Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/46

 6 § 4. This is not the place to enter upon the discussion of the question of the actual merits of the titles claimed by the respective parties upon principles of natural law. That would involve the consideration of many nice and delicate topics, as to the nature and origin of property in the soil, and the extent, to which civilized man may demand it from the savage for uses or cultivation different from, and perhaps more beneficial to society than the uses, to which the latter may choose to appropriate it. Such topics belong more properly to a treatise on natural law, than to lectures professing to treat upon the law of a single nation.

§ 5. The European nations found little difficulty in reconciling themselves to the adoption of any principle, which gave ample scope to their ambition, and employed little reasoning to support it. They were content to take counsel of their interests, their prejudices, and their passions, and felt no necessity of vindicating their conduct before cabinets, which were already eager to recognise its justice and its policy. The Indians were a savage race, sunk in the depths of ignorance and heathenism. If they might not be extirpated for their want of religion and just morals, they might be reclaimed from their errors. They were bound to yield to the superior genius of Europe, and in exchanging their wild and debasing habits for civilization and Christianity they were deemed to gain more than an equivalent for every sacrifice and suffering. The Papal authority, too, was brought in aid of these great designs; and for the purpose of overthrowing heathenism, and propagat-