could confer. It would seem strange to us, if, in the present times, the natives of the South Sea Islands, or of Cochin China, should, by making a voyage to, and discovery of, the United States, on that account set up a right to the soil within our boundaries. The truth is, that the European nations paid not the slightest regard to the rights of the native tribes. They treated them as mere barbarians and heathens, whom, if they were not at liberty to extirpate, they were entitled to deem mere temporary occupants of the soil. They might convert them to Christianity; and, if they refused conversion, they might drive them from the soil, as unworthy to inhabit it. They affected to be governed by the desire to promote the cause of Christianity, and were aided in this ostensible object by the whole influence of the papal power. But their real object was to extend their own power and increase their own wealth, by acquiring the treasures, as well as the territory, of the New World. Avarice and ambition were at the bottom of all their original enterprises."[1]
It must, we think, be admitted, that it was right in principle for our forefathers to seek to cultivate the soil of a country situate as this of America was, and to open a new pathway to the enterprise and energy of the human race: yet, seeing that their intercourse with the natives was not always marked by either fairness or due regard to the natural sentiments of those who had long held undisputed possession of the Continent, it is no wonder that dissensions and collisions soon occurred, and that all the fierce passions of the Indians were aroused into savage and unpitying activity. Neither need it occasion any surprise that ere long the Indians persuaded themselves that the white man was, with here and there an exception, their necessary and perpetual foe. The facts of history, as hereinafter related, will too sadly verify the correctness of this general statement.
- ↑ "Familiar Exposition of the Constitution," p. 13.
