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ting out a treaty, or tearing a seal from your bond.

I give

to the bill the connection which it has in fact, whatever may be said to the contrary, with the laws of the states, to which it is subsidiary, and with the decision of the president, that the Indians must submit or remove. I say you are bound to protect them where they are, if they claim it at your hands; that you violate no right of the states in doing it, and will violate the rights of the Indian nations by not doing it; that when the United States, in consideration of the cession of land made by the Cherokees to this government, guarantied to them the" remainder of their country forever," you meant something by it.

Sir, it is in vain to talk upon this question; impossible, patiently to discuss it. If you have honor, it is pledged; if you have truth, it is pledged; if you have faith, it is pledged;

a nation's faith, and truth, and honor! And to whom pledged? To the weak, the defenceless, the dependent. And for what pledged? Wherever you open your eyes you see it, and wherever you plant your foot you feel it. And by whom pledged? By a nation in its youth-a republic, boastful of its liberty; may it never be added, unmindful of its honor!

Your decision upon this subject is not to be rolled up in the scroll of your journal, and forgotten. The transaction of this day, with the events it will give rise to, will stand out upon the canvass in all future delineations of this quarter of the globe, putting your deeds of glory in the shade. You will see it every where. You will meet it on the page of history, in the essay of the moralist, in the tract of the jurist. You will see it in the vision of the poet; you will feel it in the sting of the satirist; you will encounter it in the indignant frown of the friend of liberty and the rights of man, wherever despotism has not subdued to its dominion the very look. You will meet it upon the stage; you will read it in the novel, and the eyes of your children's children, throughout all generations, will gush with tears as they run

over the story, unless the oblivion of another age of darkness should come over the world, and blot out the record and the memory of it. And, sir, you will meet it at the bar above.

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The Cherokees, if they are men, cannot laws and such degradation. They must go. persuasion, they must consent to go. If you fere in their behalf, the result is inevitable be accomplished. When the Cherokee takes his last look of the cabin he has reared - of the field he has cultivated of the mound that covers the ashes of his fathers for unknown generations, and the bones of his family and friends, and leaves all to be desecrated by the greedy and obtrusive borderer- sir, I will not venture upon a description of this scene of a nation's exit and exile. I will only say, I would not encounter the secret, silent prayer that should be breathed from the heart of one of these sufferers, armed with the energy that faith and hope would give it, if there be a God that avenges the wrongs of the injured, for all the land the sun has looked upon. These children of nature will go to the stake, and bid you strike without the motion of a muscle: but if they can bear this; if they have reduced whatever there is of earth about them to such a subjection to the spirit within as to bear this, we are the men to go into the wilderness, and leave them here as our betters.

There are many collateral arguments, bearing upon the main point of this discussion, that I intended to have urged, and many directly in my way that I have passed over, and most of them I have but touched. But full of interest as this question is, I dare not venture longer upon the patience of the house. At this age of the world, and in view of what the Indians have been and what we were, and of what they have become and we are, any thing but a breach of faith -the deep and lasting infamy, to say nothing of the appalling guilt of it with the Indian tribes! If the great men who have gone before us were so improvident as to involve the United

States in contradictory and incompatible obligations, a breach of faith with all the world besides, rather than with these our confiding neighbors! If we must be made to blush, let it be before our equals. Let there be at least dignity in our humiliation, and therefore something of generosity, or courageous daring something besides unmixed selfishness and domineering cowardice—in the act that produces it.

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IT was in reference to the astonishing impulse given to mechanical pursuits, that Dr. Darwin, more than forty years ago, broke out in strains equally remarkable for their poetical enthusiasm and prophetic truth, and predicted the future triumph of the steam-engine

"Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide waving wings expanded bear
The flying chariot through the fields of air,
Fair crews triumphant, leaning from above,
Shall wave their fluttering kerchiefs as they move,
Or warrior bands alarm the gaping crowd,

And armies shrink beneath the shadowy cloud."

What would he have said, if he had but lived to witness the immortal invention of Fulton, which seems almost to move

in the air, and to fly on the wings of the wind? And yet how slowly did this enterprise obtain the public favor! I myself have heard the illustrious inventor relate, in an animated and affecting manner, the history of his labors and discouragements.

They listened

When, said he, I was building my first steam-boat at New York, the project was viewed by the public either with indifference or with contempt, as a visionary scheme. My friends, indeed, were civil, but they were shy. with patience to my explanations, but with a settled cast of incredulity on their countenances. I felt the full force of the lamentation of the poet,

"Truths would you teach, to save a sinking land,

All shun, none aid you, and few understand."

As I had occasion to pass daily to and from the buildingyard, while my boat was in progress, I have often loitered unknown near the idle groups of strangers, gathering in little circles, and heard various inquiries as to the object of this new vehicle. The language was uniformly that of scorn, or sneer, or ridicule. The loud laugh often rose at my expense; the dry jest; the wise calculation of losses and expenditures; the dull but endless repetition of the Fulton Folly. Never did a single encouraging remark, a bright hope, or a warm wish, cross my path. Silence itself was but politeness, veiling its doubts, or hiding its reproaches.

At length the day arrived when the experiment was to be put into operation. To me it was a most trying and interesting occasion. I invited many friends to go on board to witness the first successful trip. Many of them did me the favor to attend, as a matter of personal respect; but it was manifest that they did it with reluctance, fearing to be the partners of my mortification, and not of my triumph. I was well aware, that in my case there were many reasons to doubt of my own success. The machinery was new and ill made; many parts of it were constructed by mechanics

unaccustomed to such work; and unexpected difficulties might reasonably be presumed to present themselves from other causes. The moment arrived in which the word was to be given for the vessel to move. My friends were in groups on the deck. There was anxiety mixed with fear among them. They were silent, and sad, and weary. I read in their looks nothing but disaster, and almost repented of my efforts.

The signal was given, and the boat moved on a short distance, and then stopped, and became immovable. To the silence of the preceding moment now succeeded murmurs of discontent, and agitations, and whispers, and shrugs. I could hear distinctly repeated, "I told you it would be so It is a foolish scheme - I wish we were well out of it." I elevated myself upon a platform, and addressed the assembly. I stated, that I knew not what was the matter; but if they would be quiet, and indulge me for a half hour, I would either go on, or abandon the voyage for that time. This short respite was conceded without objection. I went below, examined the machinery, and discovered that the cause was a slight mal-adjustment of some of the work. In a short period it was obviated.

The boat was again put in motion. She continued to move on. All were still incredulous. None seemed willing to trust the evidence of their own senses. We left the fair city of New York; we passed through the romantic and ever-varying scenery of the highlands; we descried the clustering houses of Albany; we reached its shores; and then, even then, when all seemed achieved, I was the victim of disappointment. Imagination superseded the influence of fact. It was then doubted if it could be done again; or, if done, it was doubted if it could be made of any great value.

Such was the history of the first experiment, as it fell, not in the very language which I have used, but in its substance, from the lips of the inventor. He did not live, indeed, to

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