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The Cherokees were not visited; and we should suppose that any present attempt to effect their removal would rather retard than hasten it. They are just about to try the experiment of a regular government, and will not be diverted from it.

Colonel McKenney speaks of the state of the Indians, especially the Creeks, as being very poor and wretched, indeed –being habitual drunkards, poverty and distress is visible everywhere. “I hold their recovery from [drunkenness], and from its long train of miseries, while they retain their present relations to the states, to be hopeless,” says the superintendant. And it is insisted upon by him, that emigration, only, beyond the limits of the present states and territories, can be productive of permanent good to this people. “Destruction lies before them;” and the colonel says that “humanity and justice unite in calling loudly upon the government as a parent, promptly to interfere and save them.”

In regard to the Cherokees, the colonel declares, that "they ought not to be encouraged in forming a constitution and government within a state of the republic, to exist and operate independently of our laws.” After considerable reflection on this proposition, we yield a rather unwilling assent to the justice of it, in the belief that conflicts would arise in which the Indians would be the sufferers, on several accounts and in various ways. We have hitherto been pleased with the progress of the Cherokees towards the formation of a government of written laws, and still most heartily wish them success in the project – but the exertion of those laws within the territory of a state, we now apprehend, would be followed by unhappy consequences – and, as a people, we have always thought that they could not exist in their present location – too many of their neighbors would show but little respect to the laws of the Cherokees, though ready enough to put those of the United States in force against them.

The colonel suggests –1. the preparation of a suitable and last home, for these unfortunate people; 2. the provision and means for their transportation and support – the taking of them “kindly, but firmly, by the hand, and telling them they must go and enjoy it;” 3. the forbidding all interference with their concerns – for which purpose the presence of a few troops would be necessary.