Year: 1867

90 ~ COMMISSIONER TAYLOR'S 3 POLICY.


The present Commissioner of Indian At
fairs has evidently entered upon his duties
with an earnest desire to inaugurate pol
icy which shall be just to the Government
and to the Indians. He does not hesitate
to characterize the present war as needless
and unjust. he speaks freely of it as one
that should rightly call down the judg-
ment of heaven upon the nation. Believ-
ing that it is a causeless war, brought about
by wrong done the Indians by the whites,
he is confident that if the Government will
again offer to do right, that the whole
trouble may be settled within three months.


After giving his whole attention to the
matter since the day he entered upon his
duties, he has convinced himself that the
true policy to be pursued is to gather the
Indians as rapidly as possible upon from
three to five reservations of ample extent,
and there protect them by a chain of mill
tary forts, and support them, so far as ne
cessary, till they can take care of them
selves by agriculture. The cost of thus
maintaining these people, when once upon
such reservations, would be very far below
the cost of war. In fact, it is estimated that
years campaign, waged upon the scale
deemed necessary by our highest military
officers, would cost as much as the Govern
ment need expend in their support, under
the system named, in twenty or thirty
years. au a9G III aa
g. d
of tribes could be induced, by a properly
constituted commission, to go upon such
reservations at once, and he is very anxious
to obtain authority to send Commission
west. composed of men who will give them
selves honestly and heartily to the work of
securing peace. His information concern
ing the temper and feelings of the princi-
pal tribes leads him to believe that they
can speedily be brought to terms.


He thinks that the Commission can i'm
press the Indians by proper representa-
| tions of their real situation and prospects.
| He would have them endeavor to show the
heads of tribes that the advance of the
whole race, both from the East and the
| West, places them between two forces
which must eventually crush them, unless
they gradually yield. and adopt the usages
of civilized life. This their chiefs can
| readily comprehend, as also the further eff
feet of opening the railroad lines through
their territory, and the certainty that each
year their game must rapidly decrease, and
that before long all the resources of savage
life will fail. There must come to them
either, determination, or a life assured
through an adoption of the white mans
mode of life. He thinks that notwith-
standing the past violations of treaty


stipulations, that it will be possible to in
duce them to trust the Government again.
The chief points of the proposed reser-
walton system, which is receiving the sup
port of many best acquainted with Indian
affairs, are, ample territory for subsistence


by. agriculture, protection from traders
and all whites, by Gordon of military
posts, supplies issued through the mill
tary authorities, and participation in
all the rights of citizenship as soon as
they have sufficiently abandoned their wild
life.


The only difficulty in the way of Col
Taylor sending out his Commission, lies
in the fact that by existing laws, no Com
mission can be dispatched till Congress
has made direct appropriation for its ex-
| penses.


The rapid accumulation of our debts
with every week of war is urged as pow.
erful reason why the attempts to secure
peace should be earnestly made and made
at once. The sentiment OF the. army i:
against the war, the interests of the coun
try are all against it, and it is impossible tx
defend it upon grounds of justice or of ma


tional honor. m Fald ii. " N. B.