."[49] What had become of this immense population? The
successive invasions of new hordes of barbarians from the north,
intestine wars, and the law, that men shall advance toward civilization,
or decay from the earth--these are the only causes to which we may
ascribe their disappearance.

The extinction of the Indian race is decreed, by a law of Providence
which we can not gainsay. Barbarism _must_ give way to civilization. It
is not only inevitable, but _right_, that it should be so. The tide of
empire, which has been flowing since the earliest times, has set
steadily toward the West. The Indian emigrated in the wrong direction:
and now, after the lapse of many centuries, the descendants of the first
Asians, having girdled the globe, meet on the banks of the Mississippi!
On the one side, are enlightenment, civilization, Christianity: on the
other, darkness, degradation, barbarism: and the question arises, which
shall give way? The Indian recedes: at the rate of seventeen miles a
year,[50] the flood rolls on! Already it has reached the shores of the
Pacific: One century will reduce the whole continent to the possession
of the white man; and, then, the lesson which all history teaches, will
be again taught--that two distinct races cannot exist in the same
country on equal terms. The weaker must be incorporated with the
stronger--or exterminated.[51]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Vol. III., page 394.

[3] There is, however, little necessity for any argument on the subject:
For, leaving out of the question the highest and most sacred of
authorities, almost all respectable writers upon ethnology, including
Buffon, Volney, Humboldt, &c., agree in assigning a common origin to all
nations,--though the last deduces from many particulars, the conclusion
that the American Indian was "isolated in the infancy of the world, from
the rest of mankind."--_Ancient Inhabitants of America_, vol. i., p.
250.

[4] It will be observed, that I assume the _unity_ of the Indian race;
and I am not sufficiently acquainted with the recent discussions on the
subject, to be certain whether the question is still considered open.
But the striking analogies between the customs, physical formation, and
languages of all the various divisions, (except the Esquimaux, who are
excluded), I think, authorize the assumption.

[5] _Conquest of Mexico_, vol. iii., p. 416.

[6] _Conquest of Mexico_, vol. iii., p. 417.

[7] _Essays_--Art. 'Milton.'

[8] _Lectures