Timeline
1828 Final Indian Treaty
Political violence continued into the new year. John R. Garrett, a close friend of Crittenden, attempted to kill Chester Ashley in Woodruff's print shop. Ashley was seen as the mastermind behind the opposition to Crittenden and Garrett also held a personal grudge against him. Woodruff managed to deflect Garrett's aim and Garrett received a fatal wound in the abdomen. Dr. Matthew Cunningham held a coroner's inquest and the case was closed without indictment.
Ashley effected a compromise on the libel suit between Crittenden and Woodruff. Woodruff was greatly relieved by this settlement because both witnesses who could testify for him, Henry Conway and Isaac Watkins, were now dead.
An agreement negotiated with the Cherokee Nation moved the Cherokee-Arkansas border to a line running north from Fort Smith. The Territory was now completely freed of all tribal property.
Governor George Izard died in office on November 22 and Robert Crittenden and Andrew Scott both applied for the appointment as governor. Before their applications arrived in Washington, the electoral college had elected a new president. The Senate refused to confirm President Adams's choice for governor, preferring to leave the decision to President-elect Andrew Jackson. Awaiting President-elect Jackson was a more significant problem-the Tariff of 1828, or the Tariff of Abominations. Several southern states protested the tariff, feeling it placed an undue hardship on the south by raising the price of manufactured goods brought into the area. As an ominous hint of the future, John C. Calhoun, in an anonymous essay, proclaimed the right of individual states to nullify individual federal laws. Situated in the west, Arkansas did not share the concern of her southeastern neighbors.
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