Native Deportation and Authoritarian Rule

GENTLEMEN: The President has received your letter of the 19th instant, and, after giving to it that mature consideration which the importance of the subject to which it refers demands, he has directed me to communicate to you the following answer: By the [1802] compact with Georgia, the United States are bound to extinguish, for the use of the State, the Indian title to lands within the State, as soon as it can be done peaceably, and on reasonable conditions; and the Legislature and Executive of Georgia now press the fulfilment of that stipulation, with the utmost possible earnestness. This Government is anxious to fulfil the agreement, provided it can be done on conditions which accord with the import of the compact, and which will also be satisfactory to the Indians. With a view to this object, we wish to have a free communication with you, the chiefs of the Cherokees; and to appeal to the good sense and to the interest of the nation, as pointed out by their own experience, and by that of their ancestors, for two centuries back.