, Rothberg asserts, blurs the “boundaries between fact and fiction and between persecuted and persecutor.”455 Although Worcester and Adams recoiled at the violence of Indian removals, Jackson outmaneuvered his opponents by pressuring them to either embrace disunion or deny Cherokee significance. However, denying significance does not necessarily render the event insignificant.

Although the profound impact Cherokee sovereignty had on American politics has been forgotten that does not diminish its importance. This process of forgetting carried its own costs that went beyond the Indian nations themselves. It contributed to the continued vulnerability of American citizens, and Rev. Samuel Worcester provides a compelling example. He endured imprisonment from 1831 to 1833 on behalf of the moral legitimacy of the American nation and for Cherokee sovereignty rights. Worcester was convinced that to “defend the Indians the United States are bound by the most solemn obligations, and to neglect it is a most flagrant violation of national faith.”456 As a patriot and a citizen, he willingly suffered for his nation’s sake, and he won the approbation of

Overused agency becomes pointless when it claims that historical actors demonstrated agency by remaining “human.” (Walter Johnson, “On Agency,” Journal of Social History, 37:1 (Fall 2003), 113-124.) 455 Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory, 9. Lipstadt is a well-known historian of holocaust deniers. 456 Worcester, S. A. 1798-1859, Journals: 1831-1841, MF POS. 1247, Presbyterian Historical Society, circa March 1, 1832. 276 the U.S. Supreme Court for his efforts. At some later point, however, Worcester changed his mind. He concluded that his efforts to protect the integrity of U.S. and Cherokee sovereignty became irrelevant in the end. The Cherokee Nation did not stand a chance to avoid removal. Perhaps, he decided, ordinary patriots should avoid American politics. In an undated postscript, Worcester reflected over his imprisonment and release:

Note. I have ever regretted the use of the word “magnanimity” in our note to the Governor of Ga. Jan. 9. 1833, because it was liable to misconstruction, as, indeed, it was misconstrued or misrepresented into a petition for pardon. We meant no such thing—nothing at all inconsistent with what we wrote the day before. We meant only that, though o[u]r cause was good, we had determined not to prosecute it any further. on the one hand, nor, on the other, to ask for pardon, where we had committed no offence; but just to leave ourselves at their disposal—to do whatever they might consider as consistent with “magnanimity” towards men who were thus left entirely in their power.

The propriety of our withdrawing our suit I do not doubt. Nothing could have been gained by its further prosecution.457

Although the date of the postscript is unknown, it is remarkable how disengaged

Worcester became over his place in national politics as a citizen. Further, Worcester indicated in this postscript that he believed he was at the mercy of his political superiors,

“to leave ourselves at their disposal—to do whatever they might consider as consistent with “magnanimity” towards men who were thus left entirely in their power.” Worcester concluded that his efforts to influence the course of American politics, to change the minds of his superiors, was in vain, and perhaps, it would have gone better for the

Cherokee Nation had he not even tried.

457 Worcester journal, undated. Worcester’s underlining. My italics. 277

From his imprisonment in September 1831 to his release January 1833,

Worcester had been at the height of his political engagement. Shortly before the Supreme

Court handed down the Worcester v. Georgia (March 3, 1832) decision, the prison keeper, Col. Charles Mills warned Worcester against the futility of his efforts. The leadership of Georgia would simply dismiss a favorable federal court decision and, further, Mills was certain that “the state would encounter a civil war rather than submit, and other states would join her.” Mills argued that Worcester should leave politics to “an overriding Providence” that was fully capable of “bringing good out of evil” without human assistance. Mills expressed a view that Worcester would later adopt, but in that moment, the missionary emphatically disagreed:

There is a grossly false view of the Indian question, in which the interests of the United States, and the interests of a small tribe are supposed to be the two things which are to be weighed together. In opposition to this view I quoted the maxim “fiat etc.” The question is not between interest and interest, but between fancied interest and justice. To rob is not expedient, because it is not right. To defend the Indians the United States are bound by the most solemn obligations, and to neglect it is a most flagrant violation of national faith. God have mercy upon our land.458

Worcester endured imprisonment because he refused to believe that the interests of the

Cherokees and the United States were separate. Further, he felt certain that his engaged response could have a positive effect on national security and the welfare of the Cherokee people. He believed that his resistance to Georgia’s and the president’s administration policies was an important act of republican patriotism. Worcester’s release and the

458 Worcester Journal, February 29, 1832. “Fiat etc” refers to Fiat justitia ruat caelum, Latin for “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.” Worcester’s underlining. 278

Cherokee’s removal completely altered Worcester’s view of his responsibilities and authority as a U.S. citizen.

