We, the undersigned men and women of these United States, resident in or near ——, do most respectfully, but most earnestly pray the Houses of Congress to take all needful steps to prevent the encroachments of white settlers upon the Indian Territory, and upon all Indian reservations; also to keep all treaties with the Indians until they are changed by the mutual and free consent of both parties, and to guard them in the enjoyment of all the rights which have been guaranteed them upon the faith of the nation.
MEMORIAL LETTER.[[211]]
ACCOMPANYING THE INDIAN PETITION OF 1881.
To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress Assembled:
The men and women of this nation herewith present their second petition to your Honorable Body for the faithful fulfillment of treaties and other guarantees given by our government to the different tribes of Indians within our borders. Your petitioners do not suggest any political policy to be pursued, leaving such matters to wise statesmanship. They come with but one thought, conviction, prayer. The thought recognizes the moral obligation of nations, as of individuals, to keep compacts. The conviction is that recognized moral obligation should result in the fulfillment of such obligation. The prayer is for such fulfillment as being ever, we believe, the highest political wisdom, the truest national safety.
An objection has been made by some to treaty-keeping with Indians, on the ground that the Indian tribes among us were never “nations,” and that, therefore, so-called “treaties” with them were never real treaties. Your petitioners, with deep feeling recall the fact that our government has for a hundred years recognized these tribes as “nations,” in its hundreds of compacts with them calling the latter “treaties,” and has, by Acts of Congress, bound itself faithfully to observe all such made in the past, though deciding to make no new treaties with Indians. Your petitioners, therefore, pray, for the sake of national honor, which demands honest dealing with all men, that the terms “nation” and “treaty” may be kept to the heart as they have hitherto been made and explained to the ear.
Again it has been urged that the law of eminent domain nullifies these treaties, and requires our government to take legal jurisdiction of Indian lands, to divide the same in severalty, and to open the remainder for white settlement. Your petitioners are deeply impressed that for any government to apply the law of eminent domain to the property of others than its own citizens, is to necessitate, if there be resistance, a war of conquest,—a measure wholly opposed to the fundamental principles of this government,—and that Indians, with few exceptions, are not citizens of the United States, but are under their own legislative and executive authority, as in the Indian Territory, and this by the terms of our sales of territory to them, and their titles to the same.
Your petitioners therefore present their memorial to your honorable body, feeling that the plea for treaty-keeping is a protest against any enactment of Congress which would extend legal jurisdiction over territory not under the control of this government, and which would do this, as for example the Oklahoma Bill proposes, contrary to explicit treaty stipulations.
Finally, your petitioners would express the earnest conviction that the nation, which has spent five hundred millions of dollars on Indian wars growing out of the violation of treaties, can best afford to make it to the interest of the Indian tribes among us voluntarily to become citizens of the United States, and not by the coercion of Acts of our Congress.