nd Shawnees, times have indeed changed; and it
is fitting that we should change with them. The declaration of Congress
is well enough on grounds of justice and national honor; but it none the
less aims a deadly blow at the tribal autonomy which was made a vital
part of the original scheme of Indian control. The declaration cited
does not in terms deny the self-sufficiency of the tribe for the
purposes of internal self-government; but the immediate necessary effect
of it is further to weaken the already waning power of the chiefs, while
Congress yet fails to furnish any substitute for their authority, either
by providing for the organization of the tribes on more democratic
principles, with direct responsibility to the government, or by arming
the Indian agents with magisterial powers adequate to the exigency.

Under the traditional policy of the United States, the Indian agent was
a minister resident to a "domestic dependent nation." The Act of March
3, 1871, destroys the nationality, and leaves the agent in the anomalous
position of finding no authority within the tribe to which he can
address himself, yet having in himself no legal authority over the tribe
or the members of it. It is true, that, as matter of fact, agents, some
in greater and some in less degree, continue to exercise control after a
fashion over the movements of tribes and bands. This is partly due to
the force of habit, partly to superior intelligence, partly to the
discretion which the agent exercises in the distribution of the
government's bounty; but every year the control becomes less effectual,
and agents and chiefs complain more and more that they cannot hold the
young braves in check.

The above recital, however tedious, has been necessary in order to set
fairly forth the actual condition of the scheme of seclusion, which is
still, in profession and seeming, the policy of the government. It must
be evident from the recital, that the purposes of this policy are not
being answered, and that the increasing difficulties of the situation in
the wider and closer contact of the two races will soon compel Congress
to review the whole field of Indian affairs, and establish relations,
which, if they cannot in the nature of things be permanent, will at
least have reference to the facts of the present, and the probabilities
of the immediate future. Whenever Congress shall take up in earnest this
question of the disposition to be made of the Indian tribes,