consulting their will. While, therefore, these strictures are principally confined to the policy of the United States towards the Indians, I should be disappointed of one great purpose, if my British readers were permitted to forget, that they also are burdened with a weighty and momentous responsibility, in regard to the same race. The Indians in British North America are wasting away-they are perishing-if not by the influence of direct political measures, yet certainly by neglect, and by the active and devastating tendencies of those vices of civilized society, which are always the first and almost the sole influence, that reaches them, while they are left unprotected. CHAPTER VIII. HISTORY OF THE INDIAN-POLICY OF THE It is perfectly true, as the writer in the North American Review has said: "that the position occupied by the Indians is an anomaly in the political world." And it is no less true, that it is political crime, which has created this anomaly, and nourishes and sustains it. And the statement, which the Reviewer has made, as a doctrine deduced from this fact, would have been far more honourable to himself, and exactly historical, as indicating the course of treatment, by which this "political anomaly" had been brought about, if, by a little change of form, it had been advanced as history, rather than as doctrine. He says: "The questions connected with it (with this anomaly) are eminently practical, and depending upon peculiar circumstances, and changing with them." Or, in the historical form: The practice, or policy, which has been applied to the Indians, has produced "peculiar circumstances," and compelled a constant change of policy to meet peculiar exigencies. "Depending upon peculiar circumstances, and changing with them." "Changing," alas! changing-and changing for ever. What form of despotism ever failed to find some form of apology? And what people, what state of society, civilized or barbarous, can resist the desolating influence of a perpetual change in the policy by which it is governed; and that policy imposed by a foreign hand to accommodate foreign interests? What state of society can outlive the application of a different code of morals to its administration in every succeeding generation? No society on earth, no nation or people-not even the dominion and throne of the eternal One, could withstand the ravages of such an influence. "The position occupied by the Indians is an anomaly in the political world; and the questions connected with it are eminently practical, depending upon peculiar circumstances, and changing with them."!! The anomaly is an undoubted fact; and the statement of doctrine, deduced from it, comprehends the exact history of events, which have created that anomaly. 66 66 Let us see:-When, for example, the new world was first discovered, "the question," we suppose, was eminently practical," how the beings found there in the forms of humanity should be treated. If the old-fashioned system of morality, embodied in the second table of the Decalogue, and generally acknowledged, at least in form, in the social system already established in christian Europe, and professed to be maintained by "civilized and christian kings," had been thought good enough for the "practical" purposes of taking possession of this new world, it is imagined, there would then have arisen no peculiar circumstances." Things might have gone on in the old way, on the footing of the ancient social system. But men and kings ran wild in those days, under the influence of wild expectations, rising and clustering in the wild prospects of the wild regions of America. The "circumstances" were "peculiar." It seemed fit, that a race of wild men should become the subjects of a new and wild law of political and social morality. All the "questions," arising out of the junction of those "peculiar circumstances" were "eminently practical," and must needs be subject to the necessity of " changing with them." They who take by violence, who make war upon the rights of men, under no other provocation, than the cupidity of wealth, or the passion of self-aggrandizement, or the lust of dominion, or under all these motives combined, must provide for those exigencies, which their violence shall have created. If it induces a train of " peculiar circumstances," as it unavoidably will, they must adapt their policy to the continuously changing aspects of the "circumstances." And so they did. They took possession of America by violence; they created "peculiar circumstances." They abandoned the old system of morality, and introduced a new one—as if the new world were a fit subject of such a novel experiment. It will be understood, that I here refer to the primitive charters, applied to America, which asserted original and unqualified jurisdiction. Here is the origin of all the mischief- a mischief stamped upon that world from those days to the present, and operating still with a desolating influence. There is no law so imperious as precedent-no authority so influential as example:-it will shame morality out of countenance, put decency to the blush, and wash away the stains of the deepest crime. That leaven infused itself through all the regions of the western world, and corrupted the entire atmosphere, which hangs over the American continent. |