ABOLITION OF THE INDIAN FACTORY SYSTEM.
The experience of the Indian factory system, is an illustration of
the unfitness of the federal government to carry on any system of
trade, the liability of the benevolent designs of the government
to be abused, and the difficulty of detecting and redressing abuses
in the management of our Indian affairs. This system originated in
the year 1796, under the recommendation of President Washington, and
was intended to counteract the influence of the British traders,
then allowed to trade with the Indians of the United States within
our limits; also to protect the Indians from impositions from our
own traders, and for that purpose to sell them goods at cost and
carriage, and receive their furs and peltries at fair and liberal
prices; and which being sold on account of the United States,
would defray the expenses of the establishment, and preserve the
capital undiminished--to be returned to the treasury at the end
of the experiment. The goods were purchased at the expense of
the United States--the superintendent and factors were paid out
of the treasury, and the whole system was to be one of favor and
benevolence to the Indians, guarded by the usual amount of bonds
and oaths prescribed by custom in such cases. Being an experiment,
it was first established by a temporary act, limited to two
years--the usual way in which equivocal measures get a foothold in
legislation. It was soon suspected that this system did not work
as disinterestedly as had been expected--that it was of no benefit
to the Indians--no counteraction to British traders--an injury
to our own fur trade--and a loss to the United States; and many
attempts were made to get rid of it, but in vain. It was kept up
by continued temporary renewals for a quarter of a century--from
1796 to 1822--the name of Washington being always invoked to
continue abuses which he would have been the first to repress and
punish. As a citizen of a frontier State, I had seen the working
of the system--seen its inside working, and knew its operation to
be entirely contrary to the benevolent designs of its projectors.
I communicated all this, soon after my admission to a seat in the
Senate, to Mr. Calhoun, the Secretary at War, to whose department
the supervision of this branch of service belonged, and proposed to
him the abolition of the system; but he had too good an opinion of
the superintendent (then Mr. Thomas L. McKinney), to believe that
any thing was wrong in the business, and refused his countenance
to my proposition. Confident that I was right, I determined to
bring the question before the Senate--did so--brought in a bill to
abolish the factories, and throw open the fur trade to individual
enterprise, and supported the bill with all the facts and reasons
of which I was master. The bill was carried through both Houses,
and became a law; but not without the strenuous opposition which
the attack of every abuse for ever encounters--not that any member
favored the abuse, but that those interested in it were vigilant
and active, visiting the members who would permit such visits,
furnishing them with adverse statements, lauding the operation
of the system, and constantly lugging in the name of Washington
as its author. When the system was closed up, and the inside of
it seen, and the balance struck, it was found how true all the
representations were which had been made against it. The Indians
had been imposed upon in the quality and prices of the goods sold
them; a general trade had been carried on with the whites as well
as with the Indians; large per centums had been charged upon every
thing sold; and the total capital of three hundred thousand dollars
was lost and gone. It was a loss which, at that time (1822), was
considered large, but now (1850) would be considered small; but its
history still has its uses, in showing how differently from its
theory a well intended act may operate--how long the Indians and
the government may be cheated without knowing it--and how difficult
it is to get a bad law discontinued (where there is an interest in
keeping it up), even though first adopted as a temporary measure,
and as a mere experiment. It cost me a strenuous exertion--much
labor in collecting facts, and much speaking in laying them
before the Senate--to get this two years' law discontinued, after
twenty-five years of injurious operation and costly experience. Of
all the branches of our service, that of the Indian affairs is most
liable to abuse, and its abuses the most difficult of detection.