least degree the Indians. The Indians thus situated
can not be regarded in any other light than as members of a foreign
government or of that of the State within whose chartered limits they
reside. If in the former, the ordinary legislation of Congress in
relation to them is not warranted by the Constitution, which was
established for the benefit of our own, not of a foreign people. If in
the latter, then, like other citizens or people resident within the
limits of the States, they are subject to their jurisdiction and
control. To maintain a contrary doctrine and to require the Executive to
enforce it by the employment of a military force would be to place in
his hands a power to make war upon the rights of the States and the
liberties of the country--a power which should be placed in the hands of
no individual.

If, indeed, the Indians are to be regarded as people possessing rights
which they can exercise independently of the States, much error has
arisen in the intercourse of the Government with them. Why is it that
they have been called upon to assist in our wars without the privilege
of exercising their own discretion? If an independent people, they
should as such be consulted and advised with; but they have not been. In
an order which was issued to me from the War Department in September,
1814, this language is employed:

All the friendly Indians should be organized and prepared to
cooperate with your other forces. There appears to be some
dissatisfaction among the Choctaws; their friendship and services
should be secured without delay. The friendly Indians must be fed
and paid, and _made to fight when_ and _where their services may be
required_.

To an independent and foreign people this would seem to be assuming, I
should suppose, rather too lofty a tone--one which the Government would
not have assumed if they had considered them in that light. Again, by
the Constitution the power of declaring war belongs exclusively to
Congress. We have been often engaged in war with the Indian tribes
within our limits, but when have these hostilities been preceded or
accompanied by an act of Congress declaring war against the tribe which
was the object of them? And was the prosecution of such hostilities an
usurpation in each case by the Executive which conducted them of the
constitutional power of Congress? It must have been so, I apprehend, if
these tribes are to be considered as foreign and indepen