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156 Extract from President Monroe's Message.

The condition of the Aborigines within our limits, and especially those who are within the limits of any of the states, merits likewise particular attention. Experience has shown, that unless the tribes be civilized, they can never be incorporated into our system, in any form whatever. It has likewise shewn, that in the regular augmentation of our population, with the extension of our settlements, their situation will become deplorable, if their extinction is not menaced. Some well digested plan, which will rescue them from such calamities, is due to their rights, to the rights of humanity, and to the honour of the nation. Their civilization is indispensable to their safety, and this can be accomplished only by degrees. The process must commence with the infant state, through whom some effect may be wrought on the parental. Difficulties of the most serious character present themselves to the attainment of this very desirable result, on the territory on which they now reside. To remove them from it by force, even with a view to their own security and happiness, would be revolting to humanity, and utterly unjustifiable. Between the limits of our present States and Territories, and the Rocky Mountain, and Mexico, there is a vast Territory to which they might be invited, with inducements which might be successful. It is thought, if that Territory should be divided into districts, by previous agreement with the tribes now residing there, and civil governments be established in each, with schools for every branch of instruction in literature, and in the arts of civilized life, that all the tribes now within our limits might gradually be drawn there. The execution of this plan would necessarily be attended with expense, and that not inconsiderable, but it is doubted whether any other can be devised which would be less liable to that objection, or more likely to succeed.

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