gether unknown. It is very important to him, as he may naturally think, that his merits should be appreciated in certain quarters. His friends, throughout the country, know very well his agency in this matter; and it is altogether desirable that the public at large should know it.

We may seem also to have been too severe in our censures, and too personal in our remarks; but we appeal to every reader who may peruse these pages in a spirit of impartiality, and with correct moral feelings, to say whether the principles developed in the late production of Gov. Cass do not deserve a severity of reprobation far more stern and unmitigated, than that with which we have treated them. We are acquainted only with his public character; towards him as an individual we should be very guilty if we entertained any feelings but those of undissembled kindness. The best wish we can form for his true and lasting prosperity is, that he may sincerely and bitterly repent of his conduct towards that unhappy people, over whose destiny he has endeavored to exert no trifling influence.

Were it possible to imagine that in writing on the character and condition of the Indians, he has labored under the power of some unfortunate mistake; or that he did not see in its true colors the criminality of the course he has urged his country to adopt, the case would be somewhat different. But we cannot believe that such a man could be ignorant of the real nature of the principles he has advocated, or that, with so many opportunities for knowing the truth, and with so much parade of repeated assertion, he could be unacquainted with the actual condition of the tribes whose character he has grossly misrepresented. He has eve put himself to considerable labor of research for the darkest materials with which he might fill up the picture. And if, as he has declared, he knew less of the Cherokees, than of the more degraded and uncivilized tribes, what a perversion of moral feeling, what utter carelessness of truth, what inhumanity of heart does it show, to apply such a picture to the character of such a tribe; and not merely this-but to allege it as a reason for depriving them of their most valuable rights!

It is a dark crime to slander the reputation of a single individual. But it is one of uncommon malignity to calumniate the character of a whole people-a people absent, unfortunate, and defenceless,-peculiarly unprotected from such charges, and without a voice to refute the reproach ;-a people always cruelly degraded beneath the rank of their proper humanity, but now more than ever entitled to the commiseration and assistance of their white brethren, through their own noble exertions to rise up and come forward to the light of Christianity.

When therefore we behold a public writer totally regardless of such claims, and even declaring the people who make them incapable of permanent social improvement; when we behold him openly declaring that this Christian nation ought not to regard the rights of that people, that indeed they have no rights, or if they have, that our mode of acquiring their possessory right is a question of expediency

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and not of principle;'-when we behold him making light of the solemn obligation of treaties, regretting their introduction, laughing at the mistaken benevolence' of those revolutionary patriots and excellent men, (among whom was Washington,) who presumed to elevate 'these little Indian communities' to the rank of an equal party in such treaties;-when we behold him alleging past usurpation in other nations to justify present usurpation in our own, and meanly endeavoring to deceive his readers, and give strength to his reasoning, by garbled extracts from the law, and by quotations of overruled opinions; when we behold him ungratefully accusing the Indian tribes without any exception, of 'unprovoked aggressions and atrocious barbarities,' and of being 'restless and mischievous' and savage in their disposition, and totally regardless of their promises; and when we see him asserting, without scruple, that "all have a right to join in order to repress, chastise" and disable those tribes;-and to crown all, when we hear him proposing a most detestable plan of cruel and perfidious cunning, by which we might succeed in overreaching them, and cajoling them out of their inheritance-when we behold all this and then turn our eyes to their true condition, and imploring posture, we hesitate not to declare that a production which, like that of Gov. Cass, discloses such principles and such propositions, ought, in the mind of a Christian republic, to awaken a general sentiment of indignation against its author, and to cover his name with disgrace.

By the power of his sophistry he would hurry his country to the violation of treaties more solemn, of obligations more binding and repeated, than any people, in their natal capacity, ever yet swore to preserve. They are the more solemn, and the more binding, because they are made with a people defenceless and forsaken-a people weaker than we—and who in their simplicity have imploringly appealed to us for protection from the evils which threaten them. If ever pity had claims upon any nation, it has them upon ours. If ever any

tie can bind us to compassionate the wretched, it is that of helplessness. If ever we are called to unlock all our sympathies, to exercise a generous forbearance, and to be kind even to the extremity of kindness, it is to those, who are wholly in our power-it is when the cry comes before us of the last remnant of that oppressed people, upon whose very ashes our republic has flourished.

