accorded them in these treaties were a gift out of good-nature.

So much for the power of the Indians when they made these treaties. Their right to their lands is quite as well established historically. In the early history of the Western world, the principle was fully recognized, that, while sovereignty rested, not with the Indians, but with the civilized power claiming by virtue of discovery, the Indians were the rightful occupants, with a just and perfect claim to retain possession and enjoy the use until they should be disposed voluntarily to part with it. Great Britain, Holland, France, and Spain, the four powers claiming sovereignty by virtue of discovery within the present territory of the United States, conceded no less than this to the natives; while France, in the cession of the province of Louisiana, expressly reserved the rights allowed the Indians by its own treaties and articles, "until, by mutual consent of the United States and the said tribes or nations, other suitable articles shall have been agreed upon."

In 1871, however, the insolence of conscious strength, and the growing jealousy of the House of Representatives towards the prerogative—arrogated by the Senate—of determining, in connection with the executive, all questions of Indian right and title, and of committing the United States incidentally to pecuniary obligations limited only by its own discretion, for which the House should be bound to make provision without inquiry, led to the adoption, after several severe parliamentary struggles, of the declaration which stands at the head of this paper.

In abruptly terminating thus the long series of Indian treaties, and forever closing the only course of procedure known for the adjustment of difficulties, and even for the administration of ordinary business, with Indian tribes, Congress provided no substitute, and up to the present time has neglected to prescribe the methods by which, after the abrogation of the national character of the Indians, either their internal matters or their relations with the general government are to be regulated. The Indian-Intercourse Act of 1834, though still nominally in force, is so largely predicated upon the tribal constitution, and assumes so uniformly the national sufficiency of the tribe, that all the life and virtue are taken out of it by the Act of 1871 just cited; and the country is, in effect, left without rule or prescription for the government of Indian affairs. It is sufferance, not law, which enables the Indian Office to-day to administer its charge. While the Act of 1871 strikes down at a blow the hereditary authority of the chiefs, no legislation has invested Indian agents with magisterial powers, or provided for the assembling of the Indian demos. There is at this time no semblance of authority for the punishment of any crime which one Indian may commit against another, nor any mode of procedure, recognized by treaty or statute, for the regulation of matters between the government and the several tribes. So far as the law is concerned, complete anarchy exists in Indian affairs; and nothing but the singular homogeneity of Indian communities, and the almost unaccountable spontaneity and unanimity of public sentiment within them, has thus far prevented the attention of Congress and the country being called most painfully to the unpardonable negligence of the national legislature in failing to provide a substitute for the time-honored policy which was destroyed by the Act of 1871.

In treating the Indian question of the present day, the temptation is strongly felt, to dwell upon the history of Indian tribes, and upon the physical and moral characteristics of this singular race. Yet, if way be once given to this inclination, not only will the time and space necessary for a discussion of the present and the future of the Indian tribes be sacrificed, but the attention of the reader will be so overwhelmed with the multitude of names and incidents, that he will be embarrassed rather than assisted in his understanding of the subject to be treated. The value, for our purpose, of facts and incidents in Indian history is not at all according to their value historically or romantically. Indeed, such has been the fatality to the aborigines of contact with the whites, that it may almost be said, the importance to-day of tribes is inversely as their importance in the annals of the country. Among the greatest figures of the past are those of bands and confederacies that have utterly disappeared from the continent, happy that their long, savage independence, and their brief, fierce resistance to the encroachments of the pale-face, were not to be succeeded by a dreary period of submission, humiliation, and dependence. Other tribes, that but a few generations ago shook the infant colonies with terror, or even dared to stand across the path of the Republic, and for a time flung a shadow as of eclipse over its destiny, are now represented upon the annuity or feeding-lists of the United States by a few score of diseased wretches, who hang about the settlements, begging and stealing where they can, and quarrelling like dogs over the entrails of the beeves that are slaughtered for them. Still other tribes, once warlike and powerful, have, by a fortunate turn of character and circumstance, become so rich and respectable as not only to deprive them of all romantic interest, but practically to take them out of the scope of the Indian question. Other tribes, still having among them men whose grandfathers besieged Detroit under Pontiac, are now resolved into citizens of the United States, eligible for the chief-justiceship or the presidency.

Such considerations as we have here briefly sketched suffice to show the inexpediency of entering upon Indian history, qua history, as an introduction to the discussion of the Indian problems of to-day. Equally obdurate must one be