the forcible expulsion of the Creeks from their habitations
and lands within the State of Georgia there was no middle term.

The deputation with which this treaty has been concluded consists of the
principal chiefs of the nation--able not only to negotiate but to carry
into effect the stipulations to which they have agreed. There is a
deputation also here from the small party which undertook to contract
for the whole nation at the treaty of the 12th of February, but the
number of which, according to the information collected by General
Gaines, does not exceed 400. They represent themselves, indeed, to be
far more numerous, but whatever their number may be their interests have
been provided for in the treaty now submitted. Their subscriptions to it
would also have been received but for unreasonable pretensions raised by
them after all the arrangements of the treaty had been agreed upon and
it was actually signed. Whatever their merits may have been in the
facility with which they ceded all the lands of their nation within the
State of Georgia, their utter inability to perform the engagements which
they so readily contracted and the exorbitancy of their demands when
compared with the inefficiency of their own means of performance leave
them with no claims upon the United States other than of impartial and
rigorous justice.

In referring to the impressions under which I ratified the treaty of the
12th of February last, I do not deem it necessary to decide upon the
propriety of the manner in which it was negotiated. Deeply regretting
the recriminations and recriminations to which these events have given
rise, I believe the public interest will best be consulted by discarding
them altogether from the discussion of the subject. The great body of
the Creek Nation inflexibly refuse to acknowledge or to execute that
treaty. Upon this ground it will be set aside, should the Senate advise
and consent to the ratification of that now communicated, without
looking back to the means by which the other was effected. And in the
adjustment of the terms of the present treaty I have been peculiarly
anxious to dispense a measure of great liberality to both parties of the
Creek Nation, rather than to extort from them a bargain of which the
advantages on our part could only be purchased by hardship on theirs.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
_February 1, 1826_

_To the Senate of the United States_:

In compliance with a resolu