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WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1855
Sir, how different is the policy now pursued from what it once was; I must read, for the instruction of the Senate, an extract from the last annual report of the Commissioner of Indian Af- fairs, and I beseech your attention to it, because it contains more good sense and reflection than I could impart in the same number of words. It will be necessary in the examination of this subject, in relation both to the Indians and the Army, to see in what manner they harmonize with each other, and how far the one is necessary to the success of the other. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, in his report to the Secretary of the Interior, de- scribes a transaction to which I wish to call attention: "As heretofore reported to you, an association of persons has undertaken to appropriate to their own use a portion of the land ceded by the Delawares, fronting on the Missouri River, and south of Fort Leavenworth; have laid out a city thereon, and actually had a public sale of the lots of the same on the 9th and 10th of October last. These unlawful proceedings have not only taken place under the eyes of the military officers stationed at the fort, but two of them are said to be members of the association; and have been active agents in this discreditable business. Encour- aged by these proceedings, and prompted by those engaged in them, other persons have gone on other portions of the tract ceded by the Delawares in trust to the United States, and pretend to have made, and are now making, such 'claims' as they assert will vest in them the lawful right to enter the land at the mini- mum price under the preemption law of July 12, 1854." This is a specimen of the aid and succor afforded by military commanders to the agents to maintain and preserve peace among the Indians. These are the gentlemen to whom the agents look for co-operation in the discharge of their duties, and to afford equal protection to the Indians against aggression from the whites, as to the whites against aggressions from the Indians. Such a transaction as is here disclosed is an act of unmitigated infamy in the officers who have lent themselves to it. I hope the Execu- tive, in the plenitude of his power, and in the exercise of a wise and just discretion, will erase their names from the records of the country, and redeem our annals from infamy so blackening as this. Think, sir, of an officer wearing an American sword, adorned with American epaulettes, the emblem of office and the insignia of honor and manly pride, degrading himself by a vio- lation of the faith of his Government, rendering him a disgrace
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