With respect to Indian trade, there was considerable innovation and considerable modification of existing laws. For years past, the Indians of the great tribes had chafed under the restrictions which the United States government had placed upon their trade and, unquestionably, no other single thing had irritated them more than the very evident monopoly right which the United States had given to a few white men over it. Indian trade, under federal regulations, was nothing more nor less than an extension of the protective policy, a policy that was destructive of all competition and that put the Indian, often to the contempt of his intelligence, at the mercy of the white sharper. Indian commissioner after Indian commissioner had protested against it, but all in vain. George W. Manypenny, particularly, had tried[288] to effect a change; for he was himself convinced that, if the Indians were capable of self-government, they were certainly capable of conducting their own trade. Needless to say, Manypenny's efforts were entirely unavailing. The Indian trade in the hands of the licensed white trader, although a pernicious thing for the Indian, was an exceedingly lucrative business for enterprising American citizens, white men who were, unfortunately, in possession of the elective franchise but of little else that was honorable and the government, controlled by constituents with local interests, dared not surrender it to the unenfranchised Indians no matter how highly competent they might be. Thus the Indian country, throughout its entire extent, was exploited for the sake of the frontiersman. Moreover, the annuity money, a just tax upon a government that had received so much real estate from the aborigines, instead of being spent judiciously to meet the ends of civilization and in such a way as to reflect credit upon the donor, who after all was a self-constituted guardian, went right back into the pockets of United States citizens but, of necessity, into those of only a very limited number of them.