Cherokee Nation Historical Documents

Excerpts are from the closing paragraphs of an address of a council of the Cherokee Nation to the people of the United States, written in July of 1830.

* * *Before we close this address, permit us to state what we conceive to be our relations with the United States. After the peace of 1783, the Cherokees were an independent people; absolutely so, as much as any people on earth. They had been allies to Great Britain, and as a faithful ally took a part in the colonial war on her side. They had placed themselves under her protection, and had they, without cause, declared hostility against their protector, and had the colonies been subdued, what might not have been their fate? But her [Great Britain's] power on this continent was broken. She acknowledged the independence of the United States, and made peace. The Cherokees therefore stood alone; and, in these circumstances, continued the war. They were then under no obligations to the United States any more than to Great Britain, France or Spain. The United States never subjugated the Cherokees; on the contrary, our fathers remained in possesion of their country, and with arms in their hands. * * *We are aware, that some persons suppose it will be for our advantage to remove beyond the Mississippi. We think otherwise. Our people universally think otherwise. Thinking that it would be fatal to their interests, they have almost to a man sent their memorial to congress, deprecating the necessity of a removal. This question was distinctly before their minds when they signed their memorial. Not an adult person can be found, who has not an opinion on the subject, and if the people were to understand distinctly, that they could be protected against the laws of the neighboring states, there is probably not an adult person in the nation, who would think it best to remove; though possibly a few might emigrate individually. * * *We are not willing to remove; and if we could be brought to this extremity, it would be not by argument, not because our judgment was satisfied, not because our condition will be improved; but only because we cannot endure to be deprived of our national and individual rights and subjected to a process of intolerable oppression. We wish to remain on the land of our fathers. We have a perfect and original right to remain without interruption or molestation. The treaties with us, and laws of the United States made in pursuance of treaties, guaranty our residence, and our privileges and secure us against intruders. Our only request is, that these treaties may be fulfilled, and these laws executed. But if we are compelled to leave our country, we see nothing but ruin before us. The country west of the Arkansas territory is unknown to us. From what we can learn of it, we have no prepossessions in its favor. All the inviting parts of it, as we believe, are preoccupied by various Indian nations, to which it has been assigned. They would regard us as intruders, and look upon us with an evil eye. The far greater part of that region is, beyond all controversy, badly supplied with wood and water; and no Indian tribe can live as agriculturists without these articles. All our neighbers, in case of our removal, though crowded into our near vicinity, would speak a language totally different from ours, and practice different customs. The original possessors of that region are now wandering savages lurking for prey in the neighborhood. They have always been at war, and would be easily tempted to turn their arms against peaceful emigrants. Were the country to which we are urged much better than it is represented to be and were it free from the objections which we have made to it, still it is not the land of our birth, nor of our affections. It contains neither the scenes of our childhood, nor the graves of our fathers. Cherokee Nation. "Cherokee Address," Niles' Weekly Register, 21 August, 1830 pp. 455-456. The following is a memorial from the Cherokee nation in sent to the U.S. Congress in December of 1829 and published in their newspaper, the Phoenix, on January 20, 1830. To the honorable the senate and house of representatives of the United States of America, in congress assembled: The undersigned memorialists, humbly make known to your honorable bodies, that they are free citizens of the Cherokee nation. Circumstances of late occurrence have troubled our hearts, and induced us at this time to appeal to you, knowing that you are generous and just. As weak and poor children are accustomed to look to their guardians and patrons for protection, so we would come and make our grievances known. Will you listen to us? Will you have pity on us? You are great and renowned?the nation, which you represent, is like a mighty man who stands in his strength. But we are small?our name is not renowned. You are wealthy, and have need of nothing; but we are poor in life, and have not the arm and power of the rich. By the will of our Father in heaven, the governor of the whole world, the red man of America has become small, and the white man great and renowned. When the ancestors of the people of these United States first came to the shores of America, they found the red man strong?though he was ignorant and savage, yet he received them kindly, and gave them dry land to rest their weary feet. They met in peace, and shook hands in token of friendship. Whatever the white man wanted and asked of the Indian, the latter willingly gave. At that time the Indian was the lord, and the white man the suppliant. But now the scene has changed. The strength of the red man has become weakness. As his neighbors increased in numbers, his power became less, and now, of the many and powerful tribes who once covered these United States, only a few are to be seen?a few whom a sweeping pestilence has left. The northern tribes, who were once so numerous and powerful, are now nearly extinct. Thus it has happened to the red man of America. Shall we, who are remnants, share the same fate? Brothers?we address you according to usage adopted by our forefathers, and the great and good men who have successfuIly directed the councils of the nation you represent?we now make known to you our grievances. We are troubled by some of your own people. Our neighbor, the state of Georgia, is pressing hard upon us, and urging us to relinquish our possessions for her benefit. We are told, if we do not leave the country, which we dearly love, and betake ourselves to the western wilds, the laws of the state will be extended over us, and the time, 1st of June, 1830, is appointed for the execution of the edict. When we first heard of this we were grieved and appealed to our father, the president, and begged that protection might be extended over us. But we were doubly grieved when we understood, from a letter of the secretary of war to our delegation, dated March of the present year, that our father the president had refused us protection, and that he had decided in favor of the extension of the laws of the state over us. ?This decision induces us to appeal to the immediate representatives of the American people. We love, we dearly love our country, and it is due to your honorable bodies, as well as to us, to make known why we think the country is ours, and why we wish to remain in peace where we are. The land on which we stand, we have received as an inheritance from our fathers, who possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift from our common father in heaven. We have already said, that when the white man came to the shores of America, our ancestors were found in peaceable possession of this very land. They bequeathed it to us as their children, and we have sacredly kept it as containing the remains of our beloved men. This right of inheritance we have never ceded, nor ever forfeited. Permit us to ask, what better right can a people have to a country, than the right of inheritance and immemorial peaceable possession? We know it is said of late by the state of Georgia, and by the executive of the United States, that we have forfeited this right?but we think this is said gratuitously. At what time have we made the forfeit? What crime have we committed, whereby we must forever be divested of our country and rights? Was it when we were hostile to the United States, and took part with the king of Great Britain, during the struggle for independence? If so, why was not this forfeiture declared in the first treaty of peace between the United States and our beloved men? Why was not such an article as the following inserted in the treaty: "The United States give peace to the Cherokees, but, for the part they took in the late war, declare them to be but tenants at will, to be removed when the convenience of the states within whose chartered limits they live shall require it." This was the proper lime to assume such a position. But it was not thought of, nor would our forefathers have agreed to any treaty, whose tendency was to deprive them of their rights and their country. All that they have conceded and relinquished are inserted in the treaties open to the investigation of all people. We would repeat, then, the right of inheritance and peaceable possession which we claim, we have never ceded nor forfeited. In addition to that first of all rights, the right of inheritance and peaceable possession, we have the faith and pledge of the U. States, repealed over and over again, in treaties made at various times. By these treaties our rights as a separate people are distinctly acknowledged, and guarantees given that they shall be secured and protected. So we have always understood the treaties The conduct of the government towards us, from its organization until very lately, the talks given to our beloved men by the presidents of the United States, and the speeches of the agents and commissioners, all concur to show that we are not mistaken in our interpretation. ? Some of our beloved men who signed the treaties are still leaving, and their testimony tends to the same conclusion. We have always supposed that this understanding of the treaties was in accordance with the views of the government; nor have we ever imagined that any body would interpret them otherwise. In what light shall we view the conduct of the United States and Georgia, in their intercourse with us, in urging us to enter into treaties, and cede lands? If we were but tenants at will, why was it necessary that our consent must be obtained before these governments could take lawful possession of our lands? The answer is obvious. These governments perfectly understood our rights our right to the country, and our right to self government. Our understanding of the treaties is further supported by the intercourse law of the United States, which prohibits all encroachments upon our territory. The undersigned memorialists humbly represent, that if their interpretation of the treaties has been different from that of the government, then they have ever been deceived as to how the government regarded them, and what she asked and promised. Moreover, they have uniformly misunderstood their own acts. In view of the strong ground upon which their rights are founded, your memorialists solemnly protest against being considered as tenants at will, or as mere occupants of the soil, without possessing the sovereignty. We have already stated to your honorable bodies, that our forefathers were found in posseision of this soil in full sovereignty, by the first European settlers; and as we have never ceded nor forfeited the occupancy of the soil and the sovereignly over it, we do solemnly protest against being forced to leave it, either direct or by indirect measures. To the land of which we are now in possession we are attached?it is our fathers' gift?it contains their ashes?it is the land of our nativity, and the land of our intellectual birth. We cannot consent to abandon it, for another far inferior, and which holds out to us no inducements. We do moreover protest against the arbitrary measures of our neighbor, the state of Georgia, in her attempt to extend her laws over us, in surveying our lands without our consent and in direct opposition to treaties and the intercourse law of the United States, and interfering with our municipal regulations in such a manner as to derange the regular operations of our own laws. To deliver and protect them from all these and every encroachment upon their rights, the undersigned memorialists do most earnestly pray your honorable bodies. Their existence and future happiness are at stake?divest them of their liberty and country, and you sink them in degradation, and put a check, if not a final stop, to their present progresss in the arts of civilized life, and in the knowledge of the Christian religion. Your memorialists humbly conceive, that such an act would be in the highest defree oppressive. From the people of these United States, who perhaps, of all men under heaven, are the most religious and free, it cannot be expected.? Your memorialists, therefore, cannot anticipate such a result. You represent a virtuous, intelligent and Christian nation. To you they willingly submit their cause for your righteous decision. Cherokee nation, Dec. 1829. Cherokee Nation. "Memorial of the Cherokee Indians," Niles' Weekly Register vol. 38 no. 3, pp 53-54.

