Jackson was also a firm believer and Georgia wanted the Creeks out, so he removed them.  The reason that Georgia wanted the Creeks out was that gold had been discovered on their land, so it was just another chapter in the long sad story of our treatment of the natives that goes back to the very earliest colonial days – we'll let you keep your land until we want it and then we'll run your butt off.  Don't forget that Jackson violated a Supreme Court ruling in order to remove them and that he made his early reputation by wiping out the natives in the south and then pursuing them into the Spanish colonies in Florida.  National security had nothing to do with it.

I will agree that Jackson was reflective of his time and his culture rather than being some sort of racist ogre and he was merely reflective of the attitude of the vast majority of his constituents, but the fact remains that he went directly and unequivocally against the mandate of the supreme judicial body of the country.  That may be leadership but is that the kind of leadership that we want from a President?  It effectively says that you only have to obey the law if it happens to agree with your personal predilections.  One could even make an argument that it set the stage for the attempt by South Carolina a few years later to nullify federal law that he adamantly opposed .  This in turn set the stage for secession and the resulting civil war.  I'm not saying that Jackson was ultimately responsible for any of this, but I am saying that his conduct in this matter – specifically his failure to obey the mandate of the Supreme Court – helped create an atmosphere that viewed the federal government as a voluntary association of independent sovereignties rather than the binding union of a people that was envisioned by the founders, thus setting the stage for the Civil War.  And no, I am not a big fan of Old Hickory.  I think that in the list of overrated Presidents he is neck-and-neck with Jefferson for the Getting Way More Credit Than He Actually Deserves award.

The case was Worcester v Georgia and the decision was announced on March 3, 1832 by Chief Justice John Marshall.  It declared that Native American tribes were independent nations capable of making treaties and that only the federal government could make laws governing them.  Jackson refused to enforce the decision with the result that the Georgia state legislature was able to systematically deprive the Cherokee nation of their rights as secured under previous treaties which allowed settlers to encroach on their lands and the state to annex it as they saw fit.  The fact that gold was discovered on Cherokee land in 1829 just MIGHT have had something to do with it, as well as the fact that they they were successful farmers which meant that settlers could avoid the aggravation of having to clear virgin land before settling.  The end result was that the Cherokees were eventually forced to sign away their land because they really had no other option and then came the Trail of Tears, an abomination by any age's standards.  Now, I am not an expert on morality or law, I would assume that one of the givens in our constitutional form of government is that the chief executive is required to abide by the decisions of the supreme judicial body, otherwise we would call him King or Dictator or Fuehrer or maybe even Fearless Leader instead of President.  I am also reasonably sure that the Bible frowns on stealing from your neighbor and this country has always considered itself a Christian country and I'm pretty sure Christ never said that it was okay to steal.  So even conceding that we shouldn't judge past actions by current morality, a position I have maintained for years and why I am adamantly opposed to reparations for slavery while reparations for segregation are an entirely different matter, I feel fairly confident in asserting that Jackson's conduct in relation to the Cherokee nation was both illegal and immoral by then-current standards, as well as just plain reprehensible by anybody's standards.

Yep, Old Hickory essentially said “You're screwed” to the natives.  And there was a time in our past when serving in the legislature at any level was considered a civic duty that required sacrifice.  It didn't pay that much and required that the member travel long distance by stage or train and live in a boarding house away from his family.  You did it for a few years and then went back to your real job – lawyer, farmer, whatever.  There were professional politicians and political machines – that goes back to the 1800 presidential race – but most were not.  It's principally been the last 50-100 years that being a politician has become a career for most of them and now it's getting to be a family sinecure in some instances.  The Bushes, the Kennedys, my home state governor is the son of Roy Blunt who is Majority Whip or some such nonsense.  What's really scary is I've heard of some talk of Jeb running in 2008.  I guess he would be placeholder until one of the Bush daughters get old enough, maybe Laura might have to fill in for a few years.  But perhaps the scariest change is that before 1980 I believe, no ex-Congressman worked for a lobbying firm since lobbyists were often considered not much better than pimps but that since then something like 30% of those leaving the House and Senate found jobs on K-Street.  So now, instead of men like Clay, Calhoun, Webster, or our former Senator Jack Danforth, we have people in our legislature who apparently look on it as prep school for lobbying firms.

Would it possible that the Indian removal act of 1830 might have been inspired by “Le Grand D?rangement” (the Big Disturbance) ?This was the forced population transfer of the French Acadian population from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (an area known as Acadia to the French) to other British controlled colonies between 1755 and 1763.