In 1825 , the Tennessee state legislature chose White to replace Andrew Jackson in the United States Senate ( Jackson had resigned following his failed run for the presidency in 1824 ) . White spearheaded the Southern states ' opposition to sending delegates to the 1826 Congress of Panama , which was a general gathering of various nations in the Western Hemisphere , many of which had declared their independence from Spain and abolished slavery . White argued that if the U.S. attended the congress , it would violate the commitment to neutrality put forth by President Washington decades earlier , and stated that the nation should not get involved in foreign treaties merely for the sake of " gratifying national vanity . " Following Jackson 's election to the presidency in 1828 , White became one of the Jackson Administration 's key congressional allies . White was chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs , which drew up the Indian Removal Act of 1830 , a major initiative of Jackson . The act called for the relocation of the remaining Native American tribes in the southeastern United States to territories west of the Mississippi River , and would culminate in the so-called Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Hugh Lawson White