Transcripts of extracts of letters regarding the Georgia-Alabama Boundary Survey Commission.

In the first letter, dated Governor George M. Troup of Georgia addresses concerns (probably raised by John Murphy, governor of Alabama) about the locations of Indian towns that will be used as references when determining the boundary between the two states. While Troup agrees that there is confusion...

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Bibliographic Details
Format: Electronic
Published: Alabama Department of Archives and History
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Online Access:http://cdm17217.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/voices/id/3788
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Summary:In the first letter, dated Governor George M. Troup of Georgia addresses concerns (probably raised by John Murphy, governor of Alabama) about the locations of Indian towns that will be used as references when determining the boundary between the two states. While Troup agrees that there is confusion over the specific sites, he argues that the position of certain waterways (which the commission will use to plot the line) "is sufficiently established for every purpose of the Commissioners": "The relative position of the Towns to Uchee might with their limited topographical knowledge of that day have been easily misunderstood...but after all whether the Towns be above or below the Creek, the great bend must be above it--A slip of the pen might have substituted the word above for below and below for above--but it would require a convulsion of nature to change the relative position of the Uchee, and the great bend first above it." The second and third letters (July 13, 1824, and April 26, 1825) are from the U.S. Secretary of War; they explain why the United States will not appoint commissioners to determine the boundary line between Alabama and Georgia: "The States have ever justly held among the attributes of their Sovereignty the right of regulating, according to their own will, the method of arranging their boundaries with their Conterminous States--It is believed therefore that the running of the line between Georgia and Alabama is a subject exclusively belonging to those States." In the fourth letter, dated May 5, 1826, Governor Murphy explains why he did not respond to a message Governor Troup sent.