esources of the savage doom him to weakness and
decay, the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware is
fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate
surely awaits them if they remain within the limits of the States does
not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every
effort should be made to avert so great a calamity. It is too late to
inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them and
their territory within the bounds of new States, whose limits they could
control. That step can not be retraced. A State can not be dismembered
by Congress or restricted in the exercise of her constitutional power.
But the people of those States and of every State, actuated by feelings
of justice and a regard for our national honor, submit to you the
interesting question whether something can not be done, consistently
with the rights of the States, to preserve this much-injured race.

As a means of effecting this end I suggest for your consideration the
propriety of setting apart an ample district west of the Mississippi,
and without the limits of any State or Territory now formed, to be
guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they shall occupy it, each
tribe having a distinct control over the portion designated for its use.
There they may be secured in the enjoyment of governments of their own
choice, subject to no other control from the United States than such as
may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier and between the
several tribes. There the benevolent may endeavor to teach them the arts
of civilization, and, by promoting union and harmony among them, to
raise up an interesting commonwealth, destined to perpetuate the race
and to attest the humanity and justice of this Government.

This emigration should be voluntary, for it would be as cruel as unjust
to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers and seek
a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that if
they remain within the limits of the States they must be subject to
their laws. In return for their obedience as individuals they will
without doubt be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which
they have improved by their industry. But it seems to me visionary to
suppose that in this state of things claims can be allowed on tracts of
country on which they have neither dwelt nor made improvements, merely
because they have seen them from the