IN FAVOR OF REMOVAL

Report from the Committee of Indian Affairs on the Removal of Indians, delivered to the House of Representatives on February 24, 1830. * * *The most active and extraordinary means have been employed to misrepresent the intentions of the Government, on the one hand, and the condition of the Indians on the other. The vivid representations of the progress of Indian civilization, which have been so industriously circulated by the party among themselves opposed to emigration and by their agents, have had the effect of engaging the sympathies, and exciting the zeal, of many benevolent individuals and societies, who have manifested scarcely less talents than perseverance in resisting the views of the Government. Whether those who have been thus employed, can claim to have been the most judicious friends of the Indians, remains to be tested by time. The effect of these indications of favor and protection has been to encourage them in the most extravagant pretensions. They have been taught to have new views of their rights. The Cherokees have decreed the integrity of their territory, and claimed to be as sovereign within their limits, as the States are in theirs. They have actually asserted such attributes of sovereignty, as, if indulged, must subvert the influence, and effect a radical change of the policy and interests of the Government, in relation to their affairs. Some of the States, within whose limits those tribes are situated, have determined, by the exercise of their rights of jurisdiction within their territorial limits, to repress, while it may be done with the least inconvenience, a spirit which they foresee, may, in time, produce the most serious mischiefs. This exercise of authority by the States has been remonstrated against by those who control the affairs of the Indians, and application has been made to the Federal Government to interpose its authority in defence of their claim to sovereignty. * * *No respectable jurist has ever gravely contended, that the right of the Indians to hold their reserved lands, could be supported in the courts of the country, upon any other ground than the grant or permission of the sovereignty or State in which such lands lie. The province of Massachusetts Bay, besides the subdued lands already mentioned, during the early period of its history, granted other lands to various friendly tribes of Indians. Gookin, the great protector and friend of the Indians, about the time these grants were made, was asked, why he thought it necessary to procure a grant from the General Court for such lands as the Indians needed, seeing that "they were the original lords of the soil?" He replied, that "the English claim right to the land by patent from their King." No title to lands, that has ever, been examined in the courts of the States, or of the United States, it is believed, has been admitted to-depend upon any Indian deed of relinquishment, except in those cases where, for some meritorious service, grants have been made to individual Indians to hold in fee-simple. * * *The Committee do not understand, that, either the States, or the Federal Government, ever acted upon the principle, that it was necessary to obtain the consent of the Indians, before the right to exclude all competitors from the market of their lands could be asserted. It is asserted, upon the ground of ownership and political sovereignty, and can be sustained upon no other principles than those which our ancestors supposed to be well founded, when they denied to the Indians any right to more land than they required for their subsistence by agriculture. The Indians are paid for their unimproved lands as much as the privilege of hunting and taking game upon them is supposed to be worth, and the Government sells them for what they are worth to the cultivator. The difference between those values is the profit made by asserting the original rights of discovery and conquest. The rigor of the original rule has been mitigated in the exercise of this right of pre-emption, in regard to such lands as have been improved by the Indians, for the same reason that their right to such as they had subdued, was respected by the colonists in the early period of their history. Improved lands, or small reservations in the States, are, in general, purchased at their full value to the cultivator. To pay an Indian tribe what their ancient hunting grounds are worth to them, after the game is fled pr destroyed, as a mode of appropriating wild lands, claimed by Indians, has been found more convenient, and certainly it is more agreeable to the forms of justice, as well as more merciful, than to assert the possession of them by the sword. Thus, the practice of buying Indian titles is but the substitute which humanity and expediency have imposed, in place of the sword, in arriving at the actual enjoyment of property claimed by the right of discovery, and sanctioned by the natural superiority allowed to the claims of civilized communities over those of savage tribes. * * *If the Committee have not wholly misstated the condition of the Southern Indians, It will be apparent, that the common feelings of humanity, besides the obligations incurred in the past intercourse of the Government with them, require, that whatever means may be constitutionally employed, should be liberally applied for their relief. If they remain where they are, the experience of two centuries has shown, that they eventually must perish. The assimilation of the two races, which has been commenced, cannot be relied on to save such masses as the Southern tribes present. The common Indian is already in danger of being regarded as a degraded caste in his own country. The experiments which have been made, do not furnish any very flattering evidence of the practicability of civilizing Indians, in large masses, under any circumstances; but the efforts commenced and superintended by such men as Elliot and the Mayhews appear to have been, seem to be conclusive, as to the fate of the Indian when in contact with the whites. If the past could be recalled, and the eight or ten thousand Indians, including children, who, it is said, at one time, in Massachusetts and New Plymouth colonies, attended church regularly and orderly, supplied many of their own teachers, and a great portion of them being able to read and write, could be transplanted into some territory upon the Western frontier, and there, under the protection of the whites, but free from the actual and constant presence of a superiority which dispirits them; and from those vices which have always been their worst enemies, the problem of Indian civilization might be solved, at last, under the most favorable circumstances. If the condition of the Southern tribes is not so flattering as that of the Indians of New England, at the period alluded to, still, the improved condition and habits of the mixed race would be a great advantage in any attempt to elevate the condition of the common Indian, in a new country. Whatever civilization may be found among them, and the more there is of it the better, may be made the basis of a society West of the Mississippi, which may have the happiest effects upon the condition of all the Western tribes. This