hich are made.

That commerce with them should be promoted under regulations tending
to secure an equitable deportment toward them, and that such rational
experiments should be made for imparting to them the blessings of
civilization as may from time to time suit their condition.

That the Executive of the United States should be enabled to employ the
means to which the Indians have been long accustomed for uniting their
immediate interests with the preservation of peace.

And that efficacious provision should be made for inflicting adequate
penalties upon all those who, by violating their rights, shall infringe
the treaties and endanger the peace of the Union.

A system corresponding with the mild principles of religion and
philanthropy toward an unenlightened race of men, whose happiness
materially depends on the conduct of the United States, would be as
honorable to the national character as conformable to the dictates of
sound policy.

The powers specially vested in me by the act laying certain duties on
distilled spirits; which respect the subdivisions of the districts
into surveys, the appointment of officers, and the assignment of
compensations, have likewise been carried into effect. In a matter
in which both materials and experience were wanting to guide the
calculation it will be readily conceived that there must have been
difficulty in such an adjustment of the rates of compensation as would
conciliate a reasonable competency with a proper regard to the limits
prescribed by the law. It is hoped that the circumspection which has
been used will be found in the result to have secured the last of the
two objects; but it is probable that with a view to the first in some
instances a revision of the provision will be found advisable.

The impressions with which this law has been received by the community
have been upon the whole such as were to be expected among enlightened
and well-disposed citizens from the propriety and necessity of the
measure. The novelty, however, of the tax in a considerable part of the
United States and a misconception of some of its provisions have given
occasion in particular places to some degree of discontent; but it is
satisfactory to know that this disposition yields to proper explanations
and more just apprehensions of the true nature of the law, and I
entertain a full confidence that it will in all give way to motives
which arise out of a just sense of duty and a virtuous regar