WRITINGS OF SAM 1-IOUSTON, 1853
439
man's step of some nation or other has effected the almost total extermination of his race. How many have melted away, like the dews of the morning, leaving no trace behind? You could hardly tell, unless you looked into some musty volume, where are recorded the tribes which once existed in this broad land, and have passed away. Well, sir, the Indian no longer with pleasure walks the proud lord of the forest, or stands in the contemplation of some broad river flowing at his feet, or contemplates the beautiful lawns, with lofty trees protecting him from the vertical sun. This is no longer the enjoyment of the Indian. He is deprived entirely of all these delights. You circumscribe him within a little space of country, embracing but a few square miles, and tell him that these are the limits of his domain; and the Indian is left with the reflection that he has no guarantee for his safety. I call upon my country to raise the Indian from the unhappy lot into which he has been plunged, and if possible so to act that what we do shall be to the advantage of the Indians; and that some atonement may be made for past wrongs by improving his physical condition, and elevating his moral man. This I call upon my country to do. I demand it in tho name of justice and humanity, and in the name of freedom, whose symbol adorns your walls, and the father of whose liberty was the red man's friend. All these associations would elevate us, and should at least prompt us to place honest men in positions of trust to deal with the Indians, to rescue them from the harpies and cormorants that have hung around them. I do not think that any appeal which I could make to the Senate would produce any impression favorable to the Indian, to redress his wrongs, or mitigate the anguish of his spirit. So far as my knowledge of the Indian character has exiended, from boyhood even up to the present time, I have found that when · associated with these people, and when they felt they were away from the iron hand of oppression, they were as generous, as faithful and true to friendship, and as noble in the higher at- tributes which adorn humanity, as any man that I have met in the most refined and civilized walks of life. I would be far from assigning to the Indian a degraded position. There are different classes among them as among us; and you will find that the qualities of men are modified by the influences which surround them. You will find in the Indian character the germs of integrity, as you find in the corresponding classes of our society
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