Year: 1872

WASHINGTON CD. O., April l7, 1872.

 After the close of my last letter, quite an interesting debate sprang up in the Senate while the Indian appropriation bill was under consideration, on an amendment offered by Mir. Merrill, of Maine, in words as follows

 If any person other than an Indian or per son incorporated into the Indian tribes by treaty stipulation, shall knowingly and will fully settle upon lands holden by any Indian or Indian tribe by treaties or other title from the United States, or attempt to occupy or hold any portion of said lands, or to reside within the limits of said lands or territory without authority or license from the United States, he shall be deemed guilty of misde- meanor, and forever after incompetent to ac- auire title to such lands, and be liable upon indictment in any District or Circuit Court of the United States to a fine not exceeding $500, and imprisonment not exceeding one year, at the discretion of the Court. And foI the purpose of carrying into effect the provls ions of this section, the provisions of an Act entitled "An Act to regulate trade and inter course with the Indians, and to preserve peace on the frontiers" shall be held to be applica- ble; and it shall be the duty of the Superin. tendents and Agents of the Indian tribes in the several districts to give information ol the same to the District Attorney of the Uni ted States for the appropriate district, and to endeavor to procure the arrest of, and bring to speedy trial, all persons violating the pro- visions of this section.

 Senator Stewart Defends the Settler

 The amendment was doubtless intended as a harmless one in the interest of what was believed to be the acknowledged rights of the Indians, and seemed to be about to pass the Senate by the mere force of "dead weight" {" and would have done so had it not been for two or three Western Senators. After ades- ultory talk by Messrs. Morrill,, Pomeroy, and others, Mir. Stewart took up the cudgels in earnest, and candidly admitted that he was altogether opposed to the practice of setting aside such vast reservations in a country where the settlers had aright to go. He said they were of no use to any body but the set tier, who was prevented by Indians from oc- cupying them now, and would be frustrated in future by spectators who were fixing up schemes to have them surveyed and sold in gross; that thief could go to the Indians and become incorporated in their tribes, but if an honest settler, who had taken his family and invested his all, should happen to pass over the supposed boundary of a reservation, he must be sent to the pcnitentiary. Stew arts few remarks, which were full of pith, received great attention. He concluded as follows:

 The difficulty is that you are attempting to carry out policy that is impossible. The difficulty is in not being reasonable. Give the Indian home somewhere, but do not un- dertake to monopolze the whole West for the benefit of few Indians. You will not do it you cannot do it. You may dedicate the land awhile to barbarism and then to speculation. That is what you do with all these reserva- tions. We have Q specimen of it in the leg islation of to-day in the amendment that was offered by the Senator from Kentucky. Hero are two reservations in Wisconsin, and what do you dol You have kept the settlers of them up to this time by your army. Do you give them any chance to go in on them now No. What have you done You now propose to have them surveyed and sold at auction tC spectators who will combine and buy them mp, and the settlers cannot go on them. You have done tho same thing in Kansas. You dc 1t everywhere. Your love for the settlers is sham, when you have in these Western States every year reservation or two to sell to spectators at auction. You talk about homestead and pre-emption laws and say that no land shall be given to any but actual set tiers, and yet in this very bill you provide that several hundred thousand acres, I do not know how much, shall be sold in gross at auction. Of course there will be a combina- tion. The poor man will have no show When will you give the settler chance You will not allow him to go on the reserva. tion. If he does, you propose to send him tc prison; and when you dispose of the reserva ton you do so at auction in such way that the speculator gets hold of it. Is that the policy of this Government Is there no time when the settlers can have rights2

 Mir. Nye, who participated in the debate made some very pertinent inquiries as to tho penalties which the adoption of the amend ment would invoke. He also wanted to bt informed as to the technical meaning of tht word |" title" and being told it meant titlt by tresty stipulation, he replied that it wa doubtful, in view of recent decisions of tbt Supreme Court, whether the Indians have, ir the meaning of the law, any title to reserva tions by existing treaties.

 Mir Thurman read copious extracts so.l the statutes to show that the Indians are al ready sufficiently protected, and said that multiplying laws upon precisely the samt subject was very bad practice.

 The longer the debate proceeded the strong CT the opponents of the amendment grew, while it was curious to note the difference ir the treatment of the question at issue and o the Indian per Sc by the Senators from the New England States and those from the West The former seemed to be imbued with a cer. tain sentimentality respecting the red man which found an antagonism in the latter The first was disposed to permit the Indian to roam at will over thousands of square miles of territory lying right in the path o civilization, without stopping to inquire about metes and bounds but the latter show ed a determination to ascertain whether !" Mir To" had any rights. lfso, what they were end, if any were found to exist, to confin him in the exercise of them to the strict let ter of the law. They went further, and de clared that men not Indians who settled up on Indian lands in ignorance of boundaries should not be arrested and transported fo trial to ajudicial district hundreds of mile distant, and gave unmistakable evidence of strong desire to see the Indian confined t his one hundred and sixty acres, SO that h