Winfield Scott's Address To The Cherokee Nation

What is Gen. Scott referring to when he says he cannot correct the "error that you have committed"?

The error General Winfield Scott is referring to is the refusal by the Cherokee Nation to obey the agreement of New Echota.

The Treaty of New Echota was signed in 1835. In it, the Cherokee nation ceded its territory in the southeast and agreed to move west to Indian Territory. This treaty became the legal basis for the forcible removal act known as the Trial of Tears.

The Cherokke Nation rejected the treaty which led to the forceful removal in 1838. President Martin Van Buren directed General Winfield Scott to forcibly remove all the Cherokees who had not complied with the treaty and moved west. The error they committed is their rejection to move voluntarily during the allocated two-year-time.

He refers to his subordinate statement, he did not take the decisions, he only obeyed them. The moral implications of the policies of President Van Buren (and his predecessor Andrew Jackson) did not make those orders easy. But as a subordinate and not popularly elected, I had to obey them. Finding the best conditions for the Cherokee people was all he could do. In his instructions to the militia, he reminded them that any act of cruelty would become "an aberration to the generous sympathies of the American people" (many of whom, like John Quincy Adams, were against the transfer, blaming Southern politicians and the land usurpers ").