will it be shaken by local passions; and in any view is it not
better that the opposite bank of the Mississippi should be settled by
our own brethren and children than by strangers of another family? With
which should we be most likely to live in harmony and friendly
intercourse?

In matters of religion I have considered that its free exercise is
placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the General
Government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the
religious exercises suited to it, but have left them, as the
Constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of the
church or state authorities acknowledged by the several religious
societies.

The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the
commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the faculties and the
rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and independence, and
occupying a country which left them no desire but to be undisturbed, the
stream of overflowing population from other regions directed itself on
these shores; without power to divert or habits to contend against it,
they have been overwhelmed by the current or driven before it; now
reduced within limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity
enjoins us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts; to encourage
them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain their
place in existence and to prepare them in time for that state of society
which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of the mind and morals. We
have therefore liberally furnished them with the implements of husbandry
and household use; we have placed among them instructors in the arts of
first necessity, and they are covered with the aegis of the law against
aggressors from among ourselves.

But the endeavors to enlighten them on the fate which awaits their
present course of life, to induce them to exercise their reason, follow
its dictates, and change their pursuits with the change of circumstances
have powerful obstacles to encounter; they are combated by the habits of
their bodies, prejudices of their minds, ignorance, pride, and the
influence of interested and crafty individuals among them who feel
themselves something in the present order of things and fear to become
nothing in any other. These persons inculcate a sanctimonious reverence
for the customs of their ancestors; that whatsoever they did must be
done through all time; that re