What is the plea that we use, when we implore His mercy, the very slightest of whose innumerable favors we have all alike forfeited? Is it not our own weakness, our own helplessness, our own utter unworthiness? But with what face can we make this plea, if we deny its efficacy to others? Have we no feelings of humanity? Are they not men-are they not our brethren? Shall benevolence be left utterly out of the question? Shall we forget that if mercy is a blessed attribute and a binding duty in the catalogue of personal virtues and individual obligations, it is still more blessed and still more binding, when it shines in the character, and holds up its obligations in the path of a great nation? Shall we, can we be so selfish, with a territorial do

minion almost coequal with that of all Europe, to break up the homes and sacrifice the dearest interests of sixty thousand helpless beings, for the possession of one poor additional bit of land! Beings who do bear, like us, the image of their Creator; who do feel, like us, the ties and the sympathies of common humanity; whose existence, like ours, can never cease; who are, like us, invited to one common Saviour, but of whose salvation, both for time and eternity we may well despair, if our remorseless cruelty should enslave thern on their own soil, or banish them to the boundless and almost uninhabitable prairies of the

west.

As long as life remains to them-in whatever circumstances of slavery, and in whatever abandoned degradation-they never can be totally alienated from the power of the Gospel. But let us beware how we incur the incalculable guilt of having thrust them beyond the cheerful use, and the favorable operation of those means of grace, by which only, so far as God's providence is made known to us, he has determined to reclaim and save a world of lost but immortal beings.

Opinion of Mr. JEFFERSON on the Sovereignty of the Indian tribes. From a Letter to General Knox, dated Aug. 10, 1791.

"I am of opinion that Government should firmly maintain this ground; that the Indians have a right to the occupation of their lands independent of the States within whose chartered lines they happen to be; that until they cede them by treaty or other transaction equivalent to a treaty, no act of a State can give a right to such lands; that neither under the present constitution, nor the ancient confederation, had any State, or persons, a right to treat with the Indians, without the consent of the General Government; that that consent has never been given to any treaty for the cession of the lands in question; that the government is determined to exert all its energy for the patronage and protection of the rights of the Indians, and the preservation of peace between the United States and them; and that if any settlements are made on lands not ceded by them, without the previous consent of the United States, the government will think itself bound, not only to declare to the Indians that such settlements are without the authority or protection of the United States, but to remove them also by the public force."

Opinion of HON. HENRY CLAY on the same subject. From an Ad

dress lately delivered before the Kentucky Colonization Society. "The United States stand charged with the fate of these poor children of the woods, in the face of their common Maker, and in presence of the world. And, as certain as the guardian is answerable for the education of his infant ward, and the management of his estate, will they be responsible, here and hereafter, for the manner in which they shall perform the duties of the high trust which is committed to their hands by the force of circumstances. Hitherto, since the United States became an independent power among the nations of the earth, they have generally treated the Indians with justice, and performed toward them all the offices of humanity."

"Under that system, the Indians residing within the United States are so far independent, that they live under their own customs and not under the laws of the

United States; that their rights upon the lands where they inhabit or hunt, are secured to them by boundaries defined in amicable treaties between the United States and themselves; and that whenever those boundaries are varied, it is also by amicable and voluntary treaties, by which they receive from the United States ample compensation for every right they have to the land ceded by them. They are so far dependent as not to have the right to dispose of their lands to any private person, nor to any power other than the United States, and to be under their protection alone, and not under that of any other power. Whether called subjects, or by whatever name designated, such is the relation between them and the United States. That relation is neither asserted now for the first time, nor did it originate with the treaty of Greenville. These principles have been uniformly recognized by the Indians themselves, not only by that treaty, but in all the other previous as well as the subsequent treaties between them and the United States.'

