Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/574

554 even for deciding what is right, much less for securing it. The utmost force of the assertion avails only to fix the resolve that we will aim to do the right when we are certified what it is and can engage all our resources to that end. Any one who to-day wishes to form in his own mind a clear and tenable opinion on the great question, while availing himself of what would seem to be sufficient and adequate means of information and judgment, must be content if he can draw grains of truthful and helpful wisdom from the mass of crude, one-sided, and superficial opinions and utterances upon it. It will be well if, while one comes to realize the vast perplexities and embarrassments which complicate the subject, he can keep his hold of a single guiding thread either of expediency or justice. The long debating and experimenting on this question have not, however, been fruitless. Circumstances, too, in the changes of time and in the relations of things, have increased our means alike of wisdom and of power for disposing of the question. Let us take note, first, of some of the helps and facilities which we have reached for dealing wisely and rightly with it.

1. We have acquired a large amount of very needful and practical information about the numbers, the condition, the relations, and the nature of the Indian tribes. Till within a few years, though we had known Indians for two or three centuries, they had to us a character partly legendary, misty, and fabulous. We conceived of them as in numbers wholly undefined, though in great hordes, inhabiting or roaming over vast, unexplored spaces between us and the setting sun, and supposed that we might at any time draw a line in our territory which should divide between them and the farthest settlements which the whites for long periods to come would be likely to plant in the wilderness. And we had thought that we might easily make treaty arrangements with those nearest to us, — the farthermost tribes being of no account, — by which the peace might be kept, the military power being always in reserve. Now all this