ir treaty rights. They have already advanced so far
in civilization as to secure their own future, as against any thing but
squatter and railroad rapacity; and their fate does not properly form a
part of the Indian problem of the present day.

Excepting thus the present inhabitants of the so-called Indian
Territory, who ought to be excepted from any scheme that embraces the
half-civilized and the wholly savage tribes, we have practically a clear
field for any policy which Congress shall determine to be best suited to
the serious exigency of the situation; for, however easy to dismiss the
subject for a time with ridicule, the task of so disposing a nomad
population of 200,000 to 240,000, as to reduce to a minimum the
obstruction it shall offer to the progress of settlement and of
industry, without leaving the germs of lasting evil to a score of future
States, and at the same time to secure the highest welfare of that
population,--this task is a most serious one, to which the best
statesmanship of the nation may well address itself.

In characterizing the classes of persons who will naturally be found
among the advocates of the policy of an immediate bestowal of
citizenship upon the Indian tribes, whether they be willing or
unwilling, whether for good or evil, we have in effect stated all the
arguments in favor of that policy; for it is not probable, that, aside
from those who would properly be placed under one or another of the
classes indicated, there are a score of persons reasonably well informed
in Indian affairs, who would so much as affect to believe that such a
course would have other than disastrous consequences to the natives.

The considerations which favor the policy of seclusion with more or less
of industrial constraint are so direct and familiar, and are sustained
by so general a concurrence of testimony and authority, that they will
not require us greatly to protract this paper in their exposition and
enforcement. These considerations are four in number; three of them
having especial reference to the interests of the Indians, the fourth
bearing on the welfare of the States to be formed out of the territory
now roamed over by the native tribes.

First: so long as an Indian tribe is left to its own proper forces and
dispositions, free from all foreign attraction, it is not only easily
governed, but the whole body obeys the recognized law of the community
with almost absolute unanimity. No expressions woul