Ok, I know. The Onion is satire and that’s what inspired this question. But I can’t seem to find anything about this act being repealed. Did Congress ever repeal it?
This site says it was repealed in March 1980. (If so, took 'em long enough!) Haven’t found a neutral source to confirm this yet, though.
On a side note, the state of Ohio maintains that there are no recoginized Indian tribes within the boundries of the State because the Treaty of Greenville of 1793 banished them all into Indiana for waging war agaist the United States. That one still pisses off Native Americans to this day because it means that have no say in the handeling of ancient sites and artifacts since they supposivly gave up all such claims upon being forced to sign the treaty. Also means that they can’t build casinos there, which also irratates them.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 is a rather dry piece of legislation which hardly hints at the human suffering it would entail. It consists of seven clauses granting power to the President, all of which are thoroughly obsolete, plus an appropriation. Some of the clauses are actually favorable to the Indians; for example:
If only that had been done!
In any case, it doesn’t appear that the act became part of the US Code, so I’m not sure what there would be to repeal. It’s “on the books” in the sense that it appears within the Statutes at Large for 1830, but repealing it wouldn’t change that.
The link by Ice Wolf appears to be in regard to Georgia’s repeal of a state law concerning the Cherokees.
It wasn’t repealed until 1980 because no one had any reason to repeal it, until IIRC, somebody made a minor stink over it. But repealing it didn’t actually do anything in a practical sense.
Regardless of whether a statute made it into the Code, it’s still the law of the land until its repeal, even if it’s unenforceable on, for instance, constitutional grounds. (Although in this case in particular, the law’s unconstitionality didn’t stop Jackson from enforcing it.)
–Cliffy
The Indian Removal Act was never declared unconstitutional. What Worcester v Georgia found unconstitutional was a Georgia law that banned non-Cherokee from living on Cherokee land or serving in the Cherokee government.
Yeah, I thought I’d gotten something wrong. Anyway, Jackson – still a prick.
–Cliffy
What a coincidence, less than 30 mins ago I was reading* how the Chickamauga a branch of the Cherokee was driven from Lookout Mountain (which they called Chattotonoogee) and forced to walk over a thousand miles to Oklahoma to the new Indian Territories.
Thousands died on the journey. Because the book is fiction I wondered if this was also fiction but on googling it, apparently not.
- American Gods.
Maybe. But he wasn’t the one who removed the Cherokee.
Unless you know something I don’t (certainly possible – this isn’t an area I’ve studied), this is only true in a technical sense. Jackson had the authority and the power to prevent the Trail of Tears, but he was willing to let Georgia evict them illegally and he pressured the Cherokee to sign the treaty on the back of the threatened eviction. Plenty of hands were bloody, it’s true, but Jackson’s were as bloody as anyone’s.
–Cliffy
No doubt Jackson had blood on his hands, but Martin Van Buren has to take a lot of the blame. He was the President when the removal actually happened. It was his administration that actually removed the Cherokee, and he was the one who gave the order.
The Cherokee leadership deserves some of the blame too. The Treaty of New Echota was signed at the end of 1835, giving the Cherokee over two years to prepare for the removal, which they had to know was inevitible, based on what had happened to the Chocktaw and the Creek. But John Ross decided not to make preparations, on the theory that any cooperation would legitimize the treaty and hurt his chances to win legally or in the court of public opinion. So the removal was more deadly than it had to be.