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Near the end of his first year in office, President Andrew Jackson announced that he
wished to see all "Redskins" living east of the Mississippi, expelled into the Great
Plains.
Indian Removal had been a platform policy Jackson had campaigned heavily upon, and he
was preparing to introduce his first major piece of legislation as our seventh president.
Six months later, in 1830, Jackson signed his controversial Indian Removal Act into
law. The Act had narrowly passed in the House by five votes.
In carrying out the policy of Indian Removal, Jackson and all of Presidents and Congresses
since, have rejected two Majority Opinions of the Supreme Court issued within a year
of the Indian Removal Act.
First, in 1831 Cherokee v. Georgia, the court decided that tribes were domestic dependent
nations, with a relationship to the United States like that of a ward to its guardian.
Chief Justice John Marshall, writing for the majority, stated that "the federal government
inherited the rights of Great Britain, and those rights included the sole right of dealing
with the Indian nations, but not the rights of possession of their land or political dominion
over their laws". The court basically said "We must honor the treaties made with the Indigenous
Tribes".
Second, also in 1831. Georgia v Worcester, the Marshall Court decided that States have
no criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country. This ruling laid the foundation of tribal
independence in the United States and contradicted Jackson's earlier statement that Indians who
refused to be removed would have to abide by State laws.
Jackson not only spoke and acted about his insurrection, he went so far as to put it
in writing. Clear evidence of this exists in his formal message to Congress and the
Supreme Court that accompanied his Bank Bill Veto.
In it, he suspended judicial review, that had been established three decades earlier
in 1803, in Marbury v. Madison.
Jackson denied that the Supreme Court had any authority over him -- or Congress for
that matter.
Jackson wrote, "The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided
by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support
the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it -- and not as it is
understood by others."
This statement is clearly a slap at the authority of the Judicial Department of the
body politic.
Jackson went on to write "The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress
than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is
independent of both."
This declaration by Jackson is nothing short of imperial tyranny, and it is not how our
three branches of government were designed to operate, through a series of checks and
balances.
Jackson got checked, but he never got balanced. In fact, he has been attributed with saying
"the court has rendered its decision, now let's see them try and enforce it."
Jackson's 1832 message also stated that "The authority of the Supreme Court must not be
permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities,
but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve."
This last sentence relegates the Supreme Court -- the law of the land -- to an advisory body
with no ability to enforce its findings or orders.
Clearly, Jackson considered the Constitution of the United States to be an advisory document
as well.
Not only should the patently offensive Indian Removal Act of 1830 be subject to judicial
review, it must be reviewed. And very likely repealed!
It may be unfair to judge 19th century thinking in the 21st century, but frankly, it is self-evident
that any law that suggests the removal of an ethnic group... is going to be violating
someone's natural human rights.
Now, this may all seem like ancient history, but the removal of Indians from their ancestral
lands -- and the reclamation of that land by the Interior Department -- is still going
on today.
As one example, in 1981, a lawsuit was brought by the Sioux Indians seeking to recover 7.3 million acres of their
sacred Black Hills, as promised by the treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868.
In the preceding case of United States v Sioux Nation, in 1980, the Supreme Court offered
monetary relief but not title to their lands. The Indians have never accepted the cash.
It is worth noting that Associate Justice Blackmun, writing for the Majority in the
case, castigated the government's dealings with the Sioux by stating for the record that
"...a more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealing ... will never be found in our history."
Sadly, Justice Blackmun was being far too optimistic, for past and subsequent history
has proven him wrong in his assessment of the character of Congress and the BIA.
Even more recently the Justice Department has been forced to settle claims totaling
billions of dollars directly attributable to theft and mismanagement of Indian Trust
by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
And there are dozens of other claims pending.
Over the past three years researchers in the Tecumseh Federation have poured over hundreds
of historical writings, legal documents, speeches, books and hours upon hours of video documentaries,
seeking to uncover the true history behind the U.S. Congress' odious Indian Affairs policies.
The result is that we are of one mind in believing that the failure of Congress to acknowledge
that it had conspired and colluded in an insurrection over the Supreme Court to pass the patently
unlawful and immoral Indian Removal Act is the sole reason for the continuance of America's
Killing Fields today.
The federal government's failure to grant fee simple title to the Indians is at the
root of all of the catastrophes surrounding America's wretched Indian Affairs policies.
The removal policy created the modern day BIA reservation system, which we now know
to be institutionalized genocide, with mass exodus by those who can, and the erosion of an entire
culture that helped define the Western World.
Americas Killing Fields are a can of worms that nobody wants to open.
These truths represent, for many, the darkest blight on our nation's history since passage
of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.
But our generation and the ones that follow must have the courage to open old wounds if
we are to meet the promise of America to its people today.
Let us mourn, grieve, and acknowledge our forefather's errors and wrongdoings and attempt
to make things right for our country's First People, the Native Americans.