Over the ten-year period from 1831 to 1841, Worcester’s political activity diminished considerably. It is striking to note how increasingly disempowered he felt as an American citizen, unable to perceive any significant impact upon the actions or decisions of political leaders when he was “left entirely in their power.” Essentially,

Worcester gave up his political engagement as an American citizen. Instead, he focused his energies exclusively on religion and education for the Cherokees he served. Just three years later, in October 1835 and shortly before the Ridge faction negotiated the New

Echota Treaty, Worcester wrote, “I shall be careful not to intermeddle with the political affairs of the [Cherokee] nation.” He resolved only to work on behalf of their welfare as a teacher for the “promotion of knowledge.”459 Worcester was done with politics. He believed his dissent on behalf of the Cherokee Nation had been pointless, and may have even contributed to their distress when he could not remain in prison to protect their sovereignty. The American Board no longer spearheaded a national debate over Cherokee sovereignty but rather defensively negotiated with reformers who were increasingly critical of the Cherokee Nation’s involvement with slavery.

John Quincy Adams, of course, did not shy away from politics, but as he determined to confront the increased significance of Nullification over the fate of the

Union, he likewise denied the importance of Cherokee sovereignty. Adams remained only tangentially involved in the Cherokee debates early in the decade after he lost his

459 Worcester Journals, October 23, 1835. 279 reelection campaign. Yet, oddly and unintentionally, he maintained the Cherokees’ connection with Nullification later in the decade as a Massachusetts representative.

Adams initiated his attack against the “Gag Rule,” which prohibited the reading of abolitionist petitions in Congress at the moment federal troops were forcing the

Cherokees into detainment forts. At the moment federal troops began enforcing Cherokee removal, Adams argued against Nullification by reflecting over the importance of the land for America’s prosperity and security. As a President who had re-negotiated the

Creek land sale treaty in 1826 to protect constitutional restrictions, Adams chose an evocative moment to validate the importance of American land and prosperity as a counterpoint to slavery and Nullification.

When he attacked the Gag Rule, Adams explained that America’s central problems were Nullification and slavery. Nullification, for Adams, could destroy the

Union, and slavery was at the heart of Nullification. “Slavery—the perpetuation and propagation of slavery and the Slave trade was at the bottom of it all,” he claimed.460

Adams had not forgotten Native Americans. Indians were part of the nation’s tragic actions, but Indian Removal became merely one item on the list of American imperfections. Demonstrating Rothberg’s emerging hierarchy of oppression through the logic of scarcity, Adams chose to believe that the debate over Cherokee sovereignty was simply a subset of Indian removal history and not as important as other more pressing issues. Yet, the connection and its significance remained, even if unacknowledged.

460 National Enquirer Pennsylvania Freeman, Philadelphia, PA, 08-30-1838. 280

While Adams de-emphasized the significance of the Cherokee Nation’s sovereign right to protect its homelands, he emphasized the importance of land, its abundance and its gifts for the American people. Adams believed that land was fundamental to American prosperity, and slavery was fundamental to American strife.

Intriguingly, this former President focused upon slavery as the impediment to national stability while explicitly diminishing the societal impact of federal and Georgian military personnel who were forcing Cherokees from their Georgian homes. The Cherokee

Nation’s right to sovereignty was absent from Adams’s equation of national stability through land and prosperity.

