Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/548

528 far as possible from the whites, across the Mississippi. Yet in his own purpose this measure, though it seemed to be made advisable because of the irrepressible encroachments of the whites, was honorably proposed in the interest of the natives. The fact that the Indians have been so often moved in bodies has confirmed the popular assumption that no real permanent tenure of land was secured by mere roamers, who in leaving one tract for another left nothing behind them of property or improvement. General Washington in all his messages or speeches addressed to Congress, with an ever-wise regard for equity and humanity in all things, as the necessary pledge of all prosperity and security, made emphatic references to the kind treatment due to the Indians. He proposed and recommended successive measures in their behalf, as experience and reflection suggested them to his own mind. The following sentence is characteristic in tone and spirit of all his communications. It occurs in his speech to the second Congress, in 1791:

Many sentences of similar tenor and tone might be quoted from the communications of his successors in office. No one would have the hardihood to affirm that they were insincere. And if the high magistrates who uttered these sentiments were compelled under the stress of circumstances to permit measures directly inconsistent with them, something is to be allowed to the intractability of the Indians.

Alexander Hamilton, from his first participation in the direction of the public affairs of our nation, always held and advanced wise and humane views in regard to the Indians. He wrote: —