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portraiture of the sentiments & feelings of the Cherokees which he had just drawn, and affirming that "the great delusion has lasted to this day," he says, "now in view of such a state of things, we cannot conceive of the acts of a minority, to be strikeout so reprehensible or unjust, as are represented by Mr Ross. If one hundred persons are ignorant of their true function, and are so completely blinded, as not to see the destruction that awaits them, we can see strong reasons to justify the action of a minority of fifty persons -- to do what the majority would do, if they understood their condition." Here then is their Commission! here are their powers plenipotentiary! by virtue of which all our rights and privileges are annihilated & ourselves & our posterity doomed to perpetual banishment. These individuals have taken upon themselves the authority to pronounce sentence of incompetency on eighteen thousands of their equals: branding them as ignorant, blinded, deluded wretches, not fit to be entrusted with the exercise of their own free agency. But further to justify the course pursued, it is urged, in addition to the crimes of ignorance, blindness, and delusions, that it is to an "Indian community," that this improved modification of justice is to be applied. These individuals appear to us to avow quite a novel rule of action; to the authority of which, we are quite unprepared to bow. But allowing their premises to the full strikeout: est extent: allowing that we are, the ignorant, blinded, deluded creatures which this writer represents us to be; still, we cannot perceive by what means they could become invested with the entire authority of the community, in defiance of the wishes & the re-iterated protections of thousands. The absurdity that "the minority should do what what the majority would do, if they understood their condition," is too glaring to require a reply. And yet this is the corner