"When, in obedience to the will of the legislature of Georgia, her chief magistrate had communicated to the President his determination to survey the ceded territory, his right to do so was admitted. It was declared by the President that the act would be 'wholly' on the responsibility of the government of Georgia, and that 'the Government of the United States would not be in any manner responsible for any consequences which might result from the measure.' When his willingness to encounter this responsibility was announced, it was met by the declaration that the President would 'not permit the survey to be made,' and he was referred to a major-general of the army of the United States, and one thousand regulars.
"The murder of McIntosh – the defamation of the chief magistrate of Georgia – the menace of military force to coerce her to submission – were followed by the traduction of two of her cherished citizens, employed as the agents of the General Government in negotiating the treaty – gentlemen whose integrity will not shrink from a comparison with that of the proudest and loftiest of their accusers. Then the sympathies of the people of the Union were excited in behalf of 'the children of the forest,' who were represented as indignantly spurning the gold, which was offered to entice them from the graves of their fathers, and resolutely determined never to abandon them. The incidents of the plot being thus prepared, the affair hastens to its consummation. A new treaty is negotiated here —a pure and spotless treaty. The rights of Georgia and of Alabama are sacrificed; the United States obtain a part of the lands, and pay double the amount stipulated by the old treaty; and those poor and noble, and unsophisticated sons of the forest, having succeeded in imposing on the simplicity of this government, next concert, under its eye, and with its knowledge, the means of defrauding their own constituents, the chiefs and warriors of the Creek nation.
"For their agency in exciting the Creeks to resist the former treaty, and in deluding this government to annul it, three Cherokees – Ridge, Vann, and the father of the former– are to receive forty thousand dollars of the money stipulated to be paid by the United States to the chiefs of the Creek nation; and the government, when informed of the projected fraud, deems itself powerless to avert it. Nay, when apprised by your amendment, that you had also detected it, that government does not hesitate to interpose, by one of its high functionaries, to resist your proceeding, by a singular fatuity, thus giving its countenance and support to the commission of the fraud. Sir, I speak of what has passed before your eyes even in this hall.
"One fifth of the whole purchase money is to be given to three Cherokees. Ten thousand dollars reward one of the heroes of Fort Mims – a boon which it so well becomes us to bestow. A few chosen favorites divide among themselves upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, leaving a pittance for distribution among the great body of the chiefs and warriors of the nation.
"But the administration, though it condemns the fraud, thinks that we have no power to prevent its consummation. What, sir, have we no power to see that our own treaty is carried into effect? Have we no interest in doing so? Have we no power? We have stipulated for the payment of two hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars to the chiefs of the Creek nation, to be distributed among the chiefs and warriors of that nation. Is not the distribution part of the contract as well as the payment? We know that a few of those chiefs, in fraudulent violation of the rights secured by that treaty, are about to appropriate this money to themselves. Are we powerless to prevent it? Nay, must we, too, suffer ourselves to be made the conscious instruments of its consummation? We have made a bargain with a savage tribe which you choose to dignify with the name of a treaty concerning whom we legislate with their consent, or without it, as it seems good in our eyes. We know that some ten or twenty of them are about to cheat the remainder. We have the means in our hands, without which their corrupt purpose cannot be effected. Have we not the right to see that our own bargain is honestly fulfilled? Consistently with common honesty, can we put the consideration money of the contract into the hands of those who we know are about to defraud the people who trusted them? Sir, the proposition is absurd.
"Mr. Forsyth (of the House of Representatives) said: A stupendous fraud, it seems, was intended by the delegation who had formed, with the Secretary of War, the new contract. The chiefs composing the Creek diplomatic train, assisted by their Cherokee secretaries of legation, had combined to put into their own pockets, and those of a few select friends, somewhere about three fourths of the first payment to be made for the second cession of the lands lying in Georgia. The facts connected with this transaction, although concealed from the Senate when the second contract was before them for ratification, and from the House when the appropriation bill to carry it into effect was under consideration, were perfectly understood at the War Department by the Secretary, and by his clerk, who is called the head of the Indian Bureau (Mr. Thomas L. McKinney). The Senate having, by some strange fortune, discovered the intended fraud, after the ratification of the contract, and before they acted on the appropriation bill, wished, by an amendment to the bill, to prevent the success of the profitable scheme of villany. The House, entirely ignorant of the facts, and not suspecting the motive of the amendment, had rejected it, insisted upon their disagreement to it, and a committee of the two Houses, as usual, had conferred on the subject. Now, that the facts are ascertained by the separate reports of the Committees, there can be no difference of opinion on the great point of defeating the intended treachery of the delegation and secretaries to the Creek tribe. The only matter which can bear discussion, is, how shall the treachery be punished? – how shall the Creek tribe be protected from the abominable designs of their worthless and unprincipled agents? Will the amendment proposed by the committee reach their object? The plan is, to pay the money to the chiefs, to be divided among the chiefs and warriors, under the direction of the Secretary of War, in a full council of the nation, convened for the purpose. Suppose the council in solemn session, the money before them, and the division about to be made, under the direction of the Secretary of War – may not the chiefs and their secretaries claim the money, as promised to them under the treaty, and how will the Secretary or his agent resist the claim? They assented – the House will perceive that the only difficulty was the amount of the bribe. The Secretary was willing to go as high as five thousand dollars, but could not stretch to ten thousand dollars. Notwithstanding the assent of the Cherokees, and the declaration of the Secretary, that five thousand dollars each was the extent that they could be allowed, Ridge and Vann, after the treaty was signed, and before it was acted on by the Senate, or submitted to that body, brought a paper, the precious list of the price of each traitor, for the inspection and information of the head of the bureau and the head of the department; and what answer did they receive from both? The head of the bureau said it was their own affair. The Secretary said he presumed it was their own affair. But I ask this House, if the engagement for the five thousand dollars, and the list of the sums to be distributed, may not be claimed as part of this new contract? If these persons have not a right to claim, in the face of the tribe, these sums, as promised to them by their Great Father? Ay, sir; and, if they are powerful enough in the tribe, they will enforce their claim. Under what pretext will your Secretary of War direct a different disposition or division of the money, after his often repeated declaration, 'it is their own affair' – the affair of the delegation? Yes, sir, so happily has this business been managed at the seat of government, under the Executive eye, that this division which the negotiators proposed to make of the spoil, may be termed a part of the consideration of the contract. It must be confessed that these exquisite ambassadors were quite liberal to themselves, their secretaries, and particular friends: one hundred and fifty-nine thousand seven hundred dollars, to be divided among some twenty persons, is pretty well! What name shall we give to this division of money among them? To call it a bribe, would shock the delicacy of the War Department, and possibly offend those gentle spirited politicians, who resemble Cowper's preachers, 'who could not mention hell to ears polite.' The transcendent criminality of this design cannot be well understood, without recalling to recollection the dark and bloody scenes of the year past. The chief McIntosh, distinguished