Indians under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.Respectfully submitted,
Jno. L. Webster.
III.
TESTIMONIES TO INDIAN CHARACTER.
“Early in 1800 the Governor of the North-west Territory, in his message to the Assembly, invited their attention to the condition of the Indians. He observed that, irrespective of the principles of religion and justice, it was the interest and should be the policy of the United States to be at peace with them; but that could not continue to be the case if the treaties existing between them and the Government were broken with impunity by the inhabitants of the Territory. He referred to the well-known fact that while the white men loudly complained of every injury committed by the Indians, however trifling, and demanded immediate reparation, they were daily perpetrating against them injuries and wrongs of the most provoking and atrocious nature, for which the perpetrators had not been brought to justice. * * * He stated that the number of those unfortunate people who had been murdered since the peace of Greenville was sufficient to produce serious alarm for the consequences. He added, further, that a late attempt to bring to punishment a white man, who was clearly proved to have killed two adult Indians and wounded two of their children, had proved abortive.”—Burnet's Notes on Northwest Territory.
CHARACTER OF NORTH-WESTERN INDIANS.
“Among other falsehoods it has been asserted confidently, but without a shadow of argument or fact to sustain the assertion, that they cannot be brought to a state of civilization, or be induced to form communities and engage in the pursuits of agriculture and the arts, in consequence of some physical difference between them and the Anglo-Saxon race. This hypothesis is contradicted by experience, which has abundantly shown that the two races, when placed in the same situation, and acted upon by the same causes, have invariably resorted to the same expedients and pursued the same policy.
