New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-03-19

| lied the glory of freeing and enirahcnlSihs
Sambo. it would be mean TO deny the Demo
Gratis the privilege of abusing Republicans, Win
sonctimonious horror, whether they be dstln-
cnisbod representatives from Massachusetts, or
| Senators from Kansas, for their inhumanlty 10
JO-lop-ha-gO.
A debate in either House of Congress on this
srhicct is very funny. The muddle often made
an Finance questions is as nothing to IT..
When an Indian bill is under consideration,
instead of considering its propositions Naoout
which, probably, nine-tentls OF them nave never
informed themseves), the members 20 Oil SBIr-
mishng on every subject, from railroad grants
TO massacres Not but that both land grants
and massacrcs are worth considering; but, when
dragged into bill which they do not concern,
we are forced TO believe that the Indian IS the
John Doe or Richard Roe used to bring somebody
into court for condign punishment. In all prob
ability, however, it Is a mere dust kicked up
to blind the public to the real spectacle OF lg-
nOrance.
Among the documents recently laid before
Congress was q report of a Consul Blake, from
Hamilton. Canada West. While it contained
q GOOD deal that was instructive, it ignored the
fact that one real cause OF the peaceful con-
dition of the Canadians and Indians Is, that
settlements have been pushed so slowly IN that
section that they have not been driven to take
the Indian lands. Immense tracts, almost from
the lakes to Hudson's Bay, are, to-day the
home Of Che hunter and, as statistics show,
thrir ur-lade has secured Indian labor IN
hunting or trapping, at au average o, Twelve
cents per day.
Equally Gllacious is the comparison with
Mexico. The present masters OF the Mexican
States are largely Indian. The President OF the
Rcpublic is of Indian blood; and, since her
Spanish masters were driven out the country
has been ruled or misIued by population
neither Indian nor Spanish-a mOngrcl creation,
unique, without proper name among the fam
lies of meu-who speak a jarson that would
have Mortified Ccryantcs, who eat red pepper
pies. gamble like buccaneers, and swear like
troopers.
OF course, there is no difficulty about conflict
ing civilization with them. They have been in
termarred, and intro-ciyilized, and barbarized,
until the original constituent elements, If they
could again revisit this neither earth and scru-
tnize their strange progeny beneath the
glimpses of the moon, might, either OF them,
prosecute this second Frankenstein for libel.
Our Indian question is very different. Here,
the most acute specimens of the two great
ideas of society have met aud FLASHED. Ever
since the world began, nations aud communl-
ties have existed in phases of two distinct
ideas. Josephus denounces Cain Copying from
earlier writers) as first introducing weights
and measures and as being the first to in
troduce the wickedness of measuring land
i'm no
mine and thine" which Gas Peter Martyr elo-
ouently said) the Aborigine when discovered,
knew not" For him, the land should not
Z" be bought, and the land should not he sold"
but, like air water and sunlight, be Il common
heritage.
Seductive and understanding as this may
be. we can run back through the history of
states and empires until we are lost III fable,
and find that all we call greatness rests on
individual property, A kind of seltishness is,
after ALL the basis of the great developments
of civilization. The doctrine of mine and
thine has grasped the rod of empire. 1t has
made farms, and towns, and cities, and rail-
roads, and ships, and telegraphs, and multi
piled the number and the Use of all that is
esteemed among highly developed nations.
That it may have a canker i'll its core, i'll its
extreme tendencies, is a question we have not
time here to discuss. These two ideas have
fought on American soil, and the weaker has
gone to the wall.
So much for the abstract questions; but there
is something more. No great nation can afford
to violate its promise. Neither can we found
healthy communities on property stolen from
the weak, nor build prosperous cities over the
blood of innocent women and children. As
nation, we have learned the terrible cost of
trying to found a government on the sin of
Slavery. A thousand bloody battle-iields point
the moral and the statesman when he APP
proaches this question: may tremble like JEFF
ferson, when he remembers that God is JUST
Weak colonies made treaties with Indians to
get a foothold. These treaties were bargains
between two parties. They may look very alb
surd now; but should promises made in the
ebay of our weakness be broken in the day of
"our power!n Yet, we cannot lay an embargo
| on the progress of events, nor serve an injunc-
| ton on the dispensations of Providence. Our
great Christian civilization calls aloud for
"placo and room " but, surely, it ought not to
recommend itself to those we call sayages, by
perjury, robbery and murder.
| And there are other questions difficult to deal
with that embarrass the Government. There
is a moral obiquity developed by many that
makes an Indian title appear as something to
steal. Bills are coolly introduced into Con-
gress to grant to railroads lands already
| n.tented and sold by the Government. when