a few votes, after a
hard battle; but if they had only taken the other side and refused the
mission, we should have had them."

Of far more serious import than this factional opposition in Congress
was the resistance which the authorities of Georgia offered to the
National Administration in the matter of Indian lands. On March 5, 1825,
the Senate ratified the Treaty of Indian Springs with the Creek Indians,
which provided for the cession of practically all the lands of the tribe
between the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. For years the planters of
Georgia had coveted these fertile tracts, awaiting with impatience the
negotiations of the Federal Government with the reluctant Indians.
Although the title to the lands was not to pass to Georgia until
September 1, 1826, Governor Troup ordered them to be surveyed with a
view to their immediate occupation. Meantime, well-founded charges were
current that the treaty had been made by a faction among the Creeks,
without the consent of the responsible chiefs. President Adams at once
ordered the state authorities to desist from their survey; but the
governor replied that Georgia was convinced of the validity of the
treaty and fully determined to enter into possession of her own. The
tone of the governor's letter was ominous. Nevertheless, the President
instituted negotiations for a new treaty. The diplomatic shifts resorted
to by the Indian agents in this instance were not above suspicion, but
the President seemed to entertain no misgivings, for he assured the
Senate that the new Treaty of Washington (January 24, 1826) was the will
and deed of "the chiefs of the whole Creek Nation." The grant left the
Indians still in possession of some lands west of the Chattahoochee.

The feelings of all loyal Georgians were outraged by the course of the
Administration. The legislature protested against the Treaty of
Washington as "illegal and unconstitutional," and denounced the
President's action as "an instance of dictation and federal supremacy
unwarranted by any grant of powers to the General Government." "Georgia
owns exclusively the soil and jurisdiction of all the territory within
her present chartered and conventional limits," read the resolutions of
December 22, 1826. "She has never relinquished said right, either
territorial or jurisdictional, to the General Government."

The ebullient governor hardly needed the indorsement of the legislature.
He pushed on the surveys to the limits s