Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/387

Rh those of a third or even a second generation in descent from such of these pioneers as in circumstance or training, through the brain, or fibre, or blood of parentage in father or mother, have developed their signal powers in frontier life, — as Lincoln, who, rising before us as if moulded of Western clay, was transformed before our eyes into a statue of Carrara marble.

It has been largely with these legitimate frontier settlers, and in their behalf and interest, that the successive contentions and quarrels of our Government with the savage tribes have found their origin and embitterment. I have used the word “legitimate” in reference to these advanced pioneers of civilization on our borders. The rightful use of the word will be disputed only by those who are prepared to stand for the theory that barbarism has prior and superior rights over civilization, to the occupancy of the earth's territory. As the waters of the sea seek their freest flow with their refreshing tides up every river, inlet, and creek, so vigorous and vitalized humanity expands and penetrates everywhere, seeking fresh fields. The people among us who are the Government claim freedom of unoccupied soil; and all soil is in their view unoccupied, which is not wrought upon by human toil, cleared, fenced, tilled, dug, and improved. Our frontier settlers are agents and witnesses of the transition between the wilderness and the cultivated field. They come into immediate contact with the Indians, by a collision of interests. The rights which each party assumes and claims cannot be adjusted between them, because the basis on which they respectively rest is not common in its nature and reasonableness to both parties.