On September 28, 1836, the Cherokee leader Chief John Ross wrote a letter of protest to the Senate and House of Representatives. The letter argued against the Treaty of New Echota, which required Cherokees to relocate to Indian Territory.

Read this excerpt from the letter:

And now it is presented to us as a treaty, ratified by the Senate, and approved by the President [Andrew Jackson], and our [acceptance] in its requirements demanded . . . [The treaty] comes to us, not through our legitimate authorities, the known and usual medium of communication between the Government of the United States and our nation, but through the agency of a complication of powers, civil and military.

By [this treaty], we are [stripped] of our private possessions, . . . We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be [taken] before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own.

According to Ross, what rights did the Treaty of New Echota violate?