[Fayetteville, Ark.] The Arkansian, January 6, 1860
The last Fort Scott Democrat, which honors us but seldom with a call, has again made its appearance on our table; and our attention is called to a nice little article on the Cherokee Neutral Land. That paper encourages the intruders on that tract to remain, and by the tenor of its views invites others to intrude. The dishonesty of its course towards all parties, the intruders, Indians, and the Government, entitles the Editor of the Fort Scott Democrat, and his counsellors to the execration of all honest men.
He is encouraging men to violate the laws and treaties of the United States, induces them to expend their labor, and waste their means in settling on a tract of land that does not belong to them, or to the Government; and whom the Government will surely, as it is bound to do, remove, to the loss of their improvements and time. On the other hand, he invites the aggression upon this tract, because it belongs to the Indians, trusting that when it becomes settled they will be forced to sell; and towards the Government their course is equally dishonest, mendacious and sordid; not satisfied with the bounty of a pre-emption right on the New York lands, and with the favors of the Government towards them, already derived, this clique of land speculators of which the Fort Scott Democrat is the organ, expect to force the Government to open another field for their speculations.
At this very time while the Fort Scott Editor is encouraging the intruders to believe that they will be protected in their lawlessness, orders are posted through this tract requiring these very intruders to leave at the peril of military coercion.
As to the influential democratic members of Congress who will force the Government to buy this land, the editor builds too high expectations. These democratic members are known to be “land speculators” also, and their influence will become very much weakened, when their patriotic designs are understood, in full as they are now in part. There is a democratic Secretary of the Interior, also a “democratic” Commissioner of Indian affairs who have special charge of these subjects, and whose high and honorable position, and reputation are such guarantees against this scheme of spoliation. There are also democratic members of the Indian Committees who will have a special eye to the contemplated squatter philanthropy; and these “democratic” gentlemen are as good and influential democrats as the free soil, quasi-“democratic” members referred to by the Editor of the Fort Scott paper.
The assurance of the editor, of the protection that Arkansas will receive from the “Third Party” of Southern Kansas, is as ridiculous as gratuitous. The law loving character of Southern Kansas, can well be imagined, when we read in one number of their own paper, of two lawless acts unequaled by any that ever occurred in Arkansas. The editor informs us through his columns, that a mob of armed men, lawlessly seized and carried off the poll books at one of the precincts in Southern Kansas; and that on another occasion a mob rescued a prisoner from the United States Marshal. These are the institutions, which he proposes to extend to our border; and that is the composition of the “Third Party,” which is to rule the destinies of Southern Kansas.
This condition of society may be, and no doubt, since he seems so well pleased with it, is good enough for the Editor of the Fort Scott Democrat, but we do not covet such neighbors. If negro stealing has stopped in Kansas, it must be because there is no more of that kind of property to prey upon; that land stealing is not yet extinct in that region, we may conclude from the lustful itching of the editor to get a hold on the Cherokee Neutral Land.
We have one suggestion to make in behalf of the intruders on the Cherokee Neutral tract; it is this: as the Fort Scott Editor regards the intrusion such a safe transaction, so profitable and advantageous to the settler, and as he is so much interested in its settlement, it would be very proper. honest and candid, for him to settle on that land, and expend his capital and labor in the investment, and not hold aloof, while he pushes others to the risk.
We have thus shown the real motives of those who are most clamorous for the Government to buy this land; the lever on the side of the Indians is of a like avaricious and speculative character; strenuous efforts have been made for the last ten years, by the spendthrift chief of the Cherokees to dispose of this land; his gluttonous drains on the treasury, his extravagantly liberal wages to murderers, and his own miserable and dishonest pretensions for loans has emptied the National Treasury and had forced him to invent some speedy [tear] method of “making a rise;” [most of rest of paragraph torn off] assassination of the best man of the Nation, for acquiescing in a forced sale of land, and who smacked their lips as the bloody spectacle of old men shot upon the high way and of husbands and fathers dragged from the side of their wives, and inhumanly butchered upon their own hearthstones, now, recommend, and exert all their influence to accomplish the very policy which they once denounced as traitorous and unpatriotic. Now, invite, with unflushing effrontery, and daring impudence that very visitation, which was so unmeritably and unjustly awarded those who braved the hypocritical and bloody Chief by opposing his schemes of spoliation and self-aggrandizement. John Ross, the selfish and avaricious Chief of the Cherokee Nation, has become more notorious than ever by the exposure of his dastardly schemes we have made; the Louisville Journal, and the Memphis papers with other influential and leading journals of the United States, have been attracted by our exposition of the designs, and character of the wicked ruler who presides over the Cherokee Nation, and their comments and animadversions, without the pretense, even of a vindication by the villain Chief, will have their effect. The Government of the United States will perceive not only this base subterfuge of the Fort Scott Democrat, but will be able to penetrate the sordid designs of John Ross and his faction. The Gov. will see, that this miserable Chief, impoverished by expenditure and exhorbitant living, ruined by lavish and prodigal wages, paid a set of cut-throats and assassins, has at last come to the dangerous necessity of proposing and supporting the very measure he has ever before been so active in opposing.
The Neutral Land will not be sold, because the mass of the Cherokees are unwilling to part with it, and because, the very delegates appointed to negotiate a sale, will fear the popular indignation, too much to press a sale.
Wm. P. Ross, we understand, will not go as one of the delegation; we are glad of this, for we have always regarded this individual as unworthy of his family, and worthy of a better association; but we hope, and confidently expect that Mr. John Ross, who has, for his own mercenary advantage, set this ball in motion, will not at this dark hour, shirk the responsibility of his act, but boldly take the lead and dare the vengeance of his people; for Wm. P. Ross there is an excuse; for John Ross there is none; he, at least is bound to lead this dangerous experiment.