Political Conflict

Conflicting views over removal sparked massive debate in Congress that fell along geographical and partisan lines. Despite opposition, the Indian Removal Act passed the Senate 28-19 and narrowly passed the House 102-97.

“That those tribes can not exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.” - President Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson as Great Father, n.d., University of Michigan (click to enlarge)

"Where you are, you and my white children are too near to each other to live in harmony and peace. Your game is destroyed, and many of your people will not work and till the earth."- President Andrew Jackson

Theda Perdue, 10 Apr. 2016, YouTube

Supporters
President Jackson, Wilson Lumpkin, Lewis Cass, John Forsyth and others who supported removal argued that American Indians were inferior, unintelligent, vulnerable, and unable to care for themselves. Jackson took a paternalistic view that removal was a way of protecting them. Supporters thought national security, states rights, and the expansion and development of the country superseded previous agreements made in treaties.

Wilson Lumpkin, n.d., Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Lewis Cass, n.d., Biographical Directory of the United States of Congress

"And while I most fully concur with the President, in denying the right of the Federal Government to impede or control the State authorities in an, manner whatever in relation to the government of these 'Unfortunate people, I have, nevertheless, contended, and still believe, that it is the duty of the Federal Government to cooperate with the States in all just measures which may be calculated to speedily remove the evils of an Indian population from the States"
- Wilson Lumpkin, (Democrat) of Georgia

"A barbarous people, depending for subsistence upon the scanty and precarious supplies furnished by the chase, cannot live in contact with a civilized community....Many of them were carefully taught at our seminaries of education, in the hope that principles of morality and habits of industry would be acquired, and that they might stimulate their countrymen by precept and example to a better course of life...Unfortunately, they are monuments also of unsuccessful and unproductive efforts. What tribe has been civilized by all this expenditure of treasure, and labor, and care?" -Lewis Cass, (Democrat) Secretary of War

John Forsyth, n.d., Biographical Directory of the United States

"A race not admitted to be equal to the rest of the community; not governed as completely dependent; treated somewhat like human beings, but not admitted to be freemen; not yet entitled, and probably never will be entitled, to equal civil and political rights." - Senator John Forsyth, (Democrat) of Georgia

Opponents
Senators Theodore Frelinghuysen, Peleg Sprague, Henry Storrs and Edward Everett, leading the opposition to the bill, considered removal as oppressive and unconstitutional. They felt the United States should honor its treaties and protect tribes from encroachment by settlers and state governments.

Theodore Frelinghuysen, n.d., Biographical Directory of The United States Congress

"Deep, indeed, must have been their yielded to our importunity, until we have acquired more than can be cultivated in centuries--and yet we crave more. we have crowded the tribes upon a few miserable acres on our Southern frontier--it is all that is left to them of their once boundless forests , and still, like the horseleech, our insatiated cupidity cries give, give."
- Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen, (Anti-Jacksonian) of New Jersey

Peleg Sprauge, n.d., Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

"The treaty contains many reciprocal stipulations of the 'contracting parties.' Will it be contended that we are not bound by them because the other party was conquered--in other words because we were the strongest? If the United States made terms of peace should they not abide by them? If a besieged town capitulates, are not the articles of capitulation obligatory?"
- Senator Peleg Sprague, (Anti-Jacksonian) of Maine

Henry Storrs, n.d., MHS Collections Online

Edward Everett, n.d., Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

"I am sick--heart-sick of seeing them at our door as I enter this hall, where they have been standing during the whole of this session, supplicating us to stay our hand. There is one plain path of honor....Retrace your steps. Acknowledge your treaties. Confess your obligations. Redeem your faith. Execute your laws. Let the President revise his opinions. It is never too late to be just."
- Representative Henry R. Storrs, (Anti-Jacksonian) of New York

"The evil, Sir, is enormous; the inevitable suffering incalculable. Do not stain the fair fame of the country.... Nations of dependent Indians, against their will, under color of law, are driven from their homes into the wilderness. You cannot explain it; you cannot reason it away.... Our friends will view this measure with sorrow, and our enemies alone with joy. And we ourselves, Sir, when the interests and passions of the day are past, shall look back upon it, I fear, with self-reproach, and a regret as bitter as unavailing."
- Senator Edward Everett, (Whig) of Massachusetts

Jeremiah Evarts, n.d., Boston University

Christian activists and missionaries supported those opposed to removal. They believed removal was inhumane and would lead to destruction of the native culture.

"If, in pursuance of a narrow and selfish policy, we should at this day, in a time of profound peace and great National prosperity, amidst all our professions of magnanimity and benevolence, and in the blazing light of the nineteenth century, drive away the remnants of the tribes, in such a manner, and under such auspices, as to ensure their destruction...then the sentence of an indignant would will be uttered in thunders, which will roll and reverberate for ages after the present actors in human affairs shall have passed away."
-Jeremiah Evarts, Christian missionary

Catherine Beecher, 2017, New-York Historical Society Museum and Library

“...it has become almost a certainty that these people are to have their lands torn from them, and to be driven into western wilds and to final annihilation, unless the feelings of a humane and Christian nation shall be aroused to prevent the unhallowed sacrifice.”
- Catherine Beecher

"When, therefore, injury and oppression threaten to crush a hapless people within our borders, we, the feeblest of the feeble, appeal with confidence to those who should be the representatives of national virtues as they are depositories of national powers, and implore them to succor the weak & unfortunate."
-Ladies of Steubenville

The Indian Removal Act

Treaties and Resistance