PRESENT STATE OF CIVILIZATION AND CHRISTIANITY AMONG

THE INDIANS.

At a future day, when we look upon this subject in the light of experience, it will appear not the least astonishing and mournful part of it that such opinions should have been uttered in regard to the incurableness of what is wild and disorderly in the Indian character. Nothing ought more sensibly to awaken our indignation, than the hypocritical whining of some statesmen over what they are pleased to term the melancholy result of past efforts, and the hopelessness of all future ones, to christianize these people. As if God's plan of redemption were not suited to the character of all mankind! As if He, whose essence is mercy, had created a race of human, intelligent, and accountable beings, with such peculiarities in their moral constitution as to render it impossible that they can ever be brought into obedience to his laws or under the influence of his Spirit! Such peculiarities as pass upon them an irreversible sentence of endless opposition to his nature and banishment from his presence! The proposition is not merely absurd--it is awfully blasphemous. And yet, strange as it may seem, it is undoubtedly the truth, that the minds éven of Christians have in some cases been so blinded as to incline to this belief. And with the great mass of the community it has long been an established tenet that the Indians cannot be civilized, and of course that they cannot be christianized; for light and heat do not so certainly accompany the progress of the sun, as civilization waits upon the march of Christianity. Are the solemn declarations of God's word to be disbelieved, and is the testimony of all past experience to be blotted out? Have they never heard of the Sandwich Islanders, or compared their dreadful wickedness and degradation twenty years ago, with the piety, the decorum, the morality, the social and civil order, and the domestic refinement and happiness, which are found among them at this day? And are they prepared to assert that the aborigines of North America are less likely to be subjected to the operation of Christianity than a people who have been, from the time

of their discovery till the Bible went among them, an astonishment and a proverb in the whole world, for their extreme licentiousness of inhuman cruelty and lust? Yet we are not left to resort merely to the testimony of the experience of other nations; we shall prove from indisputable facts, not only that they can be christianized, but that some tribes are now fast advancing to the state of a religious and civilized community.

On this subject we are willing to make all the allowance for high coloring, and misguided benevolence, and too enthusiastic hope, which the coldest speculator could ask; and still there will remain amply sufficient to prove that some tribes have rapidly improved in their condition, and hold out a most rational probability, that, if left to the natural and undisturbed progress of improvement, they will soon become as truly Christian and as civilized as the people in any part of our country. We shall make extracts from statements whose correctness cannot be contradicted, and shall exhibit testimonies from men who will not be suspected of partiality or enthusiasm on this subject, in confirmation of this truth.

But before we proceed to such an exhibition, we wish to make one remark on the conduct of those who are perpetually asserting the moral incapabilities of the Indian character, and pointing to experience for a melancholy proof of the total failure (as they assert) of all past efforts to redeem them. Were it even true that there had been such a failure, we wish to remind them that they have never yet given the time, the opportunities, the circumstances, the scope, which are absolutely necessary for the fair and thorough trial of so mighty an experiment. Do they look upon the moral constitution of the human mind as if it were a machine, coarse in its texture, mechanical in its operation, in which they can calculate with mathematical precision, the effect of a given quantity of power and circumstance and motive, that they determine, when the result does not exactly coincide with their previous calculation, that there is something wrong in its construction and imperfect in its nature? We wish to remind them that their "failure" and mistake should make them humble in the view of their own ignorance, and sensible of their entire dependence on the power of a superior agent, instead of rendering them impatient of effort, and angry at an obstinate depravity, which is only the unerring mirror of their own. In view of their criminal impatience at what they call the melancholy result of all past efforts, we wish them to reflect how different is their conduct from that course which religion dictates, and which the framer of the human mind and the Author of our religion has himself pursued. What would have been their own condition and ours, had our moral Governor acted towards us on the same principles and with the same conduct, which they exhibit towards others. We forget, and refuse to imitate, the patience which has so long borne with our own depravity, both as a nation and as individuals—which has so often stayed the arm of justice, and said in the councils of Heaven, "let it alone this year also;"—let the dews