wild beasts, the question whether to
fight, coax, or run, is a question merely of what is easiest or safest
in the situation given. Points of dignity only arise between those who
are, or assume to be, equals. Indeed, nothing is at times so
contemptuous as compliance. It indicates not merely a consciousness of
strength, but of strength so superior as to decline comparison or
contest.

Grant that some petty Sioux chief believes that the government of the
United States feeds him and his lazy followers out of fear, or out of
respect for his greatness: what then? It will not be long before the
agent of the government will be pointing out the particular row of
potatoes which his majesty must hoe before his majesty can dine. The
people of the United States surely are great enough, and sufficiently
conscious of their greatness, to indulge a little longer the
self-complacent fancies of those savage tribes, if by that means a
desolating war may be avoided.

And in this we shall only do what other nations have done, and esteemed
themselves wise in doing. The Greeks and Romans, except in periods of
ambitious frenzy, recognized the fruitlessness and folly of fighting
absolute savages, and did not scruple, in the height of their conquering
pride, to keep the peace with Scythians and Parthians as best they
could. The English, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese, in their
American colonies, only fought the natives when for their purposes they
must, preserving the peace when they could by presents, and even by
tribute. Statesmen who would have embroiled Europe on a question of
dinner-etiquette have fully recognized the principle that there could be
no issue of dignity between a civilized power and a band of
irresponsible savages, and have submitted, without any feeling of
degradation, to demands the most unreasonable, urged in terms the most
insolent.

Nor is there any savor of treachery in the government thus biding its
time. In this the government simply, from a wise consideration of the
exposed situation of the settlements, refrains from the full exercise of
the authority which it claims. It in no wise deceives the Indians, but
only indulges their illusion till the time comes when the illusion must
be broken. It watches the troubled sleep of the maniac, ready to
restrain his violence if he wakes, yet mercifully willing that he should
remain unconscious. And this forbearance of the government is not less
kind to the aborigines