INDIANS UNDER THE LAW

- OBJECTS IN VIEW.

You criticise our second resolution. But the Government, through its instructed law officers, maintained the position that an Indian could not appear as a party in court, even on an application for habeas corpus. For this the Government was justly arraigned by us. You answer that Chief Justice Marshall decided, in Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia, that an Indian tribe cannot sue the United States. This is hardly creditable to you, for Chief Justice Marshall decided no such thing, and the question was not before him. His decision was that his court had no jurisdiction to hear a suit by a tribe against a State. No one supposed that the sovereign could be sued without its consent by anybody. And even if the great Chief Justice had decided that no suit, even against a citizen, could be brought by an Indian living under a tribal organization, his decision would not apply to the present case, because the fourteenth amendment is now the law of the land. How could you make that mistake? Reference is also made by you to the case decided by Judge Dundy, affirming that an Indian was a person, and it is claimed by you that you objected to some positions in the United States Attorney's brief, and therefore allowed the decision to stand. But the friends of the Indians desired that the Government should enter an appeal in that case, in order that the principle might be decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. Your action defeated this hope. The Government, in this celebrated case, took a wrong position, and maintained it publicly. For this it was condemned in our resolution. The friends of the Indians claim that they are United States citizens, because they are persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. It seems hard to deny this without asserting either that the Fourteenth Amendment is invalid, or that the Indian is not a person. And it seems unbecoming for the United States to seek to deny the citizenship of any one who was born in this country, and who is seeking justice in its courts.

President to use his large powers" to rectify the wrong done them, and it is denied that the President has any power in the case. The best answer to this has been given by the President, who promptly appointed a commission to ascertain the facts, and to learn the wishes of the Poncas.

You say that the scope of our vision includes only one feeble tribe, while you are charged with the management of all. There never was a greater mistake. The first movement was to secure for a few Poncas the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, and it was granted, in spite of your opposition; and, for the first time in the history of the country, the civil power took those oppressed Indians out of the hands of your department. It is now our desire to have this decision affirmed by the Supreme Court, and thus stand as the law of the land, which your action in not appealing the decision has delayed. Another decision has recently been given, confirming to these Poncas the title to four thousand acres of land in Nebraska, and a suit is pending for the balance, of some ninety thousand more. No, Mr. Secretary, our efforts are not limited to the restoration of the Poncas alone. Every decision of the courts obtained in their behalf will apply to the benefit of all other Indians. Civil liberty, the overthrow of an infamous system that has grown up under abuses, and that has been a disgrace to this people for many years - these are the objects we have in view. It is not the first time in the history of a nation that a great and inexcusable wrong has been permitted, and has become instrumental in arousing the people, not only to redress the wrong, but to overthrow the system of which it was the result.

We cheerfully accord to you all praise for your efforts in behalf of the education and employment of Indians. It is claimed that over three hundred children are now being educated in the schools of Carlisle and Hampton. But when we consider that there are over fifty thousand Indian children of school-age, we trust more yet may be done. There are about four thousand children in schools upon the reserves, - a work largely due to missionaries. The sum of $150,000 is well asked for by the department to build school-houses

and furnish teachers for the Indians.

It would be a wise expenditure if Congress could be induced by you to appropriate, at least, half a million of dollars for educational purposes among them. We wish, too, that the appeals of the Indians themselves, for an appropriation for schools out of their own money, could have had more encouragement.

Titles to lands is a subject that has not escaped our attention any more than it has your own. Many of the tribes have been beseeching the Government, for many years, through their agents and missionaries, for these titles. They have been promised them over and over again; and the reports of the agents are filled with complaints because they have not been granted according to the treaties and pledges of the United States. The Indians have an unsettled feeling, and it is a great hindrance to their progress and prosperity. Still, during the four years of your administration, nothing in that direction has been done. You may not be accountable for this, but it has been in the power of the President to grant titles to some tribes, and it would doubtless have been done if you had recommended it. There may be good reason why you have not done this; but there should be a stronger reason than has yet been shown why a treaty should not fulfilled. This matter of granting to the Indians valid titles to land occupied by them is one of vast importance; and if you had succeeded in accomplishing this one object, it would have been not only justice, but statesmanship.

CONCLUSION.

We recognize the difficulties of your position, and the evils of the system that existed when you entered upon your duties. We acknowledge, as we have said, your interests in behalf of education and the employment of Indians, but you seem to overlook the fact that liberty should accompany, if not precede, education. Vain the effort to educate a people kept in bondage. Words, however ingeniously interwoven ;

expediencies; the just boasts of worthy achievements in other things, all these fail to meet the plain issue that is embraced in these three questions: First- Did you commit a cruel and unlawful outrage upon the Ponca Indians, in robbing them of their homes? To which you have already answered, Yes. Second-Have you lifted a finger for all these three years, during which you say you have so sincerely repented your error, to restore them to their homes? To which you have already answered, No. Third-Will you not, even at this last moment, for the sake of the credit of the administration and the country, ascertain, by men in whom the Poncas have confidence, whether those who are still in the Indian Territory do not really wish — having full knowledge that the way is cordially open to them to rejoin the hundred or more who have escaped and returned to Dakota? and, if they do, will you not ask for an appropriation, and do what you can to restore them, also? Can you not apprehend the one fundamental thing, that this land in Dakota is theirs, theirs, THEIRS? We beg you to apply to their case, not the wrench of a "policy," but for once, the good old golden rule — not always bad, even, as a policy of "doing unto others as ye would that men should do to you.” It may leave the constitutional "Indian Policy" blotted by a drop of the milk of human kindness, but it will leave you a record in the administration of President Hayes upon which you will have no more sincere congratulations than our own.

Be assured, Mr. Secretary, that the idea of any personal controversy is entirely foreign to us. We appreciate your great abilities and services, and there needed no enumeration, such as in your letter, of your good works, as an official, to convince us of your many merits; and it is only where you have done wrong, and where you propose only partially to repair it, that we exercise the same right which you have so often and so eloquently exercised, of frank and outspoken criticism, not that we wish to attack you, but that we may attack the injustice. There is the risk, of course, in all such cases, that one side suffers too indiscriminately the reproach of wrong-doing, and the other of impertinence or sentiment

alism; but whatever bruises the contestants get, it fortunately always happens, as in this case, that a good cause secures a lift forward, and the perpetration of similar offenses in the future is prevented. As you say in your letter, we both agree that a wrong was done. Doubtless, we agree, too, that the same wrong will never be done again. If our mutual agitation of this matter shall do nothing more than that; or, better, if it shall awaken, as you would rejoice with us in awakening, a livelier popular sense of the rights of the Indians, of the injustice hitherto done them, and of the duty of this nation to them in the way of their education, and of guaranteeing to them citizenship and titles to land, we shall have nothing to regret. We close our correspondence, therefore, not only with the courtesies of personal respect, but in the spirit of that devotion to humanity and to the equal rights of all, which we share in common with yourself. By order of the Committee,

JOHN D. LONG, Chairman.

WILLIAM H. LINCOLN, Secretary.

BOSTON, Dec. 20, 1880.