Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/573



of the great primary truths which it has taken the world a long time to discover, and which, when discovered, is announced in that simple form of speech befitting the royalty of Truth, is this: That nothing in public or private affairs, in government or in the relations between man and man, has been settled till it has been settled aright. Till that happy and sure disposal of any issue has been reached, discord, passion, wasteful expedients, and failure attend all discussions of it, all dealing with it. Experiment and shifting policy will still keep it open, but only justice and right can ever dispose of it.

And that is the reason why we have before us to-day, under open and impassioned debate, in the councils of Congress, in our Cabinet bureaus, and in the military posts on our frontiers, a very old question, — a century old, but as fresh to us as if it were of this year's origin. It is called the Indian Question. No one can appreciate, without much inquiry and search, the effort, labor, wise and honest purpose on the one hand, nor know how much of aimless and wasteful experiment, wild campaigning, and baffled legislation on the other, have been spent on that question. It has not been, it is not, settled simply because we have not reached the right solution of it. Yet this oracular statement — that nothing is settled till it is settled aright — does not bring with it to those who utter it, nor to those who at once assent to it, the needful wisdom, ability, and means