is probable that the present discussion
of the Indian question, while so humane
and able and incorruptible a Secretary as
Mr. is at the head of the Interior
Department, will lead to some practicable
good results. There is a more general and
intelligent interest in the subject than we
have ever known, and the discussion is
conducted in such an excellent spirit that a
question which is usually so little attractive
is assuming its true place in public attention. The differences between the Secretary of the Interior and those who advocate making the Indians amenable to law, and those who wish to see the Indian Bureau transferred to the War Department, are differences of method, not of purpose. All aim to civilize the Indians, to teach them self-support, and to merge them gradually in the mass of citizens. But the conditions are very difficult, and there may be the most reasonable differences of opinion. Mr. , who has brought the case of the Poncas to the attention of the public, has two objects in view: to secure for the Indian a standing in court, making him amenable to law, and giving him the protection of law, and to arouse public interest to that end. We do not understand the Secretary to deny the desirability of this object, and he has constantly stated in his reports that the Poncas were grievously wronged by their forced removal from their reservation upon the Missouri to the Indian Territory. The wrong, he says, was occasioned “by a mistake in making the Sioux treaty.” But that the Poncas instead of the Sioux should have suffered by the mistake was manifestly unjust, and the Interior Department under Mr. control has done all that it could do in the absence of legislation to repair the wrong.
When, however, and his
party left the Indian Territory last spring
to return to their old reservation, they
were arrested at the request of the Indian
Department, in accordance with the uniform
practice, to be returned to the Indian
Territory, where the tribe had lost large
numbers by disease. A writ of habeas corpus
was granted by the United States Court in
Nebraska, and the Indians released. The
question now raised is whether peaceable
Indians can be forcibly removed by the
government from lands once confirmed to them
by treaty, and returned to a reservation
upon which they have not bound
themselves by treaty to remain. Obviously this
can not be done by any government which
pretends to have any respect for treaty
rights or justice. It can be done only by a
government which proposes to do merely
what it chooses to do; and it is because of
this bad faith which has been constantly
shown by us to the Indians that they
distrust our overtures, and are taught to hate
us. The truth is that we impose treaties
upon the Indians, and observe them just so
far as suits our own pleasure, and no farther. When the white population presses closely upon an Indian reservation, as now upon that of the Utes in Colorado, the Indians are made to give way. Of course the advance of civilization must not be restrained. But equally of course a government which does not intend to respect treaties has no right to make them; and when they are made with people who can not compel their observance, the violation of them is as mean as it is infamous.