Melville Fuller

“ By consenting to be sued, and submitting the decision to judicial action, they have considered it as a purely judicial question, which we are now bound to decide as between man and man, on the same subject-matter and by the rules which congress themselves have prescribed, of which the stipulations of any treaty and the proceedings under the same form one of four distinct ones. ”

“ The United States also agree and stipulate to remove the Cherokees to their new homes, and to subsist them one year after their arrival there, and that a sufficient number of steamboats and baggage wagons shall be furnished to remove them comfortably, and so as not to endanger their health, and that a physician, well supplied with medicines, shall accompany each detachment of emigrants removed by the government. ”

“ The United States agree to make a fair and just settlement of all moneys due to the Cherokees, and subject to the per capita division under the treaty of 29th December, 1835, which said settlement shall exhibit all money properly expended under said treaty, and shall embrace all sums paid for improvements, ferries, spoliations, removal, and subsistence, and commutation therefor, debts and claims upon the Cheorkee nation of Indians, for the additional quantity of land ceded to said nation ”

“ It will be perceived that that decision is not authority for the proposition that a court may be clothed with power to annul a treaty on the ground of fraud or duress in its execution, nor does any such question arise in the case before us. ”

“ The sum of two hundred thousand dollars, in addition to the present annuities of the nation, to constitute a general fund, the interest of which shall be applied annually be the council of the nation to such purposes as they may deem best for the general interest of their people. The sum of fifty thousand dollars to constitute an orphans' fund, the annual income of which shall be expended towards the support and education of such orphan children as are destitute of the means of subsistence. ”

“ The record does not show that the Western Cherokees formally denied the validity of the treaty of 1835 until the immigration of the Eastern Cherokees was completed, and until after there was a disagreement as to the government that should be adopted and control the Cherokee country. ”

“ Petitioners claim, however, that no deduction should have been made for subsistence, and that the sum allowed for removal should be limited to 2,200 Indians at $20 per head; and they further insist upon an allowance of $30,000 for property destroyed, while they abandon their claim for $9,179.16 1/4 as the value of the Arkansas agency land and improvements, and concede that the sum of $4,179.26 therefor, as found by the court below, may be accepted as correct. ”

“ The court was quite right in holding that the amount found due should not be decreed to be received and disbursed by the three petitioners as a commission, and that it was not necessary that the decree should require the beneficiaries to come into that tribunal, and prove up against the fund. ”

“ Such persons and families as in the opinion of the emigrating agent are capable of subsisting and removing themselves shall be permitted to do so, and they shall be allowed in full for all claims for the same twenty dollars for each member of their family, and in lieu of their one year's rations they shall be paid the sum of thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents, if they prefer it. ”

“ If, on the other hand, it should be determined that the Western Cherokees were properly chargeable with those removed subsequent to the act of June, 1838, as well as before, namely, for 17,252 Cherokees, then the amount of $920,049.16 should be deducted. ”

“ The sum of three hundred thousand dollars is hereby set apart to pay and liquidate the just claims of the Cherokees upon the United States for spoliations of every kind that have not been already satisfied under former treaties.'
'Art. 15. ”