plan, at all events, offers a prospect, which may never again occur, of atoning, at last, for any wrongs inevitably incident to the settlement of the country by the white race, in a manned worthy of the character of the Government. To give the experiment every advantage in the power of the Government, their new country should be secured to them in such a manner, that they would cease to be haunted with the prospect of future changes in their residence. The stimulant, so powerful and important in its effects upon the white man, of a separate and exclusive property in lands, with the privilege of transmitting it to their children, should be supplied to the Indians, in their new country, under such guards against the improvident disposition of them by the grantee, as prudence may dictate. To these provisions, it would seem, must be added ample means of moral instruction; without these, there can be little hope of reclaiming the present generation of the common Indians, or of securing the amelioration of the next. The country which has heretofore been designated as proper to be allotted to the Indians, although not exhibiting the same variety of features with some portion of the country now occupied by them, possesses, in the outlet which it affords to a great western common and hunting ground, not likely to become the early abode of the white race, an advantage and relief to the adult Indians of the present generation, which, in the opinion of the committee, cannot be supplied in any other shape. If this country is secured to the Indians, or such portions of it as shall be satisfactory to them, it is believed the greatest objection will be removed which has heretofore existed with any portion of the more sagacious Indians, having no more than a common interest in remaining where they are, to the plan of emigration. If such measures shall be resorted to as will satisfy the Indians generally, that the Government means to treat them with kindness, and to secure to them a country beyond the power of the white inhabitants to annoy them, the influence of their chiefs cannot longer prevent their emigration. Looking to this event, it would seem proper to make an ample appropriation, that any voluntary indication, on the part of the Indians, of a general disposition to remove, may be seconded efficiently by the Government. Committee on Indian Affairs. Removal of Indians, Delivered in the House of Representatives, 21st Congress, 1st Sesson, 24 February, 1830 pp. 2, 5-6, 25. The following is an excerpt from a speech given by Senator Robert Adams (Mississippi) in April, 1830 during a debate in the Senate over the Indian Removal Bill. * * *The question which is submitted to us by the bill itself, as reported to the Senate by the Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, is this: ?Whether Congress will authorize the President of the United States to exchange territory belonging to the United States, West of the river Mississippi, and not within the limits of any State or organized territory, with any tribe of Indians, or the individuals of such tribe, now residing within the limits of any State or Territory, and with whom the United States have any existing treaties, who may voluntarily choose to make such exchange for the lands which such tribe of Indians, or the individuals of such tribe, at present occupy ; to compensate individuals of those tribes for improvements made upon the lands they now occupy; to pay the expenses of their removal and settlement in the country West of the Mississippi, and provide them necessary subsistence for one year thereafter. The authority contemplated by the bill is to make the exchange of territory with those Indians, and with those only, who are willing to make it. The friends of this measure do not wish to vest power in the President of the United States to assign a district of country West of the Mississippi, and, by strong arm, to drive these unfortunate people from their present abode, and compel them to take up their residence in the country assigned to them. On the contrary, it is their wish that this exchange should be left to the free and voluntary choice of the Indians themselves. Is there any thing alarming in this proposition? any thing to cause that fear and trembling for the fate of the unfortunate Indian, which have been manifested in the opposition to this bill? Is there any thing to call forth those animated-denunciations against those who disregard and violate the faith of treaties? As if those who support this measure were ready to prostrate at the foot of their own sordid interest the honor of the nation, and inflict a stain upon her escutcheon that all the waters of the Mississippi could not wash out I confess, for my own part, I can see nothing in the provisions of the bill before us, unbecoming the character of a great, just, and magnanimous nation. And, indeed, if I had heard only so much of the eloquent speeches of those who oppose the passage of the bill as enjoined upon us the strictest good faith in the observance of treaties, I would have concluded that they were the warmest advocates of the proposed measure. As early as the year 1802, the United States entered into a compact with the Stale of Georgia, which compact was ratified in the most solemn manner, being approved by the Congress of the United States and by the Legislature of the State of Georgia. By this agreement, the United States obtained from the State of Georgia a cession of territory sufficient, in extent, to form two large States, and in part consideration for such an immense acquisition of territory, agreed, on their part, in the most solemn manner, to extinguish, for the use of Georgia, the Indian title to all the lands situated within the limits of that State, "as soon as the same could be done peaceably and upon reasonable terms," Although this is not, in the technical sense of the term, a treaty entered into by the United States with the State of Georgia, yet it is an agreement upon a full and valuable consideration, and good faith on the part of the United States requires its fulfilment, according to its true spirit and intent. The bill under consideration proposes a mode by which this agreement may be performed; by which the Indian title to all the lands within the boundaries of that State may be extinguished, peaceably, and upon reasonable terms. Peaceably, because it is only to operate upon those Indians who are willing to remove. And upon reasonable terms, because they are to receive other lands in exchange for those which they give up; just compensation for improvements made by them; the expenses of their removal and settlement paid, and subsistence for one year furnished them. Would it not, therefore, have been reasonable to suppose, that those who have said so much about the high and sacred obligation of treaties? and how essentially the great name of every nation depends upon their strict observance, would be amongst the foremost and warmest supporters of the bill under consideration? Adams, Robert Huntington. "Speech of Mr. Adams, of Mississippi, on the Bill to Remove the Indians West of the Mississippi. Delivered in the senate of the United States, April, 1830," (Washington: Duff Green, 1830) pp. 3-5.

