The Congress eventually followed suit by enacting the Indian Removal Act which was greeted by the newly elected President Andrew Jackson. Americans should feel no regret for the disappearance of Indians from the face of the earth, Jackson argued. "Philanthropy could not wish to see this continent restored to the condition in which it was found by our forefathers," he said to Congress in his State of the Union Address. "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic" (Perdue & Green 120).

Many Anglo-Americans opposed the Indian Removal Act. Missionaries especially were appalled at the plan to evict the Cherokee Indians by force. A Baptist Reverend, writing under the pseudonym of "William Penn," argued that the United States had no right to use force and evict the Cherokee of their ancestral lands. He cited Americans laws and...
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