Paul Martin Quotes
I got a call from a group saying they'd like to have a roundtable with the reserve next door, and would I help to set it up. I said, 'Sure, what's the name of the chief?' I asked, 'Do you know any members of the band council?' They didn't.
Martin, Paul. Quoted in "Building bridges with First Nations." The Toronto Star, 20 Jun. 2014.
While Jefferson was clear on this point, there were other forces and points of view that did not recognize Indian rights and were prepared to use force to obtain Indian lands. These, together with some Indians who made bad and sometimes corrupt bargains and treaties ceding land, produced the loss of most of the Indian land in America.
Cass was negotiating with the Shawnees and Cherokees to persuade them to move to land west of the Mississippi. See John Henry Eaton for similar unkept promises.
The Cherokee tribe of Georgia had their government abolished by state law, their meeting prohibited, their land taken and they were urged to migrate to land west of the Mississippi. The federal government promised:. See Lewis Cass for a similar, unequivocal unkept promise.
This was passed in 1787 before the Constitution had become operative, but was then ratified by Congress in 1789. It was one of the first acts of our new nation, and one of the most frequently violated throughout our history.
He was referring to the fact that he had blocked the Meech Lake Accord preventing the Canadian Constitution being amended to recognize French-Speaking Quebec as a separate nation within Canada, but ignoring the Indians.
This is one of the first Policy Statements of the new Republic about the Indians. Essentially, although the government policy was reasonable and fair, public opinion was totally different and the leadership could not persuade the people on this point. One complicating factor was the fact that most of the Indian tribes had overtly or covertly sided with the British in the Civil War. Many Indians were exiled to Canada. Even the Indians who were American allies, had their lands encroached upon however.
The intentions of the Founding Fathers towards the Indians was decent, respectful, and well intentioned. However, there was not enough of a system of enforcement or the will to enforce when the greed of the average whites grew too great. Many settlers saw these vast lands and could not see any harm in using a few acres for their farm. And if there had been only a few, there would have been little trouble. However, the settlers kept coming and coming and soon the Indians began to push back. In a sense, it was a class problem. The members of the Continental Congress who wrote the Northwest Ordinance were educated, affluent men who had plenty of land. Most of the men who contested for the Indian lands had little land or were newly affluent and saw few limits to America.
Paul Edgar Philippe Martin PC CC QC, also known as Paul Martin Jr., is a Canadian lawyer, politician and author who served as the prime minister of Canada from December 2003 to February 2006, 21st since Confederation.
