Indians; but the exclusive right of the United States to extinguish their title, and to grant the soil, has never, we believe, been doubted.

After these states became independent, a controversy subsisted between them and Spain respecting boundary. By the treaty of 1795, this controversy was adjusted, and Spain ceded to the United States the territory in question. This territory, though claimed by both nations, was chiefly in the actual occupation of Indians.

The magnificent purchase of Louisiana, was the purchase from France of a country almost entirely occupied by numerous tribes of Indians, who are in fact independent. Yet, any attempt of others to intrude into that country, would be considered as an aggression which would justify war.

Our late acquisitions from Spain are of the same character, and the negotiations which preceded those acquisitions, recognise and elucidate the principle which has been received as the foundation of all European title in America.

The United States, then, have unequivocally acceded to that great and broad rule by which its civilized inhabitants now hold this country. They hold, and assert in themselves, the title by which it was acquired. They maintain, as all others have maintained, that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest; and gave also a right to such a degree of sovereignty as the circumstances of the people would allow them to exercise.

The power now possessed by the government of the United States to grant lands, resided, while we were colonies, in the crown, or its grantees. The validity of the titles given by either has never been questioned in our courts. It has been exercised uniformly over territory in possession of the Indians. The existence of this power must negative the existence of any right which may conflict with, and control it. An absolute title to lands cannot exist, at the same time, in different persons, or in different governments. An absolute, must be an exclusive title, or at least a title which excludes all others not compatible with it. All our institutions recognise the absolute title of the crown, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy, and recognise the absolute title of the crown to extinguish that right. This is incompatible with an absolute and complete title in the Indians.

We will not enter into the controversy, whether agriculturists, merchants, and manufacturers, have a right, on abstract principles, to expel hunters from the territory they possess, or to contract their limits. Conquest gives a title which the courts of the conqueror cannot deny, whatever the private and speculative opinions of individuals may be, respecting the original justice of the claim which has been successfully asserted. The British government, which was then our government, and whose rights have passed to the United States, asserted a title to all the lands occupied by Indians, within the chartered limits of the British colonies. It asserted also a limited sovereignty over them, and the exclusive right of extinguishing the title which occupancy gave to them. These claims have been maintained and established as far west as the river Mississippi, by the sword. The title to a vast portion of the lands we now hold, originates in them. It is not for the courts of this country to question the validity of this title, or to sustain one which is incompatible with it.

Although we do not mean to engage in the defence of those principles which Europeans have applied to Indian title, they may, we think, find some excuse, if not justification, in the character and habits of the people whose rights have been wrested from them.

The title by conquest is acquired and maintained by force. The conqueror prescribes its limits. Humanity, however, acting on public opinion, has established, as a general rule, that the conquered shall not be wantonly oppressed, and that their condition shall remain as eligible as is compatible with the objects of the conquest. Most usually, they are incorporated with the victorious nation, and become subjects or citizens of the govern

ment with which they are connected. The new and old members of the society mingle with each other; the distinction between them is gradually lost, and they make one people. Where this incorporation is practicable, humanity demands, and a wise policy requires, that the rights of the conquered to property should remain unimpaired; that the new subjects should be governed as equitably as the old, and that confidence in their security should gradually banish the painful sense of being separated from their ancient connexions, and united by force to strangers.

When the conquest is complete, and the conquered inhabitants can be blended with the conquerors, or safely governed as a distinct people, public opinion, which not even the conqueror can disregard, imposes these restraints upon him; and he cannot neglect them without injury to his fame, and hazard to his power.

But the tribes of Indians inhabiting this country were fierce savages, whose occupation was war, and whose subsistence was drawn chiefly from the forest. To leave them in possession of their country, was to leave the country a wilderness; to govern them as a distinct people, was impossible, because they were as brave and as high-spirited as they were fierce, and were ready to repel by arms every attempt on their independence.

What was the inevitable consequence of this state of things? The Europeans were under the necessity either of abandoning the country, and relinquishing their pompous claims to it, or of enforcing those claims by the sword, and by the adoption of principles adapted to the condition of a people with whom it was impossible to mix, and who could not be governed as a distinct society, or of remaining in their neighbourhood, and exposing themselves and their families to the perpetual hazard of being massacred.

Frequent and bloody wars, in which the whites were not always the aggressors, unavoidably ensued. European policy, numbers, and skill, prevailed. As the white population advanced, that of the Indians necessarily receded. The country in the immediate neighbourhood of agriculturists became unfit for them. The game fled into thicker and more unbroken forests, and the Indians followed. The soil, to which the crown originally claimed title, being no longer occupied by its ancient inhabitants, was parcelled out according to the will of the sovereign power, and taken possession of by persons who claimed immediately from the crown, or mediately, through its grantees or deputies.