Adams believed that slavery alone threatened the Union and it interfered with

American prosperity. He suggested that American resolutions for the Indian problem might be immoral, but they were not detrimental to the Union itself. Indeed, white prosperity required access to Indian lands. Thus, remarkably, Adams implied that Indian removals actually benefitted the American citizenry. Yet while ignoring the importance of dispossessing Native people from their homelands, he also ignored the abuses against the white citizens who sought protections for the Cherokees. Further, in an evident application of the hierarchy of oppression, Adams ignored the burgeoning poverty of white America despite the nation’s simultaneous rapid westward expansion onto Indian lands.461 Past President John Quincy Adams, brilliant strategist behind the Monroe

Doctrine, presciently promoting the complex infrastructure of “the American system” to

461 David Chang elucidates how “racialized” land contributed to poverty across race. Chang, The Color of the Land: Race, Nation, and the Politics of Landownership in Oklahoma, 1832-1929, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 74-77. 281 protect national unity in the face of rapid expansion, somehow missed America’s growing poverty while the nation expanded.

Whether Adams acknowledged the connection between Cherokee sovereignty and Nullification or not, he felt compelled to raise his concerns over slavery,

Nullification and disunion at the moment the federal government removed the Cherokees from their homelands once promised by treaty law and reinforced by U.S. Supreme Court authority. While the nation’s citizenry increasingly divided into the rich and the poor,

Adams insisted that slavery alone was the impediment to white American citizens’ success to remain a “prosperous and happiest people.”462 To a point, Adams was correct.

The enslavement of African Americans contributed significantly to the poverty and disenfranchisement of many American citizens. Yet the Cherokee Nation had managed widespread prosperity among its citizenry, in spite of its support for slavery. Therefore slavery alone could not have been the problem. The various political economies of the early American era need to be studied further, particularly in areas such as the Cherokee

Nation, which enabled widespread prosperity among its own citizenry, even as American citizens became increasingly impoverished. Widespread access to arable land, widely available infrastructure of good schools, accessible travel, and a government structure accountable and accessible to its citizens seemed to be important features. It seems reasonable to consider that the crime of slavery might have been overcome if these other components were met.

462 Philadelphia National Enquirer Pennsylvania Freeman, 08-30-1838. 282

Admitted or not, Indian sovereignty was important in nineteenth-century

American politics. Slave power and Removal power together played into the increased lawlessness in American society, as evident by the mistreatment of the missionaries who supported the Cherokees, as well as the violence against abolitionists. In her study,

Disunion!, historian Elizabeth Varon demonstrates how Southern secessionists emphasized that abolitionist rhetoric helped to build a cohesive Southern regional response. From William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator and Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831, to the subsequent “Gag” Rule against abolitionist petitions, Varon explains that slavery was “the most potent of all sources of disunion.” Slavery did not “displace other disunion anxieties, it encompassed them.”463

Indeed, this project concurs with Varon’s thesis, demonstrating that Cherokee sovereignty was one of the significant “encompassed” factors. Its significance in 1832-

1833, and its subsequently perceived insignificance, elucidates how other factors contributed to America’s battle over slavery, like all the Mississippi tributaries poured into one giant cauldron of a river. Perhaps these supporting rivers “became” the

Mississippi, but the mightiness of that river could not demonstrate its power without them. Indeed, multiple factors aligned with the political and ideological instability of

American slavery that were not apparent within the antebellum Cherokee Nation.

Constantly aware of its more powerful neighbor’s critical eye, unwilling to succumb to individual property allotments, finding no reason to defend slavery as a positive good, the

463 Elizabeth R. Varon, Disunion!: The Coming of the American Civil War, 1789-1859 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 338. 283

Cherokee Nation managed to protect its citizenry in ways that the United States could or would not. Recognizing the crime of slavery as a given, the particular features of

Cherokee Nation’s slave labor system should be studied further to understand precisely how it could exist without impoverishing its citizenry. Questions of slavery’s relationship to a nation’s political economy, social control and labor may provide insight into the

Cherokee Nation’s remarkable pre-removal stability while its neighboring United States could barely hold its people together. As demonstrated in Chapter Two, as evil as slavery was in the Cherokee Nation itself, the lack of land speculation among Cherokee leaders within Cherokee territory protected Cherokee citizens themselves who lived generally comfortable and prosperous lives.

