“I grant my pardon to that dreaming clan, Who think that Indians have the rights of man; Who deem the dark skinn’d chiefs those miscreants base, Have souls like ours, and are of human race; And say the scheme so wise, so nobly plann’d. For rooting out these serpents from the land, To kill their squaws, their children yet unborn, To burn their wigwams, and pull up their corn; By sword and fire to purge the unhallow’d train, And kindly send them to a world of pain, Is vile, unjust, absurd:--as if our God One single thought on Indians e’er bestow’d, To them his care extends, or even knew, Before Columbus told him where they grew.”[306] On another occasion when Brackenridge was a candidate for Congress, he published in the _Aurora_ an appeal to the electors of his Congressional District in which he animadverted harshly on the educational accomplishments of General John Woods, his Federalist opponent. This presented another opportunity for the clever writers of _The Echo_ to burlesque a leading Republican. _The Echo_ gibed: “But, to return to Woods,--to speak my mind, His education was of narrow kind; Nor has he since to learning much applied, But smil’d with calm contempt on pedant pride. His mental powers, howe’er, superior shine, His genius glows with energy divine. But when with mine in competition plac’d. How low his powers, his genius sinks debas’d, Has not my genius shone with peerless ray, And o’er Ohio pour’d the blaze of day? Have not my writings spread abroad my name, And bards consign’d me to immortal fame? Then shall John Woods with me presume to vie, The brightest star that decks the western sky?”[307]