SPEECH AGAINST REMOVAL

The following are excerpts from a speech made by Senator Peleg Sprague (Maine) on April 16, 1830, during the Senate's debate over the Indian Removal Bill. * * *This bill and amendment, and the discussion, which they have produced invoke the question of the rights and duties of the United States with respect to the Indian tribes generally, but more especially the Cherokees. With that people we have not less than fifteen treats, The first made in the year 1785, and the last in 1819. By several of these treaties, we hare unequivocally guarantied to them that they shall forever enjoy?1st. Their separate existence, as a poetical community:2d. Undisturbed possession and full enjoyment of their lands, within certain boundaries, which are duly defined and fully described;3d. The protection of the United States, against all interference with, or encroachments upon their rights by any people, state, or nation.For these promises, on our part, we received ample consideration---By the restoration and establishing of peace;By a large cessions of territory;By the promise on their part to treat with no other state or nation; and other important stipulations. These treaties were made with all the forms and solemnities which could give them forces and efficacy; by Commissioners, duly appointed with full power; ratified by the Senate; confirmed by the President' and announced to the world, by his proclamation, as the binding compact of the nation, and the4 supreme law of the land. * * *Much has been said of their [the Cherokees] being untutored savages, as if that could dissolve our treaties! No one pretends, that they are less cultivated now than when those treaties were made. Indeed, it is certain, that they have greatly advanced in civilization; we see it, in the very proofs introduced by the gentleman from Georgia, to show their barbarism. He produced to the Senate, a printed code of Cherokee laws; and a newspaper issued from a Cherokee press! Is there another instance of such productions from any Indian nation? I was surprised, that with all his scrutiny, he could find no more remnants of savage customs. I shall not dwell upon his selections from their laws. The first was; that if a horse should be stolen; and the owner, finding the thief in possession, should immediately kill him, in the excess of passion?it should rest upon his own conscience. It is to be observed that the person slain must have been guilty; and for such an offence, life is now taken by the laws of England. But this provision inserted in the Cherokee code, more than twenty years ago, has yielded to further light, and been since repealed. Time will not permit me to dwell upon their advances in the arts of civilized life. It is known to have been great. They till the ground, manufacture for themselves, have work-shops, a printing press, schools, churches, and a regularly organized Government. Indeed, the gentleman from Tennessee, himself, told us that some individuals of that nation were qualified for seats in this august assembly. * * *Whither are the Cherokees to go? What are the benefits of the change? What system has been matured for their security? What laws for their government? These questions are answered only by gilded promises in general terms; they are to become enlightened and civilized husbandmen. They now live by the cultivation of the soil, and the mechanic arts. It is proposed to send them from their cotton fields, their farms and their gardens; to a distant and an unsubdued wilderness?to make them tillers of the earth! ?to remove them from their looms, their work-shops, their printing press, their schools, and churches, near the white settlements; to frowning forests, surrounded with naked savages?that they may become enlightened and civilized! We have pledged to them our protection?and, instead of shielding them where they now are, within our reach, under our own arm, we send these natives of a southern clime to northern regions, amongst fierce and warlike barbarians. And what security do we propose to them? ?a new guarantee !! Who can look an Indian in the face; and say to him; we, and our fathers, for more than forty years, have made to you the most solemn promises; we now violate and trample upon them all; but offer you in their stead?another guarantee! ! Will they be in no danger of attack, from the primitive inhabitants of the regions to which they emigrate? How can it be otherwise? The official documents show us the fact, that some of the few, who have already gone, were involved in conflicts with the native tribes, and compelled to a second removal. How are they to subsist? Has not that country now, as great an Indian population, as it can sustain? What has become of the original occupants? Have we not already caused accessions to their numbers, and been compressing them more and more? Is not the consequence inevitable, that some must be stinted in the means of subsistence? Here too, we have the light of experience. By an official communication, from Governor Clark, the Superintendent of Indian affairs; we learn that the most powerful tribes, west of the Mississippi, are, every year, so distressed by famine, that many die for want of food. The scenes of their suffering are hardly exceeded by the sieges of Jerusalem, and Samaria. There might be seen the miserable mother, in all the tortures which hunger can inflict, giving her last morsel for the sustenance of her child, and then fainting, sinking, and actually dying of starvation! And the orphan? ?no one can spare it food?it is put alive into the grave of the parent, which thus closes over the quick and the dead ! And this not in a solitary instance only, bat repeatedly and frequently. "The living child is often buried with the dead mother." Mr. President: I am aware that their white neighbors desire the absence of the Indians; and if they can find safety and subsistence beyond the Mississippi, I should rejoice exceedingly at their removal, because it would relieve the States, of their presence. I would do much to effect a consummation so devoutly to be wished. But let it be by their own free choice, unawed by fear, unseduced by bribes. Let as not compel them, by withdrawing the protection, which we have pledged. Theirs must be the pain of departure, and the hazard of the change. They are men, and have the feelings and attachments of men; and if all the ties which bind them to their country, and their frames are to be rent asunder; let it be by their own free hand. If they are to leave forever the streams, at which they have drank, and the trees under which they have reclined: if the fires are nevermore to be Iighted up in the council house of their chiefs; and must be quenched forever upon the domestic hearth, by the tears of the inmates, who have there joined the nuptial feast, and the funeral wail: if they are to look for the last time upon the land of their birth?which drank up the blood of their fathers, shed in its defence?and is mingled with the sacred dust of children and friends?to turn their aching vision to distant regions enveloped in darkness and surrounded by dangers?let it be by their own, free choice, not by the coercion of a withdrawal of the protection of oar plighted faith. They can best appreciate the dangers and difficulties which beset their path. It is their fate which is