Thus it is critical to understand how other factors, such as Cherokee sovereignty, contributed to the fear that the low-country planter-led argument over Nullification generated. As sectional pressures increased, memories over these simultaneous crises coalesced around a singular and powerful division. While the Cherokee Nation’s significance waned dramatically, national fears over South Carolina’s Nullification crisis continued to escalate. Yet without the Cherokee sovereignty debate, Nullification might not have reared as fearful a specter as it had in the early 1830s. A careful review of the debates leading up to the antebellum political crises demonstrates that slavery and expansion worked together to exacerbate the sectional discord. This discord was endemic to the United States as a whole and not limited to the Western borderlands. Finally, this sectional discord devalued the lives of every person in its path, citizens and noncitizens alike. 284

In the name of political economy and the constitutional value of prosperity, white citizens’ lives were cheap if they interfered with the profits of those with money and political authority. Walter Johnson recognizes that Jefferson’s republicanism promised a white liberty wholly dependent upon racial conquest. Yet at the same time, the dictates of

America’s political economy endangered everyone. Continuing the theme of the

Mississippi River as metaphor, Johnson juxtaposes the incredible wealth of the

Mississippi Valley against its deadlier forces. The Valley created the most millionaires in the antebellum era through cotton and plantation slavery, “thousands of investors launched their [steam]boats on the river.” Powerful steam generators could send 500 ton boats upriver, with a 200 percent increase in carrying capacity with annual returns by

1860 of $200 million. Steamboats also “exploded with a frequency and ferocity unprecedented in human history” with each explosion potentially taking the lives of over two hundred passengers.464 Yet the horror of these deaths did not interrupt America’s political economy and profit flow.

In conjunction with the white prosperity myth of the American political economy,

Woody Holton uncovers the mythic components of American prosperity and freedom in the constitutional debates, demonstrating that “the truth of the matter is hidden under a thick coat of common misperceptions.” The purpose of the U.S. Constitution, he explains, was not to protect citizen liberties but to restrict them. Holton also acknowledges that historians generally recognize this misconception. “A growing number

464 Walter Johnson , River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 5, 6. 285 of historians of the Constitution acknowledge that one of its architects’ most pressing goals was to transfer certain key responsibilities from the state legislatures to a new national government capable of resisting pressure from below.” Holton insists that far more debilitating for citizens’ rights is the tenacious perception that ordinary republicans have been consistently incapable of managing or influencing their government. The

“sinister beauty” of the historiographical presentation of the American Constitution demonstrates that “when citizens find they cannot influence national legislation, their tendency is not to curse the system but to blame themselves.”465 Like the end result of the constitutional debates themselves, the legacy of slavery and removal policies continued to infect the American political system that promoted the ideology of widespread prosperity through a democratic republic. The combined legacies against non-whites, intended to protect the interests of white Americans, tempted Americans to invest in a mirage of widely accessible prosperity. In terms of political economy, through the logic of scarcity, white Americans protected the hierarchy of access. By protecting race-based inequalities over access to resources, inadvertently, white Americans blamed themselves, or various leaders, for their own inability to achieve prosperity. Rev. Samuel Worcester blamed himself and John Quincy Adams blamed planters.

In a nation of incredible wealth and resources, American voters acquiesced to the logic of scarcity for the sake of a prosperity-oriented Union through the presidency of

Andrew Jackson. To confront Nullification, Americans set aside the constitutional rights

465 Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (New York: Hill and Wang, 2007), 272, 273. 286 awarded the Cherokee Nation to protect its sovereignty. To confront slavery, Americans ignored the costs of westward expansion. As a result, critics of Nullification and slavery curtailed the cleansing of each by ignoring one of its most important tributaries: the multi-faceted ideology of sovereignty protections.

