What does the debate over Indian Removal indicate about the political divisions in the United States in the 1830s?

Question

What groups were most likely to support removal and which groups were most likely to oppose it? Why did the opponents fail to defeat or overturn Indian Removal policy?

Answer 1

Answer: An ideal answer will:
1. Discuss the support of President Jackson's Indian Removal policy and the Indian Removal Act of 1830 by white Georgia settlers and farmers who had moved onto Cherokee lands.
2. Discuss the support of President Jackson's Indian Removal policy and the Indian Removal Act by the state of Georgia governor and legislature which had passed a law in 1828 extending Georgia state law to all parts of the Cherokee Republics as a naked overall attempt to pressure Cherokees to move off their native homelands.
3. Discuss the support for Indian Removal of white settlers and farmers eager to acquire eastern Indian lands in the South located east of Mississippi belonging to the Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes. These settlers sought to acquire these Indian lands in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida.
4. Discuss the political and legal opposition and active resistance of the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole leaders and members, including Cherokee women, to their forced removal to Indian Territory, which eventually became Oklahoma.
5. Assert that social reformers such as Catherine Beecher organized women across the Northwest to defend Indian rights and that Christian missionaries also campaigned vigorously against the Indian Removal Act.
6. Discuss how Northeast Congressional supporters of Protestant missionaries and reform efforts and defenders of Indian treaty rights such as Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jersey led a vigorous political opposition in Congress to the Indian Removal Act.
7. Discuss how the decision of President Jackson not to enforce two U.S. Supreme Court decisions favorable to protecting Indian treaty rights proved to be fateful for undermining the Cherokee Nation's effort to avoid removal.
8. Write a concise and effective conclusion.