When Jackson became President he found on his desk a vigorous protest
against this drastic piece of legislation. But appeal to him was
useless. He was on record as believing, in common with most
southwesterners, that Georgia had a rightful jurisdiction over her
Indian lands; and his Secretary of War, Eaton, was instructed to say
to the Cherokee representatives that their people would be expected
either to yield to Georgia's authority or to remove beyond the
Mississippi. In his first annual message, on December 8, 1829, the
President set forth the principles that guided him from first to last
in dealing with the Indian problem. It would be greatly to the
interest of the Indians themselves, he said, to remove to the ample
lands that would be set apart for them permanently in the West, where
each tribe could have its own home and its own government, subject to
no control by the United States except for the maintenance of peace on
the frontier and among the tribes. Forcible removal was not to be
contemplated; that would be cruel and unjust.
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