WI: Indian Removal Act does not pass

What if the Indian Removal Act had not passed? Would Andrew Jackson be viewed in a more positive light? How would Jackson have reacted to it not passing?
 
The very substantial opposition to the Indian Removal bill of 1830 is detailed in Daniel Walker Howe, *What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848*, p. 352. He notes that while the bill passed the Senate fairly easily,

"In the House it proved a different story. Representatives elected as Jackson supporters from districts with many Quaker, Congregationalist, or New School Presbyterian voters found themselves in an awkward crossfire. The difficulty northern congressmen had in swallowing the betrayal of treaty obligations was compounded by their fear for the future of internal improvements. Indian Removal would be expensive, and Jackson said he wanted to retire the national debt. Even if the government avoided frontier wars, the money spent to buy out the tribes, round up their members, and transport them hundreds of miles would not be available for internal improvements. Beset by these concerns, northern Jacksonian congressmen defected in large numbers. The Indian Removal Bill only barely passed the House, 102 to 97, with 24 Jacksonians voting no and 12 others not voting. On some of the preliminary tests of strength the votes had been even closer, Speaker Andrew Stevenson having to break ties three times. At the last minute the administration managed to press three wavering Pennsylvania Democrats back into the party line, saving the bill. The vote had a pronounced sectional aspect: the slave states voted 61 to 15 for Removal; the free states opposed it, 41 to 82. Without the three-fifths clause jacking up the power of the slaveholding interest, Indian Removal would not have passed. Yet sectionalism did not determine positions so much as political loyalties and moral values. The trans-Appalachian West did not by any means display solid support for the bill; its congressmen voted 23 in favor, 17 opposed. Those opposed included a West Tennessee frontiersman named Davy Crockett, who characterized the bill as 'oppression with a vengeance.' Like most critics of Indian Removal, Crockett went on to become a permanent opponent of Jackson. The President signed Indian Removal into law on May 28, 1830." http://books.google.com/books?id=0XIvPDF9ijcC&pg=PA352

Here is another breakdown of the House vote on the Indian Removal bill: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/21-1/h149 From the western states, the no votes are Ohio, 11; Indiana, 1; Illinois, 1; Kentucky, 4; Tennessee, 1 (Crockett); and Louisiana, 1. So I'm not sure where Howe gets his "17" from. But his point that the West was not unanimous (except for the near unanimity south of Kentucky, the only exceptions being Crockett and the anti-Jackson Edwin D. White from New Orleans) is if anything strengthened. (Of course one could argue that Ohio was not really a "western" state--certainly not a frontier state--by this time.)

Anyway, it is easy to say that Jackson would have bypassed Congress just as he bypassed the courts. Still, the money to bribe the chiefs to agree to removal had to come from somewhere...But I am still inclined to believe that *eventually* removal would go through.
 
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Here is another breakdown of the House vote on the Indian Removal bill: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/21-1/h149 From the western states, the no votes are Ohio, 11; Indiana, 1; Illinois, 1; Kentucky, 4; Tennessee, 1 (Crockett); and Louisiana, 1. So I'm not sure where Howe gets his "17" from. But his point that the West was not unanimous (except for the near unanimity south of Kentucky, the only exceptions being Crockett and the anti-Jackson Edwin D. White from New Orleans) is if anything strengthened. (Of course one could argue that Ohio was not really a "western" state--certainly not a frontier state--by this time.)

Facinating. Ohios vote demands explination. Part as you say maybe its position on the edge of the 'west'. Are there any religious or cultural dynamics that led to this vote?

Anyway, it is easy to say that Jackson would have bypassed Congress just as he bypassed the courts. Still, the money to bribe the chiefs to agree to removal had to come from somewhere...But I am still inclined to believe that *eventually* removal would go through.

Probablly the sort of ad hoc non governmental effort the KKK of the 1870s represented. the expulsion of the Mormon community from the Midwest might be a model.
 
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