e, for the
purpose, railway and highway alike; and, upon the soil thus secluded, to
work patiently out the problem of Indian civilization,--is not to be
deemed a light sacrifice to national honor and duty. Yet that the
government and people of the United States cannot discharge their
obligations to the aborigines without pains and care and expense,
affords no reason for declining the task.

The claim of the Indian upon us is of no common character. The advance
of railways and settlements is fast pushing him from his home, and, in
the steady extinction of game, is cutting him off from the only means of
subsistence of which he knows how to avail himself. He will soon be left
homeless and helpless in the midst of civilization, upon the soil that
once was his alone. The freedom of territorial and industrial expansion
which is bringing imperial greatness to the nation, to the Indian
brings wretchedness, destitution, beggary. Surely there is obligation
found, in such considerations as these, to make good in some way to him
the loss by which we so largely gain. Nor is this obligation one that
can be discharged by lavish endowments, which it is of moral certainty
he will squander, or by merely placing him in situations where he might
prosper, had he the industrial aptitudes of the white man, acquired
through centuries of laborious training. Savage as he is by no fault of
his own, and stripped at once of savage independence and savage
competence by our act, for our advantage, we have made ourselves
responsible before God and the world for his rescue from destruction,
and his elevation to social and industrial manhood, at whatever expense
and at whatever inconvenience. The corner-stone of our Indian policy
should be the recognition by government and by the people, that we owe
the Indian, not endowments and lands only, but also forbearance,
patience, care, and instruction.

It is not unusual to sneer at the sentimentality of "the Quakers" and
other active friends of this race. But we may as well remember that
posterity will grow much more sentimental over the fate of the Indian
than any Quaker or philanthropist of to-day. The United States will be
judged at the bar of history according to what they shall have done in
two respects,--by their disposition of negro slavery, and by their
treatment of the Indians. In the one matter, the result is fortunately
secure; nor will it be remembered against us, in diminution of our
honor, tha