the nature of representation: the cherokee right ... - Boston University
the nature of representation: the cherokee right ... - Boston University
the nature of representation: the cherokee right ... - Boston University
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
98 PUBLIC INTEREST LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 15<br />
was used by <strong>the</strong> Jackson administration to implement <strong>the</strong> measure.” 30 John Ross<br />
“fought by [Jackson’s] side,” yet would write in 1831 that Jackson’s “policy<br />
towards <strong>the</strong> aborigines, in my opinion, has been unrelenting and in effect ruinous to<br />
<strong>the</strong>ir best interests and happiness.” 31 While <strong>the</strong> Georgia Governor in support <strong>of</strong><br />
removal argued that Jackson “not only is, but has long been, [<strong>the</strong> Indians’] true<br />
friend and benefactor,” Jackson’s primary motive was to ensure that <strong>the</strong> Cherokees<br />
moved west <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Mississippi, regardless <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> consequences to <strong>the</strong> Cherokee<br />
people. 32<br />
Jackson was firm in his position that <strong>the</strong> Indians must be removed, and<br />
consequently, “spent no sleepless nights over Indian Removal.” 33<br />
Prior to<br />
becoming President and during his time teaching at Princeton, Woodrow Wilson<br />
wrote, “[Jackson’s] attitude towards <strong>the</strong> Indians was frankly that <strong>of</strong> a frontier<br />
soldier. They had no <strong>right</strong>, in his eyes, to stand in <strong>the</strong> way <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> white man.” 34 is worth quoting at length a summary <strong>of</strong> Ronald Takaki’s take on Jackson:<br />
Ronald T. Takaki, a historian <strong>of</strong> race and culture in America, refers to<br />
President Jackson as “<strong>the</strong> nation’s confidence man,” who developed “a<br />
It<br />
metaphysics for genocide.” According to Takaki, Jackson “recognized <strong>the</strong><br />
need to explain <strong>the</strong> nation’s conduct towards Indians, to give it a moral<br />
meaning. In his writings, messages to Congress, and personal letters, Jackson<br />
presented a philosophical justification for <strong>the</strong> extermination <strong>of</strong> native<br />
Americans.” Takaki, borrowing language from <strong>the</strong> English author and literary<br />
critic D. H. Lawrence, asks <strong>of</strong> Jackson, “What sort <strong>of</strong> a white man is he?”<br />
And, again using Lawrence’s words, he replies, “Why, he is a man with a<br />
gun. He is a killer, a slayer. Patient and gentle as he is, he is a slayer. Selfeffacing...stillheisakiller.”<br />
35<br />
Takaki’s stance finds support in Jackson’s disregard <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Supreme Court when<br />
<strong>the</strong> Court supported <strong>the</strong> Cherokees. John Marshall’s Worcester v. Georgia<br />
opinion bolstered <strong>the</strong> Cherokee position that Georgia had no <strong>right</strong> to take Cherokee<br />
land; 36 yet,“[w]henJacksonlearned<strong>of</strong>[Worcester v. Georgia], he is reported to<br />
30<br />
REGINALD HORSMAN, RACE AND MANIFEST DESTINY: THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN<br />
RACIAL ANGLO-SAXONISM 201 (1981).<br />
31<br />
Letter from John Ross to David Crockett (Jan. 13, 1831), in 1THE PAPERS OF CHIEF<br />
JOHN ROSS, supra note 14, at 211.<br />
32<br />
Wilson Lumpkin (Dem-Rep. <strong>of</strong> Georgia to U.S. House <strong>of</strong> Representatives), House<br />
Debate on <strong>the</strong> Indian Removal Question (May 15, 26, 1830) in 2THE AMERICAN INDIAN<br />
AND THE UNITED STATES, supra note 29, at 1083.<br />
33<br />
HORSMAN, supra note 30, at 202.<br />
34<br />
4WOODROW WILSON, supra note 19, at 16-17.<br />
35<br />
Ronald N. Satz, Rhetoric Versus Reality: The Indian Policy <strong>of</strong> Andrew Jackson, in<br />
CHEROKEE REMOVAL: BEFORE AND AFTER 31 (William L. Anderson ed., 1991) (quoting<br />
RONALD T. TAKAKI, IRON CAGES: RACE AND CULTURE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA<br />
100, 103, 106, 107 (1979)).<br />
36<br />
31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832).