That law which regulates, and ought to regulate in general, the relations between the conqueror and conquered, was incapable of application to a people under such circumstances. The resort to some new and dif

ferent rule, better adapted to the actual state of things, was unavoidable. Every rule which can be suggested will be found to be attended with great difficulty.

However extravagant the pretension of converting the discovery of an inhabited country into conquest may appear; if the principle has been asserted in the first instance, and afterwards sustained; if a country has been acquired and held under it; if the property of the great mass of the community originates in it, it becomes the law of the land, and cannot be questioned. So, too, with respect to the concomitant principle, that the Indian inhabitants are to be considered merely as occupants, to be protected, indeed, while in peace, in the possession of their lands, but to be incapable of transferring the absolute title to others. However this restriction may be opposed to natural right, and to the usages of civilized nations, yet, if it be indispensable to that system under which the country has been settled, and be adapted to the actual condition of the two people, it may, perhaps, be supported by reason, and certainly cannot be rejected by courts of justice.

It was doubted whether a state can be seised in fee of lands subject to the Indian title, and whether a decision that they were seised in fee, might

not be construed to amount to a decision that their grantee might maintain an ejectment for them, notwithstanding that title. The majority of the court is of opinion that the nature of the Indian title, which is certainly to be respected by all courts until it be legitimately extinguished, is not such as to be absolutely repugnant to a seisin in fee on the part of the state. Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87; 2 Cond. Rep. 308.

The act of the 30th of March, 1802, having described what should be considered as the Indian country at that time, as well as at any future time when purchases of territory should be made of the Indians; the carrying of spirituous liquors into a territory so purchased, after March, 1802, although the same should be at the time frequented and inhabited exclusively by Indians; would not be an offence within the meaning of the beforementioned acts of congress, so as to subject the goods of the trader, found in company with those liquors, to seizure and forfeiture. American Fur Company v. The United States, 2 Peters, 368.

The condition of the Indians, in relation to the United States, is perhaps unlike that of any other two people in existence. In general, nations not owing a common allegiance, are foreign to each other. The term foreign nation, is with strict propriety applicable by either to the other. But the relation of the Indians to the United States, is marked by peculiar and cardinal distinctions, which exist nowhere else. The Cherokee Nation v. The State of Georgia, 5 Peters, 1.

The Indians are acknowledged to have an unquestionable, and heretofore an unquestioned right to the lands they occupy, until that right shall be extinguished by a voluntary cession to the government. It may well be doubted, whether those tribes which reside within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States, can with strict accuracy be denominated foreign nations. They may more correctly, perhaps, be denominated domestic dependent nations. They occupy a territory to which we assert a title, independent of their will, which must take effect in point of possession, when their right of possession ceases; meanwhile they are in a state of pupilage. Their relations to the United States resemble that of a ward to his guardian. They look to our government for protection; rely upon its kindness and its power; appeal to it for relief to their wants; and address the President as their great father. Ibid.

The treaties and laws of the United States, contemplate the Indian territory as completely separated from that of the states; and provide that all intercourse with them shall be carried on exclusively by the government of the Union. Worcester v. The State of Georgia, 6 Peters, 515. The Indian nations had always been considered as distinct, independent political communities, retaining their original natural rights, as the undisputed possessors of the soil, from time immemorial; with the single exception of that imposed by irresistible power, which excluded them from intercourse with any other European potentate, than the first discoverer of the coast of the particular region claimed: and this was a restriction which those European potentates imposed on themselves, as well as on the Indians. The very term "nation,' so generally applied to them, means a people distinct from others." The constitution, by declaring treaties already made, as well as those to be made, to be the supreme law of the land, has adopted and sanctioned the previous treaties with the Indian nations, and, consequently, admits their rank among those powers who are capable of making treaties. The words "treaty" and "nation" are words of our own language, selected in our diplomatic and legislative proceedings, by ourselves; having each a definite and well-understood meaning. We have applied them to Indians, as we have applied them to other nations of the earth. They are applied to all in the same sense. Ibid.

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One uniform rule seems to have prevailed in the British provinces in America, by which Indian lands were held and sold, from their first settlement, as appears by their laws; that friendly Indians were protected in

the possession of the lands they occupied, and were considered as owning them by a perpetual right of possession in the tribe or nation inhabiting them, as their common property, from generation to generation, not as the right of the individuals located on particular spots. Subject to this right of possession, the ultimate fee was in the crown, and its grantees; which could be granted by the crown or colonial legislatures, while the lands remained in possession of the Indians; though possession could not be taken without their consent. United States v. Clark, 9 Peters, 168.

Individuals could not purchase Indian lands without permission or license from the crown, colonial governors, or according to the rules prescribed by colonial laws; but such purchases were valid with such license, or in conformity with the local laws: and by this union of the perpetual right of occupancy with the ultimate fee, which passed from the crown by the license, the title of the purchaser became complete. Ibid.

