e Cherokee system of learning."[266:1]

This country, enriched by the toil and thrift of its owners, the State
of Georgia resolved not merely to subjugate to its jurisdiction, but to
steal from its rightful and lawful owners, driving them away as outlaws.
As a sure expedient for securing popular consent to the intended infamy,
the farms of the Cherokees were parceled out to be drawn for in a
lottery, and the lottery tickets distributed among the white voters.
Thus fortified, the brave State of Georgia went to all lengths of
outrage. "Missionaries were arrested and sent to prison for preaching to
Cherokees; Cherokees were sentenced to death by Georgia courts and hung
by Georgia executioners." But the great crime could not be achieved
without the connivance, and at last the active consent, of the national
government. Should this consent be given? Never in American history has
the issue been more squarely drawn between the kingdom of Satan and the
kingdom of Christ. American Christianity was most conspicuously
represented in this conflict by an eminent layman, Jeremiah Evarts,
whose fame for this public service, and not for this alone, will in the
lapse of time outshine even that of his illustrious son. In a series of
articles in the "National Intelligencer," under the signature of
"William Penn," he cited the sixteen treaties in which the nation had
pledged its faith to defend the Cherokees in the possession of their
lands, and set the whole case before the people as well as the
government. But his voice was not solitary. From press and pulpit and
from the platforms of public meetings all over the country came
petitions, remonstrances, and indignant protests, reinforcing the
pathetic entreaties of the Cherokees themselves to be protected from the
cruelty that threatened to tear them from their homes. In Congress the
honor of leadership among many faithful and able advocates of right and
justice was conceded to Theodore Frelinghuysen, then in the prime of a
great career of Christian service. By the majority of one vote the bill
for the removal of the Cherokees passed the United States Senate. The
gates of hell triumphed for a time with a fatal exultation. The authors
and abettors of the great crime were confirmed in their delusion that
threats of disunion and rebellion could be relied on to carry any
desired point. But the mills of God went on grinding. Thirty years
later, when in the battle of Missionary Ridge the chivalry