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top left margin headnote: obligations to individuals - first branch - commission under the 17th article These last included, I can only find appropriations to the amount of $1,722,067: to cover all; and yet I find, that, for but the portion entrusted to the Commission , the aggregate

of payments was two millions, three hundred & twenty nine thousand, five hundred & twenty four dollars, eighty five cents; being six hundred and seven thousand, four hundred and fifty seven dollars, eighty five cents, more, for a part than was permitted for the whole. Hence I can scarcely regard the Commission as having performed its duty to the United States.  But, perhaps, the Commission may have considered itself compelled by the law & precedents concerning our Indian relations, to see every claim under the various heads made subject to its care, fully & fairly satisfied, -- to follow up its labours vigorously, until no individual remained among the Cherokees who ought not to feel that he had been conscientiously dealt with and so enter upon his new country in the west in some degree contented and independent.  The Commission, if it did not deem itself  circumscribed by the amount limited by the Treaty for the particular items within its jurisdiction,could have no other boundary 

short of complete and universal justice. It had no excuse, therefore, for leaving any complaint unheard, or any claim adjudicated. I am aware that whichever of the two