Albert Pike (1809–1891)

By Article XII. of the Treaty of 28th November, 1785, the absolute right “to send a Deputy of their own choice to Congress” was given to the Cherokees ; and by Article VII. of the Treaty of 29th December, 1835, it was agreed that they should be entitled to send a Delegate to the House of Representatives of the United States, whenever Congress should make provision for the same ; which Congress never was asked by the Executive to do ; and by Article XII. of the Treaty with the Choctaws, of 27th September, 1830,the application of that Nation to be allowed a Delegate in Congress, was “presented in the Treaty that Congress may consider of and decide the application ;” which the Executive never asked Congress to do. The degree of civilization and respectability to which these five Nations have attained, entitles them to be heard, at least, in the Councils of the Confederate States; and they eminently deserve this for their loyalty to us in the present crisis.

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If it should seem to any one that too much is conceded to any of these Indians, let him but learn the great extent and the varied resources of the Indian country, with its fine streams, its splendid scenery, its soil unexcelled in the world for fertility, its vast undulating prairies, on which all the herds of the world could feed, its capabilities to produce grain of every kind, hemp, tobacco, cotton, fruit, wine and wool; its immense basins of coal, its limestones, marbles, granite, iron, lead and salt, which will make it some day the very finest State of the Confederacy, and he will begin to comprehend that the concessions made the Indians are really far more for our benefit than for theirs ,‘ and that it is we, a. thousand times more than they, who are interested to have this country, the finest, in my opinion, on the continent, opened to settlement and formed into a State.

The President is well aware of the importance of this country, not merely to Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, but to the whole Confederacy. It is both a military and political necessity that it should form a part of our own country. In all probability many years will elapse before even the Choc taws and Chickasaws will avail themselves of the provision authorizing the formation of a State Government; and it is very desirable to lead them to look upon it as a thing that is at some day in the future to occur.