Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/68

58 French business did not take a warlike turn at the start, and that the United States carried their point, and raised their standing among the nations of the world, without firing a gun.

Returning to the second session of the twenty-third Congress, we find Clay advocating a just and generous treatment of the Indians, in a manner worthy of notice, because it proved how a man who had a low opinion of the Indian character, and believed the Indian race doomed to decay and extinction, still might recognize his duty to protect them in their rights. When Clay was Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams, the question of incorporating the Indians in the general body of citizenship happened to be discussed at a cabinet meeting, when Clay, according to Adams's Diary, expressed these opinions: that it was impossible to civilize Indians; it was not in their nature; he believed they were destined to extinction; and, although he would never use or countenance inhumanity toward them, he did not think them, as a race, worth preserving.

It is scarcely possible to pronounce upon the Indians a more unfavorable judgment. We hear in it rather the voice of the frontiersman than of the philanthropist. But when the rights of the Indian were attacked, Clay vigorously entered his plea for justice.

This was the occasion. From some of the Cherokees in Georgia, who had attained a respectable degree of civilization, and then were driven away