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than
the United States. That is because of
sovereign right, the general right in
the United
States Government in all the country. The Government don't want to take
your
land from you for nothing. There is no country on the face of the globe
that
has treated the people found in the country, when the country was
discovered,
or taken by conquest, as our Government has treated the people found in
the
United States of America. All other
nations, when they discovered a new country and conquered the people,
have
simply let them retain their homes, they have never given them large
tracts of
land nor treated them as a sovereign nation. When
you drove the Sioux out of portions of the country
that you now
occupy, you didn't give them a reservation within its borders. When the Sioux drove the weaker tribes out
of that portion of the country west of the Missouri river they did not
give
them any land. But the United States
have been very liberal and have given every tribe of Indians homes on
the land acquired
by conquest or by purchase. There was
set apart for each tribe rich tracts of country called reservations,
over which
the Indians have absolute control and no white persons are allowed to
come upon
it without authority of the Government. And
it has been the practice of the Government, from its
first
establishment, to treat with the Indians for any portion of their
reservation
that is desired to have opened up to settlement, and when the demand
for more
land is heard near any reservation, requiring the opening of land that
is not
needed by the Indians, treaties have always been negotiated with the
Indians
for same. That was done to obtain
what
was called extinguishment of the Indian title, to the tract of land
negotiated for. This for the reason that,
under our policy
of treating with the Indians, the Government could not give a patent
with clear
title to that portion of land to any person without such an agreement
with the
Indians to extinguish the Indian title, otherwise there would be a
cloud on the
title. Therefore, I said, and I want
you to understand