impending; and it is their right to judge; while we have no warrant to falsify our promise. It is said that their existence cannot be preserved; that it is the doom of Providence, that they most perish. So indeed, must we all; but let it be in the course of nature; not by the hand of violence. If in truth, they are now in the decrepitude of age; let as permit them to live out all their days, and die in peace; not bring down their grey hairs in blood, to a foreign grave. Sprague, Peleg. "Speech of Mr. Peleg Sprague, of Maine: Delivered in The Senate of the United States, 16th April, 1830, In Reply to Messrs. White, McKiney, and Forsyth, Upon the Subject of The Removal of the Indians," (Washington: Office of the National Journal, 1830) pp. 1, 28, 34-35. The following excerpts are taken from a speech given by Representative Edward Everett (Massachusetts) on May 19th 1830, during a debate in the House of Representatives over the Indian Removal Bill. * * *Gentlemen, who favor the project, cannot have viewed it as it is. They think of a march of Indian warriors, penetrating with their accustomed vigor, the forest or the cane brake?they think of the youthful Indian hunter, going forth exultingly to the chase. Sir, it is no such thing. This is all past; it is matter of distant tradition, and poetical fancy. They have nothing now left of the Indian, but his social and political inferiority. They are to go in families, the old and the young, wives and children, the feeble, the sick. And how are they to go? Not in luxurious carriages; they are poor. Not in stagecoaches; they go to a region where there are none. Not even in wagons, nor on horseback, for they are to go in the least expensive manner possible. They are to go on foot: nay, they are to be driven by contract. The price has been reduced, and is still further to be reduced, and it is to be reduced, by sending them by contract. It is to be screwed down to the least farthing, to eight dollars per head. ? A community of civilized people, of all ages, sexes and conditions of bodily health, are to be dragged hundreds of miles, over mountains, rivers, and deserts, where there are no roads, no bridges, no habitations, and this is to be done for eight dollars a head; and done by contract. The question is to be, what is the least for which you will take so many hundred families, averaging so many infirm old men, so many little children, so many lame, feeble and sick? What will you contract for? The imagination sickens at the thought of what will happen to a company of these emigrants, which may prove less strong, less able to pursue the journey than was anticipated. ? Will the contractor stop for the old man to rest, for the sick to get well; for the fainting women and children to revive? He will not; he cannot afford to. And this process is to be extended to every family, in a population of seventy-five thousand souls. This is what we call the removal of the Indians! It is very easy to talk of this subject, reposing on these luxurious chairs, and protected by these massy walls, and this gorgeous canopy, from the power of the elements. Removal is a soft word, and words are delusive. ? But let gentlemen take the matter home to themselves and their neighbors. There are 75,000 Indians to be removed. This is not less than the population of two congressional districts. We are going, then, to take a population of Indians, of families, who live as we do in houses, work as we do in the field or the workshop, at the plough and the loom, who are governed as we are by laws, who send their children to school, and who attend themselves on the ministry of the Christian faith, to march them from their homes, and put them down in a remote unexplored desert. We are going to do it? this Congress is going to do it?this is a bill to do it. Now let any gentleman think how he would stand, were he to go home and tell his constituents, that they were to be removed, whole counties of them?they must fly before the wrath of insupportable laws?they must go to the distant desert, beyond Arkansas?go for eight dollars a head, by contract?that this was the policy of the Government?that the bill had passed?the money was voted?you had voted for it?and go they must. * *But, sir, these Indians could not live in this country, not even if your advancing population would let them alone, and the country itself were a pretty good one. It requires some of the highest qualities of civilized man to emigrate to advantage. I do not speak of great intellectual elevation; not of book learning, nor moral excellence; though this last is of great importance in determining the prosperity of a new settlement. But it is only the chosen portion of a community, its elite, that can perform this great work of building up a new country. The nervous, ardent young man, in the bloom of opening life, and the pride of health, can do if. It is this part of the population that has done it. This is the great drain of New England and the other Atlantic States. But to take up a whole population; the old, the feeble, the infant, the inefficient and helpless, that can hardly get through life any where, to take them tip by a sweeping operation, and scatter them over an unprepared wilderness, is madness. It is utterly impossible for them?I do not say to prosper?but even to subsist. Such a, thing was never heard of. How narrowly did the pilgrims of New England escape destruction, although their ranks were made up of men of the sternest moral qualities, well provided with pecuniary resources, and recruited for several years by new adventurers! The Indians are to be fed a year at our expense. So far is well, because they will not starve that year. But, are the prairies to be broken up, houses built, crops raised, and the timber brought forward, in one year? Sir, if a vigorous young man, going into the prairie and commencing a settlement, can raise a crop to support himself the second year, I take it he does well. To expect a community of Indian families to do it, is beyond all reason. The Chairman of the Committee tells us, it would be cruel to cast them off at the end of one year; they must be helped along. Doubtless they must. And, in the progress of this way of living, partly by the chase, partly by husbandry, and partly by alms, if a people naturally improvident do not speedily become degenerate and wretched, they will form an exception, not merely to all their brethren, with a single exception, who have preceded them In this coarse, but to the laws of nature. The earnest volition to go, is the great spring of the emigrant's success, ?He summons up his soul, and strains his nerves, to execute his own purpose; but drive a heart-sick family, against their will, from their native land, put them down in a distant wilderness, and bid them get their living, and there is not one chance in fifty that they would live two years. While you feed them they will subsist, and no longer. General Clark tells you, that those who were in comfort twenty years ago must now be fed. Sir, they cannot live in these dismal steppes. Everett, Edward. "Speech of Mr. Everett, of Massachusetts, on the Bill for Removing the Indians from the East to the West Side of the Mississippi. Delivered in the House of Representatives, On the 19th of May, 1830," (Boston: Office of the Daily Advertiser, 1830) pp. 28, 35.

