rued, in this respect, to their favor. I go with
the old Scotch judge--a rigid Antinomian! who, having tried and
convicted a Calvinist as rigid as himself, asked him what he had to say
why the sentence of the law should not be pronounced against him.

'My lord,' said the prisoner, 'it's a bad job; but I was predestined to
do it!'

Whereupon his lordship replied: 'Ay! ay! my cannie laddie! an' I was
predestined to hang ye for't.'

So while I set forth the necessary, evil nature of the Indian, and the
consequent necessity of his bloody deeds, I also insist upon the
necessity of hanging him for it.

I plead not for the Indian of Minnesota, after these most shocking, most
appalling butcheries. I love my own race; and not a man, woman, or
child, who was sacrificed by these monsters, but their wounds were my
wounds, and their agonies tore my heart to the very core. Henceforth I
shall never see an Indian but I shall feel the 'goose flesh' of loathing
and horror steal over my Adam's buff! But you, my beloved friends of
Minnesota! you who have suffered so much in your families and homes
during the massacre, are you sure that you did all you could do as
citizens and rulers in this land to see even-handed justice dealt out
between the corrupt Government agencies and storekeepers, and the
helpless Indians? Had these last no just and reasonable ground of
complaint? complaint of the General Government, complaint of the delays
in their payment, complaint of the swindling of the storekeepers and
traders?

They had sold their lands, and gone away to their reservations. But the
money for their lands--promised so faithfully at such a time--where was
that money? _Non est!_ The Indians depended on it, trusted to the
certainty of its coming as the saint trusts in the promises. They came
for it--often, in their history, in the depth of winter, for hundred of
miles, through an inhospitable forest; their wives, children, and braves
starving--many of them left behind in the wilderness to die; their only
weapon made of coarse nails, lashed with wire, and this they called a
gun barrel, and with this they killed what game was killed by the way.

This did not happen in Minnesota, it is true; but events as horrible and
sickening as this did happen, and brought with them consequences more
horrible still, which will never be forgotten while the State exists or
the language lasts. Scenes were enacted at that 'Lower Agency' which
were disgraceful