Revisiting the Jacksonian Era

Indeed, as Daniel Feller encouraged historians to revisit the Jacksonian era in

2002, his suggestion may be even more pertinent today.466 The post-2008 economic crisis exacerbated the backlash against an American liberal arts education for all citizens, not just the elite. Most of my students in public institutions are understandably fearful over their prospects in the current economy. Like the post removal Rev. Worcester, they have become generally uninterested in American politics, and their citizenship rights and responsibilities, convinced that they have no voice in society’s affairs. Like Worcester, they learned to think small and locally, hoping to influence for the good the few people they know and care about, and focus their energies on working hard to develop a promising career. Acknowledging their vulnerability, I seek to convince my students to take history seriously because the coursework prepares them for the job market by developing their writing skills, critical thinking, and ability to navigate multiple points of view. At the same time, I remind them that history can help them learn how to become effective citizens in a democratic republic. Frederick Douglass did not seek an education for employment. He had plenty of opportunities to work, I suggest. He wanted an

466 Daniel Feller, “Lee Benson and the Concept of Jacksonian Democracy,” Reviews in American History, 20:4 (December, 1992), 591-601. 287 education so that he could think independently. Connecting their lives with Douglass’s insights catches their thinking, because most of my students know what it is to work long, hard hours without feeling like they are getting anywhere. I ask them to consider who benefits when they neglect their responsibilities to be politically engaged and focus on their work.

Therefore, I suggest that it may be useful to revisit the Jacksonian era, not as a master narrative, but as an era of financial-panic in which the elite pushed further against those tenacious “average” American citizens who insisted they had a right to influence the course of American governance. Historians have yet the plumb the full depths of this important era and its relevance in today’s American political economy.

288

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Waldstreicher, David. Journal of the Early Republic 30, no. 4 (Winter 2010), 674-678 (review).

Weeks, William Earl. “John Quincy Adams’s “Great Gun” and the Rhetoric of American Empire,” Diplomatic History 14, no. 1 (January 1990): 25-42.

Dissertations & Thesis:

Abram, Susan Marie. ““Souls in the Treetops:” Cherokee War, Masculinity, and Community, 1760-1820.” Dissertation, Auburn University, 2009.

Barksdale, Kevin T. “The Cherokee’s Obedient Servant: The Missionary Life of Dr. Elizur Butler, 1821-1839.” Masters’ Thesis, Western Carolina University, 1999.

Chappell, Gordon Thomas. “The Life and Activities of John Coffee” Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1941.

Crawford, Aaron Scott . “John Randolph of Roanoke and the Politics of Doom: Slavery, Sectionalism, and Self-Deception, 1773-1821.” Dissertation, University of Tennessee, 2012

Coens, Thomas M. “The Formation of the Jackson Party, 1822-1825.” Dissertation, Harvard University, 2004.

Day, Charmaine L. “Worcester V. Georgia: Cherokees, the American Board and the Nullification Crisis.” Masters’ Thesis, California State University, Fullerton, 2006.

Forbes, Robert. “Slavery and the Meaning of America, 1819-1837.” Dissertation, Yale University, 1994.

Öhman, Martin Christoffer. “Ambiguous Bonds of Union: American Political Economy and the Geopolitical Origins of Interregional Cooperation and Conflict, 1783-1821.” Dissertation, University of Virginia, 2011.

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Ragonese, Sandra Rayser. “‘A Drayton Leads Th’ Embattled Line’: Colonel William Drayton and the South Carolina Nullification Controversy.” Masters’ Thesis, Temple University, 2000.

Schroeder. David. “Nullification in South Carolina: A Revisitation.” Dissertation. University of Alabama, 1999.

Van Hoeven, James William. “Salvation and Indian Removal: The Career Biography of the Rev. John Freeman Schermerhorn, Indian Commissioner.” Dissertation. Vanderbilt University, 1972.

Internet Recordings and Information Sites:

American History Online. Facts on File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?

The Bible, King James Version. www.kingjamesbibleonline.org

Camden Archives and Museum, Camden, South Carolina: http://cityofcamden.org/archivesmuseum/kershawcountyhistoricaltimeline.aspx.

Cherokee Nation Website: The Nation’s History. http://www.cherokee.org/AboutTheNation/History/Chiefs/24531/Information.aspx

Constitution Society. www.constitution.org.

Georgia State History: Voices from the Past. www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com

Measuring Monetary Values across time and currencies. http://www.measuringworth.com

“Reassessing President Andrew Jackson,” April 10, 2010. Panel discussion sponsored by CNN and OAH. http://wwww.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/222860

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