Christians, deemed, as if it were inhabited only by brute animals. There is not a single grant from the British crown from the earliest grant of Elizabeth down to the latest of George the Second, that affects to look to any title, except that founded on discovery. Conquest or cession is not once alluded to. And it is impossible, that it should have been; for at the time when all the leading grants were respectively made, there had not been any conquest or cession from the natives of the territory comprehended in those grants. Even in respect to the territory of New-York and New-Jersey, which alone afford any pretence for a claim by conquest, they were conquered from the Dutch, and not from the natives; and were ceded to England by the treaty of Breda in 1667. But England claimed this very territory, not by right of this conquest, but by the prior right of discovery. [1] The original grant was made to the Duke of York in 1664, founded upon this right, and the subsequent confirmation of his title did not depart from the original foundation.
§ 153. The Indians could in no just sense be deemed a conquered people, who had been stripped of their territorial possessions by superior force. They were considered as a people, not having any regular laws, or any organized government; but as mere wandering tribes.[2] They were never reduced into actual obedience, as dependent communities; and no scheme of general legislation over them was ever attempted. For many purposes they were treated as independent communities, at liberty to govern themselves; so alwaysPage:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/176
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HISTORY OF THE COLONIES.
[BOOK I.