JEFFERSON TO THE 1820S

SHAPE OF THE NATION:

2.5 million in 1775
5.3 million in 1800

300,000 in towns of 2500 or more (less than 7% “urban”)
893,000 people in slavery

"My father was a farmer and by the help of his trusty rifle kept the family in wild meat such as bear, elk, deer, and wild Turkey."

"My Farm gave me and my family a good living on the produce of it; and left me, one year after another, one hundred and fifty dollars, for I have never spent more than ten dollars a year, which was for salt, nails, and the like. Nothing to wear, eat, or drink was purchased, as my farm produced all."

From Jefferson to the 1820s

I. Election of 1800

Revolution of 1800?

II. The Courts
Marbury v. Madison (1803)

III. The West: Completing the Vision
A. Louisiana Purchase
B. Lewis and Clark

"…the wife of Charbonneau, a Snake Squaw [Shoshone Indian Woman], died of putrid fever…She was aged about 25 years. She left a fine infant girl." (1811)

May 15, 1804
Meriwether Lewis
... Persons accustomed to the navigation of the Missouri and the Mississippi also below the mouth of this river, uniformly take the precaution to load their vessels heavyest in the bow when they ascend the stream in order to avoid the danger incedent to runing foul of the concealed timber which lyes in great quantitites in the beds of these rivers
May 15, 1804
William Clark
...the Boat run on Logs three times to day, owing [to] her being too heavyly loaded a Sturn... I saw a number of Goslings to day on the Shore, the water excessively rapid, & Banks falling in.
May 16, 1804
William Clark
Orderly Book, St. Charles May 16th 1804
Note the Commanding officer is full[y] assured that every man of his Detachment will have a true respect for their own Dignity and not make it necessary for him to leave St. Charles for a more retired position.
May 16, 1804
Joseph Whitehouse
... [we ar]rived at St. Charls. and passed the evening with a [gr]eat deal of Satisfaction, all chearful and in good spirits. this place is an old french village Situated on the North Side of the Missourie and are dressy polite people and Roman Catholicks.
May 17, 1804
William Clark
A fair day compelled to punish for misconduct...
Orderly Book, Orders, St. Charles, Thursday the 17th of May 1804
A Sergeant and four men of the Party destined for the Missouri Expidition will convene at 11 oClock to day on the quarter Deck of the Boat, and form themselves into a Court Martial to hear and determine (in behalf of the Capt.) the evidences aduced against William Warner & Hugh Hall for being absent last night without leave; contrary to orders; -- & John Collins 1st for being absent without leave -- 2nd for behaveing in an unbecomeing manner at the Ball last night -- 3dly for Speaking in a language last night after his return tending to bring into disrespect the orders of the Commanding officer
Signd. W. Clark Comdg.
May 18, 1804
Joseph Whitehouse
we bought some acceseries &c. for the voiage. passed the evening verry agreeable dancing with the french ladies, &c.
May 20, 1804
William Clark
... I gave the party leave to go and hear a Sermon delivered by ... a roman Carthlick Priest
May 20, 1804
Meriwether Lewis
(He joins the party at St. Charles)
... The Vilage contains a Chappel, one hundred dwelling houses, and about 450 inhabitants; their houses are generally small and but illy constructed; a great majority of the inhabitants are miserably pour illiterate and when at home excessively lazy, tho' they are polite hospitable and by no means deficient in point of natural genious, they live in a perfect state of harmony among each other, and place as implicit confidence in the doctrines of their speritual pastor, the Roman Catholic priest, as they yeald passive obedience to the will of their temporal master the commandant...
...These people are principally the decendants of the Canadian French, and it is not an inconsiderable proportion of them that can boast a small dash of the pure blood of the aborigines of America...
May 20, 1804
John Ordway
I and a nomber of the party went to the Mass, ...
May 20, 1804
Joseph Whitehouse
Several of the party went to church, which the french call Mass, and Sore [saw] their way of performing &c.
May 23, 1804
William Clark
We Set out early ran on a Log and detain one hour... Sent out two hunters, one Killed a deer.
(They went 9 miles this day; passed the mouth of the Femme Osage River, where Daniel Boone was living at the time; he had taken a Spanish land grant in 1798. He died along the Femme Osage on Sept. 26, 1820.)
May 23, 1804
Patrick Gass
arrived at St. Johns, a small French village situated on the north side, and encamped a quarter of a mile above it. This is the last settlement of white people on the river.
May 23, 1804
Joseph Whitehouse
a fair morning. we Set out 6 oClock A. m. and proceeded on verry well. passed Some Inhabitants called boons Settlement.
May 23, 1804
Charles Floyd
we Set out at 6 oclock A m plesent day passed the wife of Osoge River three miles and half we pased the tavern or Cave a noted place on the South Side of the River 120 Long 20 feet in Debth 40 feet purpendickler on the South Side of the River high Cliftes
May 24, 1804
William Clark
(A close call on the river. To avoid falling banks, the boat was steered away from the side, rammed onto a sand bar.)
...The Swiftness of the Current Wheeled the boat, Broke our Toe rope, and was nearly over Setting the boat, all hands jumped out on the upper Side and bore on that Side untill the Sand washed from under the boat and Wheeled on the next bank...
(Swimmers took a new rope to the shore, and things were restored to normal)
... This place I call retragrade bend as we were obliged to fall back 2 miles
May 25, 1804
Joseph Whitehouse
towards evening we arived at a french village called St. Johns, ... a boat came here loaded with fur & Skins -- had been a long destance up the River tradeing with the Savages &c. we Camped near this Small village this is the last Settlement of white people on this River.
May 25, 1804
Charles Floyd
encamped at a French village Called St. Johns this is the Last Setelment of whites on this River
May 26, 1804
Meriwether Lewis
Detachment Orders. May 26th 1804.
...The day after tomorrow lyed corn and grece will be issued to the party, the next day Poark and flour, and the day following indian meal and poark; and in conformity to that rotiene provisions will continue to be issued to the party untill further orders. shouled any of the messes prefer indian meal to flour they may receive it accordingly -- no poarch is to be issued when we have fresh meat on hand...
May 28, 1804
William Clark
Rained hard all last night some thunder & lightning...
May 28, 1804
Joseph Whitehouse
as I was a hunting this day I came across a cave on the South Side or fork of a River about 100 yards from the River. I went a 100 yards under ground. had no light in my hand if I had, I should have gone further their was a Small Spring in it. it is the most remarkable cave I ever Saw, in my travels.
May 29, 1804
William Clark
Rained last night...
May 29, 1804
John Ordway
one man Whitehouse lost hunting
May 30, 1804
William Clark
Rained all last night. Set out at 6 oClock after a heavy shower, and proceeded on... a heavy wind accompanied with rain & hail we made 14 miles to day, the river Continud to rise, the Country on each Side appear full of Water.
May 31, 1804
William Clark
rained the greater part of last night...
June 03, 1804
William Clark
...I have a bad cold with a Sore throat...
June 04, 1804
William Clark
...passed a Small Creek... we named Nightingale Creek from a Bird of that discription which Sang for us all last night, and is the first of the Kind I ever heard...
...the Serjt. at the helm run under a bending Tree & broke the Mast...
June 04, 1804
John Ordway
a fair day 3 hunters went out. our mast broke by my Stearing the Boat near the Shore the Rope or Stay to her mast got fast in a limb of a Secamore tree & it broke verry Easy. passed a Creek on the South Side about 15 yds wide which we name nightingale Creek, this Bird Sung all last night & is the first we heard below on the River ... Rising land, Delightfull Timber of oak ash, Black walnut hickery &c. ... our hunters killed 8 Deers it was Jerked this evening &C.
June 04, 1804
Charles Floyd
... ouer Stersman Let the Boat Run under a lim and Broke our mast off 3 miles past a Creek on the South Side Called mast creek a Butifull a peas of Land as ever I saw walnut shoger tree ash and mulber trees Level land on both sides.
June 05, 1804
John Ordway
we passed a high Clifts of Rocks on which was Painted the Pickture of the Devil on South Side of the River.
June 06, 1804
William Clark
...The banks are falling in verry much to day river rose last night a foot.
...Some buffalow Sign to day


