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Andrew Jackson's First Annual Message
President
Andrew Jackson's First Annual Message, December 8, 1829
Our
conduct toward these people is deeply interesting to our national
character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they
once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our
ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast
regions. By persuasion and force they have been made to retire
from river to river and from mountain to mountain, until some
of the tribes have become extinct and others have left but remnants
to preserve for awhile their once terrible names. Surrounded
by the whites with their arts of civilization, which by destroying
the resources of the savage doom him to weakness and decay,
the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware
is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek.
That this fate surely awaits them if they remain within the
limits of the states does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and
national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert
so great a calamity.
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