Indian possession or occupation was considered with reference to their habits and modes of life; their hunting-grounds were as much in their actual possession, as the cleared fields of the whites; and their rights to its exclusive enjoyment in their own way, and for their own purposes, were as much respected, until they abandoned them, made a cession to the government, or an authorized sale to individuals. In either case their rights became extinct, the lands could be granted disencumbered of the right of occupancy, or enjoyed in full dominion by the purchasers from the Indians. Such was the tenure of Indian lands by the laws of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Ibid.

Grants made by the Indians at public councils, since the treaty at Fort Stanwick's, have been made directly to the purchasers, or to the state in which the land lies, in trust for them, or with directions to convey to them; of which there are many instances of large tracts so sold and held; especially in New York. Ibid.

It was an universal rule, that purchases made at Indian treaties, in the presence, and with the approbation of the officer under whose direction they were held by the authority of the crown, gave a valid title to the lands; it prevailed under the laws of the states after the revolution, and yet continues in those where the right to the ultimate fee is owned by the states, or their grantees. It has been adopted by the United States, and purchases made at treaties held by their authority, have been always held good by the ratification of the treaty, without any patent to the purchasers from the United States. This rule in the colonies was founded on a settled rule of the law of England, that by his prerogative, the king was the universal occupant of all vacant lands in his dominions, and had the right to grant them at his pleasure, or by his authorized officers. Ibid.

When the United States acquired and took possession of the Floridas, the treaties which had been made with the Indian tribes, before the acquisition of the territory by Spain and Great Britain, remained in force over all the ceded territory, as the laws which regulated the relations with all the Indians who were parties to them, and were binding on the United States, by the obligation they had assumed by the Louisiana treaty, as a supreme law of the land, which was inviolable by the power of congress They were also binding as the fundamental law of Indian rights; acknow ledged by royal orders, and municipal regulations of the province, as the laws and ordinances of Spain in the ceded provinces, which were declared to continue in force by the proclamation of the governor in taking possession of the provinces; and by the acts of congress, which assured all the inhabitants of protection in their property. It would be an unwarranted construction of these treaties, laws, ordinances and municipal regulations, to decide that the Indians were not to be maintained in the enjoyment of all the rights which they could have enjoyed under either, had the provinces remained under the dominion of Spain. It would be rather a

perversion of their spirit, meaning and terms, contrary to the injunction of the law under which the court acts, which makes the stipulations of any treaty, the laws and ordinances of Spain, and these acts of congress, so far as either apply to this case, the standard rules for its decision. Ibid. The treaties with Spain and England, before the acquisition of Florida by the United States, which guarantied to the Seminole Indians their lands according to the right of property with which they possessed them, were adopted by the United States; who thus became the protectors of all the rights they had previously enjoyed, or could of right enjoy under Great Britain or Spain, as individuals or nations, by any treaty, to which the United States thus became parties in 1803. Ibid.

The Indian right to the lands as property, was not merely of possession, that of alienation was concomitant; both were equally secured, protected and guarantied by Great Britain and Spain, subject only to ratification and confirmation by the license, charter or deed from the governor representing the king. Such purchases enabled the Indians to pay their debts, compensate for their depredations on the traders resident among them to provide for their wants; while they were available to the purchasers as payment of the considerations which at their expense had been received by the Indians. It would have been a violation of the faith of the government to both, to encourage traders to settle in the province, to put themselves and property in the power of the Indians, to suffer the latter to contract debts, and when willing to pay them by the only means in their power, a cession of their lands, withhold an assent to the purchase, which, by their laws or municipal regulations, was necessary to vest a title. Such a course was never adopted by Great Britain, in any of her colonies, nor by Spain in Louisiana or Florida. Ibid.

The laws made it necessary, when the Indians sold their lands, to have the deeds presented to the governor for confirmation. The sales by the Indians transferred the kind of right which they possessed; the ratification of the sale by the governor, must be regarded as a relinquishment of the title of the crown to the purchaser; and no instance is known where permission to sell has been "refused, or the rejection of an Indian sale." Ibid.

The colonial charters, a great portion of the individual grants by the proprietary and royal governments, and a still greater portion by the states of the Union after the revolution, were made for lands within the Indian hunting-grounds. North Carolina and Virginia to a great extent paid their officers and soldiers of the revolutionary war by such grants, and extinguished the arrears due the army by similar means. It was one of the great resources which sustained the war, not only by those states, but by other states. The ultimate fee, encumbered with the right of Indian occupancy, was in the crown previous to the revolution, and in the states of the Union afterwards, and subject to grant. This right of occupancy was protected by the political power, and respected by the courts, until extinguished, when the patentee took the encumbered fee. So the supreme court and the state courts have uniformly held. Clark v. Smith, 13 Peters, 195.