IV. Slavery
V. Jeffersonians become
“federalists”
A. Louisiana Purchase/
Lewis and Clark
B. National Bank
C. High Tariff
D. Strong Military

VI. Foreign Entanglements:
War of 1812

VII. The Transportation Revolution
1. Canals http://www.eriecanal.org/locks.html
2. Turnpikes
3. Steamboats

VIII. The “Knell” of the Union
The Missouri Compromise: 1821

READING GUIDE FOR THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES

At this point, you are only responsible for one of the first four chapters. You may choose one of the books: Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, or Seminole.
Once you have decided which one you will read, read through the deep description of your tribe looking especially for the following questions:
1. What are the key features that explain who this tribe is?
2. How does this tribe interact with other tribes or with Euro-American settlers?
2. Who are the important individuals in the chapter?

THIS READING IS DUE ON WEDNESDAY, 10/27 FOR SECTION ONE
THIS READING IS DUE ON TUESDAY, 10/26 FOR SECTION TWO

THE NEW NATION

Peter Oliver, Origins and Progress of the American Rebellion

I shall next give you a sketch of some of Mr. Samuel Adam's features; and I do not know how to delineate them stronger, than by the observation made by a celebrated painter in America, "That if he wished to draw the Picture of the Devil, that he would get Sam Adams to sit for him."
He understood human Nature, in low life, so well, that he could turn the minds of the great vulgar as well as the small into any course that he might choose; he never failed of employing his abilities to the vilest purposes.
He was so thorough a Machiavellian, that he divested himself of every worthy principle, and would stick at no crime to accomplish his ends. He was chosen a collector of taxes for the town of Boston; but when the day of account came, it was found that there was a deficiency of about 1700 pounds sterling.

John Dickenson, “Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us.”

The New Nation:

I.The Constitution of 1787
Shay’s Rebellion, 1786-7
Philadelphia, 1787

Structural Features:
Three Branches:
Judiciary
Executive
Congress:
Bicameralism: why?
Historical, Practical, Theoretical

Concepts:

a. Federalism
1. Virginia Plan
2. New Jersey Plan
3. Connecticut Plan

b. Democracy
c. Liberty: we are preoccupied with rights
"liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others." Locke
--he was crucial in that he helped Americans envision the attainment of natural rights.
"Men by nature are free, equal, and independent."
Rousseau, The Social Contract 1762
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in
chains."
d. Limited government
--GOVERNMENT MUST REMAIN AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE TO BE ABLE TO EFFECTIVELY REPLACE THE STATE OF NATURE.
e. Equality: belief in an equal chance at life
f. Civic Duty: perfect society has a price


II. First Party System:
Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists
(Hamilton) (Jefferson)

The Federalist Papers: 1788-1789
Author: Publius

Federalist Paper 23--Alexander Hamilton
The principle purposes to be answered by Union are these -- The common defense of the members -- the preservation of the public peace as well as against internal convulsions as external attacks-the regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States -- the superintendence of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries.

