ions as to
the administration of justice, to which I invite your attention.
The pressure of business in the Supreme Court and in certain circuit
courts of the United States is now such that serious delays, to the
great injury, and even oppression, of suitors, occur, and a remedy
should be sought for this condition of affairs. Whether it will be
found in the plan briefly sketched in the report, of increasing the
number of judges of the circuit courts, and, by means of this addition
to the judicial force, of creating an intermediate court of errors and
appeals, or whether some other mode can be devised for obviating the
difficulties which now exist, I leave to your mature consideration.

The present condition of the Indian tribes in the territory of the
United States and our relations with them are fully set forth in
the reports of the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner
of Indian Affairs. After a series of most deplorable conflicts--the
successful termination of which, while reflecting honor upon the
brave soldiers who accomplished it, can not lessen our regret at their
occurrence--we are now at peace with all the Indian tribes within our
borders. To preserve that peace by a just and humane policy will be
the object of my earnest endeavors. Whatever may be said of their
character and savage propensities, of the difficulties of introducing
among them the habits of civilized life, and of the obstacles they
have offered to the progress of settlement and enterprise in certain
parts of the country, the Indians are certainly entitled to our
sympathy and to a conscientious respect on our part for their claims
upon our sense of justice. They were the aboriginal occupants of the
land we now possess. They have been driven from place to place. The
purchase money paid to them in some cases for what they called their
own has still left them poor. In many instances, when they had settled
down upon land assigned to them by compact and begun to support
themselves by their own labor, they were rudely jostled off and thrust
into the wilderness again. Many, if not most, of our Indian wars have
had their origin in broken promises and acts of injustice upon our
part, and the advance of the Indians in civilization has been slow
because the treatment they received did not permit it to be faster
and more general. We can not expect them to improve and to follow our
guidance unless we keep faith with them in respecting the rights they