New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-04-04
INDIANS NOT TAXED"

Poets have imagined Utopias of perennial
peace, of sweet content, of ever-during happi-
ness, and of unalloycd prosperity. These happy
climes of their fancy have been peopled with a
perfect race of men and women by a process at
once novel, painless and peculiar. These children
of the brain have dwelt in these lands of fancy,
harmless and free sinless and careless, jolly and
innocent clad in mists and shadows, feasting upon
spontaneous fruits, and sheltered only by the UNI
bragg of the clambering vine or the primeval
foliage of Adams talor--the fig tree. 1t has
never been our good fortune to greet any 81 trav-
eler's return " from these charmed lands. Those
who have emigrated thither have never yet conde-
scendcd to revisit our less happy regions with
their contributions to historical and geographical
science. Prepared always to give any history OF
travel in those favored regions " lirst-rate
notice. that pleasure will no doubt be denied us
for an indefinite period.
But within the regions of the known and real
world there is a race Of men whose condition ap.
proximates to that of the ideal Utopians. This is
the constitutionally exempted race of " Indians
net taxed" who do not vote, who have no trac-
tional share in constituting congressional repre-.
sentation, and who are plously excluded from all
possibility of citizenship by the first sentence Of
the first section of the lately vetoed civil rights
bill. The devout and philanthropic trainers OF
that bill appear to have thought the state of an
untaxed Indian infinitely better than that of a
taxed pale-face, and even better than that of the
ebony class whom they wish to raise to the sphere
of taxation suffrage, litigation and social equality
hence, with equitable intent, they refuse to the
non paying aboriginal the political rights and
| franchises which they so freely accord to ne,
groes.
| Now we are curious to know in what region
| these same untaxed Indians dwell. We have never
seen one we have never met the man who has
| seen one. Yet they must have local habitatior
somewhere within the Federal hounds. They are
not ideal savages, for the Constitution mention:
them and the civil rights bill honors them viii
exclusion from citizenship. We have seen many
Of the aboriginal race with stole faces turned to
wards the setting sun; but never have we seer
one without some garment, implement, or orna
rnent which would be subject to some tax. From
the glass beads of the papoose to the clay pipe 0
the octogenarian, everything is taxed. The India
kills his game with a taxed gun and taxed pow
DER he skins it with taxed knife and tans III
hide with taxed chemicals; he sews his moccasin
with taxed needles and thread, and mixes take
oil in his war paint. Wherever he uses the Pre-
ducts OF the white mans art he pays the whit
mans tax. If he changes a deerskin for hatche
or basket for bottle of fire-water he is a take
Indian; for as every intelligent Indian knows, I
pay tax it is not requisite to buy internal revenu
stamps, or form the acquaintance of assessors an
inquistive collectors Of public dues. Like tt
leaven buried in the meal, a tax eavens the who!
lump. Those who do not pay directly still pay il
directly and in the main it is the ultimate COZ
sumer of the taxed article who actually pays I'll
patriotic contribution for the support of the go
ernment and the settlement of its big deb
Therefore those constitutional "Indians nj
taxedn must not use any fabric of American max
or Of American importation. They must b
strangers to all manner Of commerce with th
whites, nor even feed taxed missionary. The
: must eschew Yankee knives, hatchets, bead
fnts and fish.hooks, falling back upon such mean
tools and fabrics as their own unskilled hands an
untutored minds may contrive and fashion.
These same untaXed Indians, wheresoever the
roam or rest, must present a peculiar and inte
esting aspect to the eye of the philosophic an
discriminating traveller who would doubtless fir
much to admire and something to envy in tt
frugality of their habits and the simplicity of the
costume. Remote from the din of towns and Il
> busy noise of trade, strangers to the smoke
engines and the gathering of mills, unannoyed
pedders Or politicians, suffering from"none Of tt
vices of civilization, and envying none of the ar
fetal appliances Of luxury, these simple childre
; of nature lead peaceful and contented live
though never taxed and never enjoying the boz
a of citizenship. Though their location is unknow
their history obscure, and their numbers limite
may they long continue in their pristine nnocenc
II ungoverned and untaXed.