Federalist Paper 47--James Madison
The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

Federalist Paper 51--James Madison
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

Federalist Paper 78--Alexander Hamilton
"If then the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices, since nothing will contribute so much as this to that independent spirit in the judges, which must be essential to the faithful performance of so arduous a duty. This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of. . . designing men."

Federalist Paper 10--Alexander Hamilton
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished;

Massachusetts man, Amos Singletary:
"We fought Great Britain, some said for a three-penny tax on tea; but it was not that. It was because they claimed a right to tax us and bind us in all cases whatever. And does not this Constitution do the same?

George Mason and Patrick Henry (both of Virginia)

Mason: the Constit is “totally subversive of every principle which has hitherto governed us. This power is calculated to annihilate totally the state governments.”

Henry: “the whole of our property may be taken by this American government by laying what taxes they please, and suspending our laws at pleasure.”

BILL OF RIGHTS (1791)

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.


"Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils." Ben Franklin


Abigail Adams

“...remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”


Virginians could not have the "passion for Liberty" they claimed they did, since they "deprive their fellow Creatures" of freedom.

LEADING TO THE REVOLUTION

THE ROAD TO WAR

I. Changing Policies:
(ending “salutary neglect”)

A. Navigation Acts:

B. Sugar Act (1764)
George Grenville

Patrick Henry

C. Stamp Act (1765)

D. Townshend Duties (1767)
II. Escalation:
A. Discussion:
The Boston Massacre

In spite of each parasite, each cringing slave
Each cautious dastard, each oppressive knave
Each gibing ass, that reptile of an hour
The supercilious pimp of abject slaves in power
We are met to celebrate in festive mirth
The day that gave our freedom second birth
That tells us, British Grenville never more
Shall dare usurp unjust, illegal power
Or threaten America’s free sons with chains,
While the least spark of ancient fire remains

B. Burning of the Gaspee

C. The Boston Tea Party, 1773

D. Intolerable Acts
(1774, also called The Coercive Acts)
1. Boston Port Bill
2. Massachusetts Bay Regulating Act
3. Impartial Administration of Justice Act

--RELATED BUT NOT CALLED INTOLERABLE EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE INTOLERABLE. HUH?--
The Quartering Act
The Quebec Act

III. Events plus Ideas=
Revolution

A. More Scary Events:
1. Lexington and Concord
2. Bunker Hill

B. THE BIG IDEAS:
1. Thomas Paine, “Common Sense” 1776

“But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain...let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING.”
“Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each Other, reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe- America to itself.”

2. Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence

Common Sense: Thomas Paine

Of The Origin And Design Of Government In General. With Concise Remarks On The English Constitution
Some writers have so confounded society with government as to leave little or no distinction between them, whereas they are not only different but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, be finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest, and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true desire and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

In order to gain a clear and just idea of the desire and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest; they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto; the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants and his mind so fitted for perpetual solitude that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labor out the common period of life without accomplishing anything; when he felled his timber, he could not remove it, nor erect it after it removed; hunger in the meantime would urge him from his work every different want call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune, would be death; for though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.

Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which would supersede and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but Heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other, and this remissness will point out the necessity of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.

Some convenient tree will afford them a statehouse, under the branches of which the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of regulations and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament every man by natural right will have a seat.

But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase likewise, and the distance at which the members may be separated will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present. If the colony continue increasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of representatives; and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number; and that the elected might never form to themselves an interest separate from the electors, prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often, because as the elected might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the electors in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of king) depends the strength of government and the happiness of the governed.

Here then is the origin and rise of government, namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz., freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with show or our ears deceived by sound, however prejudice may warp our wills or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and reason will say it is right.

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature which no art can overturn, viz., that the more simple anything is, the less liable it is to be disordered and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny, the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise is easily demonstrated.

Of Monarchy And Hereditary Succession
Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance; the distinctions of rich and poor may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh, ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often the consequence but seldom or never the means of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into kings and subjects. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The heathens paid divine honors to their deceased kings, and the Christian world has improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of his splendor is crumbling into dust!
To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, go the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever; and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings is that nature disapproves it; otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than were bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honors could have no power to give away the right of posterity, and though they might say "We choose you for our head," they could not without manifest injustice to their children say "that your children and your children's children shall reign over ours forever." Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most wise men in their private sentiments have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils which when once established is not easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.

This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin; whereas it is more than probable that, could we take off the dark covering of antiquity and trace them to their first rise, that we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtilty obtained him the title of chief among plunderers and who, by increasing in power and extending his depreciations, overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was incompatible with the free and unrestrained principles they professed to live by....

In England a king has little more to do than to make war and give away places, which, in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshiped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

AND THE TWO EXCERPTS WE READ IN CLASS...
...But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain...let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING.

...Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as England and America, with respect to each Other, reverses the common order of nature, it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe- America to itself.

THE ALMIGHTY DECLARATION!

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
when in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

MIDTERM

Midterm Format:
I. SHORT ESSAY (40%)

One Short Essay (1 of the following questions will be on the test)
a. Why did the English colonize the Americas?
b. What were the key differences between colonial New England and Virginia?
c. What were the key events that caused the American Revolution?
d. What impact did “Common Sense,” and the “Declaration of Independence”
have on the forming of the United States?


II. MULTIPLE CHOICE: (60%)
30 Multiple Choice Questions
(you will answer 30 of 33)

Here are two sample multiple choice questions to show you the level of detail you need:

The French and Indian War ended with the
a. Treaty of Paris of 1763
b. Treaty of Paris of 1783
c. Treaty of Paris of 1898
d. Treaty of Versailles

The Prime Minister of England who signed the Stamp Act was
a. Thomas Hucthinson
b. George Grenville
c. Benjamin Franklin
d. King George III


FOLLOW THIS ADVICE:
Napoleon: “In planning a campaign I purposely exaggerate all the dangers and all the calamities that the circumstances make possible.”