Daily national Democrat., 1860-12-11
Indian RcpublicS.

of government, two or three actual repub-
lies, in which our red brethren regulate their
own affairs with degree Of order and deco
rum which put us, their masters and teach
ers, to the blush. The Greeks, the Chero-
/ KEGS, aud especially the Choetaws, within the
eircumscribed limits which our advancing
civilization has prescribed to them, have
regularly organized and in many important
respects well ordered governments in which,
in the absence of sectional strife and hot par
ty warfare, they are managing their civil af-
fairs and improving their social condition.
Education is promoted with zeal and liberal
] ity, and the people, once wiid and nomadic
| in their habits, are earnestly and successfully
engaged in agriculture, and in such otherin-
dustrial pursuits as are requisite to their
comfortable existence.
The Indian tribes to which we have allu-
ded above have advanced to their present
condition by very slow and trying process
They have attained their comparative purity
by gradual and thorough sitting of the ele-
ments of which their society is composed,
and under the indirect but sure influence Of
moral example, rather than by any positive
measures or policy the government, which,
in the course of Providence, has become their
protector and guide. AS an instance of the
moral power 10y which their affairs are con-
trolled it may be mentioned on the authori-
ty of m in+alliran4 Cb,otou, W; ia -, -, ,.,
recently eonversed, that the general election
in that nation equivalent in interest and
importance to the Presidential contest which
among us, every four years, shakes our Union
as it were to the very cenre-is generally,
as it was on late occasion, conducted with
out confusion or disorder of any sort, and
perhaps without the exhibition at the polls of
a single case of drunkenness. The nation is
governed, as far as is necessary, by sumptu-
AIRY laws, which have just and sure basis,
because they are founded on public opinion.
But the most remarkable specimen of In
dian civilization, and self government, and
well regulated social and civil life, may be
found upon the Yellow Medicine river, far in
the interior OF Minnesota, among the Daco-
tabs, once one of the widest and most irgtrac
table ofthe aboriginal tribes Here a veritable
republic composed Of some thirty or forty
families ofDacotahs, has been organized with
free representative government, written
constitution, code of laws and other cores
ponding institutions of civilization. This
community, prepared by the teachings of
Christian missionaries, seems to have leaped
at one stride from state of barbarism to
perfect civil organization. Renouncing their
hereditary costume and habits and supersti-
tions, and their entire tribal system, they
have adopted the dress, the customs, and the
elementary ideas and forms of civilized So
cety. The event presents case rather of
transformation than of growth. 1t is an in
stance in which, under the sure working of
Christianity, nation is born in day"
These instances are certainly encouraging
TO the phila nthropist, and justify the Federal
Government in whatever effort it may choose
to make for the improvement of the condi-
tion of the Indians. The money now ex-
pended in wars with savage tribes would be
far more profitably expended in instructing
them in the rudiments of civilization and the
principles of Christianity. 1t has been de
monstrated that the hitherto quite common
opinion that the Indian cannot be civilized is
false 1t is an exploded idea. He can be
civilized, and his march to Improvement
both mental and moral, is as rapid as that of
any other race which figures in history.
Our friend, of the Boston Courier, seems to
be astonished somewhat, at the fact that In
dian Republics have thus sprung up under
the light Of Christianity and civilization, up
on this continent. He need not be, when he
remembers, that long before the foot of the
white man had pressed the shore of America,
a gigantic Confederacy of Indian nations ex-
listed, well nigh as perfect in all its ramiica-
tions as the present Union of these States-a
system equally as complicated, and yet work
ing with harmony that never knew confu-
sion or disturbance and realizing, in the gen,
eral happiness which it conferred, almost the
u'opian dreams of the ancient philosophers.
The great mistake of many otherwise sensible
men is to set down the North American In
dian proper 1--WE speak not of the miserable
stragglers from South America known as
Diggers) as a being on level with those in
ferior races which never have been and pro-
baby never will be civilized.
The true state of the case is, and history as
well as cotemporaneous facts prove it, that
the North American Aborigne belongs to an
exalted and superior intellectual type. His
discoverers found him eloquent in council
wise in government and brave in war. A
very few years, as compared with the usual
compass of the growth of nations, has chang
ed him, in the instances above named. from
savage to a civilized man. Where hundreds
OF years have been required to shake off the
barbaism of peoples now boastful of their il
telectual superiority, much less than a single
century, and in several well-known cases.
even less than generation of man, has suf-
feed to redeem the Red Men Of the forest
from barbarism to civilization
JEFFERSON ON SEoEssIoN.-"No man, no as
sociation of men, no State or set Of States.
has right to withdraw itself from the Union
of its own accord. The same power which
knit US together can unknit. The same for
mality which formed the links of the Union