Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/534



the establishment of the National Government, the Indians became at once the objects of anxious concern and of provisional legislation. Then began the long series of schemes and measures, of tentative devices and processes, of immediate and prospective arrangements, and of efforts and enterprises, alternating between humane and peaceful and severe and military operations, which the ever-changing elements and aspects of the problem have presented to our statesmen and citizens. The Constitution recognized and confirmed all the treaties made with the Indians under the Confederation as the supreme law of the land; and gave to Congress the regulation of trade with them, and to the Executive and Senate the power to make future treaties. The several States were to have the management and control over the Indians within their respective bounds, unless Congress, in the exercise of its superior prerogative, might see cause to overrule their measures. Of course, as might have been expected, trouble, controversy, and direct antagonism, from the very first, arose from the constant obtrusion of questions and issues of a distracting character starting from a conflict between the claims of the States and of Congress when their purposes clashed. In opening the discussion of this theme, which presents so much matter for variances of opinion even among intelligent and right-hearted men, and also for critical and censorious judgment, we must remind ourselves of the