strate or
any proper officer or other person duly authorized for that purpose and
having a lawful warrant, to aid and assist such magistrate, officer, or
other person so authorized in arresting such offender and committing him
to safe custody for trial according to law.

The first of these processes is adapted to the arrest of the trespasser
upon Indian territories on the spot and in the act of committing the
offense; but as it applies the action of the Government of the United
States to places where the civil process of the law has no authorized
course, it is committed entirely to the functions of the military force
to arrest the person of the offender, and after bringing him within the
reach of the jurisdiction of the courts there to deliver him into
custody for trial. The second makes the violator of the law amenable
only after his offense has been consummated, and when he has returned
within the civil jurisdiction of the Union. This process, in the first
instance, is merely of a civil character, but may in like manner be
enforced by calling in, if necessary, the aid of the military force.

Entertaining no doubt that in the present case the resort to either of
these modes of process, or to both, was within the discretion of the
Executive authority, and penetrated with the duty of maintaining the
rights of the Indians as secured both by the treaty and the law, I
concluded, after full deliberation, to have recourse on this occasion,
in the first instance, only to the civil process. Instructions have
accordingly been given by the Secretary of War to the attorney and
marshal of the United States in the district of Georgia to commence
prosecutions against the surveyors complained of as having violated the
law, while orders have at the same time been forwarded to the agent of
the United States at once to assure the Indians that their rights
founded upon the treaty and the law are recognized by this Government
and will be faithfully protected, and earnestly to exhort them, by the
forbearance of every act of hostility on their part, to preserve
unimpaired that right to protection secured to them by the sacred pledge
of the good faith of this nation. Copies of these instructions and
orders are herewith transmitted to Congress.

In abstaining at this stage of the proceedings from the application of
any military force I have been governed by considerations which will, I
trust, meet the concurrence of the Legislature. Among th