328 of the peace and good order of society. In the step which you are about to take you will not only offend the laws of your own State, but those of the U.S. Government, to which jurisdiction over the Reserves has been ceded. You cannot be ignorant of the fact, that when called on it will be the duty of the authorities of the State to aid with its whole force in bringing the offenders to justice. I hope these reflections will explain my motives in thus addressing you, and at the same time induce you to pause and reflect before you rush madly into measures so fraught with evil consequences not only to yourselves but to every citizen of the State, for they will not reach you alone. Have you reflected that by such acts of violence and lawlessness you will inflict an everlasting stain upon the character of your people, and that this disgrace must attach to the reputation of the whole State? Or have you reflected that the State has now several hundred thousand dollars due her from the General Government expended for your protection, the return of which your own lawless conduct will greatly embarrass, if it does not forever defeat? With the forcible breaking up of these reserves, your troubles and difficulties will not cease, as dema- gogues and designing men would vainly induce you to believe. They will only have begun; for, with such an additional number of savages thrown upon the frontier, who will be enraged and exasperated by a sense of wrong, who can doubt the result? Will you then expect the State to expend as many more thousand in defending you from the consequences which your own rash and revolutionary action has brought on you, or will you expect pro- tection from the Federal Government which has failed to give it to you under more auspicious circumstances? These are consider- ations which I pray you may not be overlooked, at the same time that I would urge upon you the importance of discarding from your counsels the bad and designing men who would lead you into difficulty-who would seek notoriety at a cost which would involve your own ruin-and who, when the hour of retribution shall come, will be the first to shrink from the consequences of acts committed at their own instigation. From the consequences of such acts there is no escape. It is not, as some vainly profess to think, that I have a right to appoint tribunals for the investi- gation of cases where there is real or probable cause to suppose the law has been violated. The Constitution and laws, which you are bound to support as well as I, have appointed the tribunals before which they are to be heard. It is not in my power to take it out of their hands, but only to see that their mandates are
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