30th. MASONRY.--It has recently been discovered, that there is a hidden danger in this ancient fraternity, and that society has been all the while sitting, as it were, on the top of a volcano, liable, at any moment, to burst. Such, at least, appear to be the views of some politicians, who have seized upon the foolish and apparently criminal acts of some lack-wits in western New York, to make it a new political element for demagogues to ride. Already it has reached these hitherto quiet regions, and zealots are now busy by conventions, and anxious in hurrying candidates up to the point. "Anti-masonic" is the word, a kind of "shibboleth" for those who are to cross the political "fords" of the new Jordan.
June 1st. MISSIONARY LABORS AMONG THE INDIANS.--There are evidently some defects in the system. There is too much expended for costly buildings, and the formation of a kind of literary institutes of much too high a grade, where some few of the Indians are withdrawn and very expensively supported, and undergo a sort of incarceration for a time, and are then sent back to the bosom of the tribes, with the elements of the knowledge of letters and history, which their parents and friends are utterly unable to appreciate, and which they, in fact, ridicule. The instructed youth is soon discouraged, and they most commonly fall back into habits worse than before, and end their course by inebriety, while the body of the tribe is nowise bettered. Whatever the defects are, there are certainly some things to amend in our measures and general policy.
Mr. Stevens and Mr. Coe, both missionaries, have recently been appointed to visit the Indian country, with the object of observing whether some less expensive and more general effort to instruct and benefit the body of the tribes, cannot be made. The latter has a commentatory letter to this end, from Gen. Jackson, dated the 19th of March, which denotes an interest on this topic that argues favorably of his views of moral things.
"The true system of converting the Indians was, it is apprehended, adopted by David Brainerd in 1744. He took the Bible, and declared its truths with simplicity and earnestness in the Indian villages. There was no preparation of buildings or outlays. In one year he had gathered a church of pure believers. Their manners immediately reformed; they became industrious and cleanly, and built houses, and schools, and tilled the land. All this was a consequence, and not a cause of Christianity." [58]
[58] Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 10.
2d. A friend writes: "I believe the literary world is rather lazy just at this time; at least nothing novel, except words, has reached my eye. Your Literary Voyager has lately been traveling the rounds amongst your friends."
12th. COPPER MINES.--A private letter, from a high quarter, says: "Col. Benton's bill, respecting the copper mines, which passed Congress, only provided for permission being granted to individuals to work them at their own expense. There is no intention of doing anything on public account." This, it will be perceived, was the view presented (ante) by Mr. Dox, in his able letter to me on the subject, several years ago. Congress will not authorize the working of the mines. It is a matter for private enterprize.
July 14th. WHISKY AMONG THE INDIANS.--Mr. Robert Stuart, Agent to the American Fur Company, writes from Mackinac, that some of the American Fur Company's clerks are not inclined to take whisky, under the general government permit, provided their opponents take none. This tampering with the subject and with me, in the conduct of the agent of that company, whose duty it is rigidly to exclude the article by every means, would accord better, it should seem, with the spirit of one who had not recently taken obligations which are applicable to all times and all space. Little does the spirit of commerce care how many Indians die inebriates, if it can be assured of beaver skins. The situation of any of its agents, who may acknowledge Christian obligations, is doubtless an embarrassing one; and such persons should seek to get out of such an employment as soon as possible. The true direction, in all cases of this kind, is, to take high moral grounds. The department, by granting such permits, violates a law. The agent of the company who seeks to exclude "opponents" in the trade, errs by attempting to throw the responsibility of the minor question upon the local agent, over whose head he already shakes his permits from a superior power. Now the "opponents," be it understood, have no such "permits," and the agent can give them none.
This subject of ardent spirits is a constantly recurring one in every possible form; and no little time of an agent of Indian affairs, and no small part of his troubles and vexations, are due to it. The traders and citizens generally, on the frontiers, are leagued in their supposed interests to break down, or evade the laws, Congressional and territorial, which exclude it, or make it an offence to sell or give it. If an agent aims honestly to put the law in force, he must expect to encounter obloquy. If he appeals to the local courts, it is ten to one that nine-tenths of his jury are offenders in this very thing. So far as the American Fur Company is concerned, it is seen, I think, by the course of the managers, that it would conduce to better hunts if the Indians were kept sober, and liquor were rigidly excluded; but the argument is, that "on the lines"--that the Hudson's Bay Company use it, and that their trade would suffer if they had not "some." And they thus override the agents, by appealing to higher powers, and so get permits annually, for a limited quantity, of which they and not the agents are the judges. In this way the independence of the agents is constantly kept down, and made to bend to a species of mock popular will.
In view of the counteracting influence of the American Fur Company on this frontier, it would be better for the credit of morals, properly so considered, if the chief agent of that concern at Michilimackinac were not a professor of religion, or otherwise, if he were in a position to act out its precepts boldly and frankly on this subject. For, as it now is, his position is perpetually mistaken. A temperance man, he is yet a member of a local temperance society, which only operates against the retailers, but leaves members free to sell by the barrel. Bound, by the principles of law, not to introduce whisky into the interior, he yet sells it to others, knowing their intention to be to run it over the lines, in spite of the agents. This is done by white and red men. And he obtains "permits" besides, as head of the company, at head-quarters at Washington, to take in, openly, a certain quantity of high wines every year. Talk to that gentleman on the subject, and he is eloquent in defence of temperance. Thus the obligation is kept to the ear, but broken in the practice. A business that thus compels a man to hamper his conscience, and cause scandal to the church, should be abandoned at once.