I cannot close this report without calling your attention to the admirable tone and feeling pervading the reports of superintendents of schools and missionaries among the Choctaws, and particularly to that of the Rev. Ebenezer Hotchkin, one of the oldest missionaries among the Choctaws, who, in referring to past political disturbances, says: "We have looked upon our rulers as the 'powers that be, are ordained of God,' and have respected them for this reason. 'Whomsoever, therefore, resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God' (Romans, xiii, 2). This has been our rule of action during the political excitement. We believe that the Bible is the best guide for us to follow. Our best citizens are those most influenced by Bible truth." I rejoice to believe the above sentiments are entertained by most, if not all, the missionaries now among the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and that they entirely repudiate the higher-law doctrine[49] of northern and religious fanatics. It is but lately, as I learn, that the Choctaw mission, for many years under the control of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (whose headquarters are at Boston) has been cut off, because they preferred to follow the teachings of the Bible, as understood by them, rather than obey the dogmas contained in Dr. Treat's letter and the edicts of the parent board. It is a matter of congratulation among the friends of the old Choctaw missionaries, who have labored for thirty years among them, and intend to die with armor on, that all connection with the Boston board has been dissolved. If it had been done years ago, when their freedom of conscience and of missionary action was attempted to be controlled by the parent board, much of suspicion, of ill-feeling, and diminished usefulness, which attached to the Choctaw missionaries in consequence of their connection with and sustenance by a board avowedly and openly hostile to southern institutions, would have been prevented.[50] In the next year, 1860, Cooper was still sanguine as to affairs among the Indians of his agency and he could report to Rector, unhesitatingly, as if confident of official endorsement both at Forth Smith and at Washington,[51]