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Show WESDEU PHILLIPS OS THE Here is the way Wendell Phillips talked about the Indians, at a public reception of some Indian chiefs lately in Boston: The extremes of the earth meet upon this platform to-nk-ht. Here we are, the fruit of two or three thous-j thous-j and years of civilization. All that art and letters an4 religion could do for us I we have inherited. We harness the ! steam; we send lightning on errands; ! we suljugate nature. More than that, iweniavw learned the omnipotence, :he absolute oainipotcuee of order. We know what patient, jsrseveiiijj; effort, generation alter generation, marrying the aes together, can accomplish. e are educated by a thousand year; into the consciousness of the sacredness or' the law. These ma vur,- grat powers. pow-ers. Now we stand side by side to-' night with the rude tenants of the for- ei; men with flw ideas, scanty tradi-1 lions t'ude arts. They come to us' with only three elements of humanity. One is the indestructible senie of right and ju.-iice, which we never found a race so demoralized that they did no: possess it. In their case these are i added to an eloquence to assert their riiMits, and a courage to defend ihem. which places the Indian side by side with the Saxon and the Greek. No race ever outdid him. There is a cla5s of men i; our cuntry that gather up , the tialiiions i't' Indian violence, from .Massachusetts bay back to Colorado, and try to tire the heart with revenue. Why, K-j low citizen, if from Philip j PoLmoket down to Black Ivettle on the far prairies, the Indians had not resisted us inch by inch for every acre! of laud ihat we stole from him, I should be ashamed of the soil that fed j hiiu and the miu that looked down' upon him. What is Jo give our chil-. drcu courage? This fame climate and , this tame suu. l our race in the next thousand years to run into cowardice, i into pigmy thoughts, into suuding cowed and at bay? The Indian who taught us what this American conti-1 nent can inako of manhood has written the record in a resir-tanoe that neither the omnipotence of civilization nor the overwhelming number of forty mil-: i lions of people could ever reduce into I yielding to us tamely. I thank him. I am only proud of my country as a continent, because the race that pre-1 coded us was no race to yield up tamely i.their right. I should be ahamed tO ! be the (successors of some qf the races I ; that go out in hiatoiy. Why, you I know, fellow-citizens, that the darkest , page in human record is the contact : i between civilization aud the aborigncs. ' Thu contact of civilization with barbar-:ism barbar-:ism is the suandal of history. Thp ! civilized man approaches his victim, demoralizes him with Ins vices, and 1 theu crushes him under his fceL Aud if we wero to measure the justice or . the merit of civilization by the fringe which comes in contact with barbarism, ;as we advauce we should have to cover our laces and put our hands upon . our lips, for it is a record of infamy from the earliest stage , which history has recorded down to the present day; and the only and the i brightest spot in that section of our , history is that the Englishman, with all his art, with all his wonderful superi loriiy, with ail the omnipotence of his warlike machinery, with his over-i over-i whelming numbers, has never j'et met i the Indian and frightened him any-, any-, where. I 1 ou say, theso representatives of 1 i three hundred thousand men, they can 1 ;only appeal to our pity. From Mas-! 1 sachusetts Bay back to thotr own hunt-1 iing grounds, every few miles is written- down in imperishable record us a spot! .where the scanty, scattered tribe made1 a stand for justice aud their ownj 1 rights. Neither Greece.nor Germany, nor the French, nor tho Scotch, can ! show a prouder record. And instead! of searing it over with inl'amy. and i'-j I ustrated epithets, the future will reo-l loguize it as a glorious record of a race! that never molted out and never died1 I away, but stood up manfully, man by ! I man, foot by foot, and fought it out1 j for the land God gave him, against i tho world, which seemed poured out' ; over him. I love the Indian, because' , there is something in tho soil and cli-J mate that made him, that is fated in1 tke thousand years that are coming to' 1 mould us, and I hope we shall always i produce such heroes as Philip and !Mckavoka, the Philip Sidney of flic I 1 prairie. Now one word more, po you know1 the history of a single aboriginal race, ! brought in contact with a great civilized civil-ized wave, that has ever behaved any better? Can you show me a finer re-tcord re-tcord on any continent? When the : barbarians of India met Alexander of Macedon, and the Macedonian King hurled iu their faces the same reproach that the press of America does at the Indian, "1'ou defend your selves I savagely!" the haughty chief replied, "Sir, if you knew how sweet freedom I was, 'you would delvnd it even with i axes!" That is what the Iudian says ito U3. No matter what be the massa-tcre; massa-tcre; no matter what be the weapon; no matter what be the ruthlessness with which I assert my right against your uncounted millions. If you knew how .sacred justice was, and how sweet j liberty, you'd recognize that I was j right in defending it, oven with these I stern methods. |