The American mind could conceive a republic but not an Indian. America
could conquer the Old World and rise redeemed and victorious when rent by
the awful whirlwind of internal strife. But the red man defied her. His
call rang across the plain like an autumn storm through the forests, and
his fellow red men answered like clustering leaves. History shudders at
the tale. Now look over the shoulder. When the fiery tongue of the
Revolution blazed into the undying speech of liberty, Madison, Mason,
Patrick Henry, and Edmund Randolph uttered their declaration that like a
sunbeam has been written upon every page of the nation’s history: “All men
are by nature equally free and have inherent rights—namely, the enjoyment
of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property
and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” Upon the inviolability
of this sublime doctrine the early colonists fought for liberty, and the
nation flung a battle line more than two thousand miles long, and engaged
at arms over two millions of men, in order to procure liberty for another
race. Once again, set each luminous word in this declaration over against
the disposition and destiny that we have imposed upon the North American
Indian. And then picture these famous Indian chiefs, gathered from many
widely scattered wigwams; hear again and for the last time a life story
that rounds itself out into an epic of sorrow; listen for the heavy
footfalls of departing greatness; watch the grim faces, sternly set toward
the western sky rim, heads still erect, eagle feathers, emblems of
victory, moving proudly into the twilight, and a long, solitary peal of
distant thunder joining the refrain of the soul—and it is night.
[Warriors of Other Days]