When President Lincoln's administration commenced, we were glad to welcome a change of Indian agents. But, after a little trial, we found that a Republican administration was quite as likely to make mistakes in the management of Indians as a Democratic one. Hardly had the new order of things been inaugurated, in 1861, when Superintendent Clark W. Thompson announced to the Sioux gathered at Yellow Medicine that the Great Father was going to make them all very glad. They had received their annuities for that year, but were told that the government would give them a further bounty in the autumn. At one of Thompson's councils, Paul made one of his most telling speeches. He presented many grievances, which the new administration promised to redress. But when the superintendent was asked where this additional gift came from, he could not tell--only it was to be great, and would make them very glad. By such words, the four thousand Upper Sioux were encouraged to expect great things. Accordingly, the Sissetons from Lake Traverse came down in the autumn, when the promised goods should have been there, but low water in the Minnesota and Mississippi delayed their arrival. The Indians waited, and had to be fed by Agent Galbraith. And when the goods came the deep snows had come also, and the season for hunting was past. Moreover, the great gift was only $10,000 worth of goods, or $2.50 apiece! While they had waited many of the men could have earned from $50 to $100 by hunting. It was a terrible mistake of the government at Washington. The result was that of the Upper Sioux the agent was obliged to feed more than a thousand persons all winter. The Lower Sioux were suspicious of the matter, and refused to receive their ten thousand dollars' worth of goods until they could know whence it came. By and by the Democrats in the country learned that the administration had determined on changing the money annuity into goods, and had actually commenced the operation, sending on the year before $20,000 of the $70,000 which would be due next summer. The knowledge of this planning of bad faith in the government greatly exasperated the annuity Indians, and was undoubtedly the primal cause which brought on the outbreak of the next summer. Men who were opposed to the Republican administration and the Southern war had now a grand opportunity to work upon the fears and the hopes of the Indians, and make them badly affected toward the government. And they seemed to have carried it a little too far, so that when the conflict came it was most disastrous for them.