There were other causes, however, besides these, to enrage and madden them, which must not be lost sight of. Our Government had prohibited their sanguinary wars upon the Chippewas, and they regarded this as an act of wanton tyranny. They were bred in the faith that war is the true condition of an Indian man, and that peace was made for women and children. War was the only outlet for their power, the only field in which they could distinguish themselves and win immortal renown. All the great kingdoms of knowledge and literature were shut against them as with walls of brass. They could not read or write, and their leisure was passed in idle gossip, or in deliberations on infernal schemes against the white man to revenge themselves for their wrongs. It was not a wise thing to do, I think; although, no doubt, it was humane enough, as we understand humanity. Did not the 'dragons of the prime tear other in their slime,' and so thin out the horrible race, until Nature herself put the final claws of annihilation upon them? Why, in mercy, then, do we try to prevent the inevitable? War is a great clearer of the atmosphere; and one of our poets, Coleridge, I believe, says that 'Carnage is God's daughter'! a bold figure of rhetoric, not without its apparently sufficient apologies. Why not let the Sioux and Chippewas, or any other of the wild, irreclaimable brood, fight their bloodiest, and do their prettiest to help Nature, who seems bent on the extermination of all inferior races? They have got to die, any way!--that is a great consolation!--and if the philanthropists at Washington had only left them to themselves, they would have died by mutual slaughter--great numbers of them--long ago, and saved said philanthropists from the crime of killing them, which they are now doing, by inches!--a far more cruel way of dying. I was much pleased, when last summer they were upbraided for doing a little war against the Chips, in spite of Washington, with the sarcastic reply of a chief, who said: 'Our Great Father, we know, has always told us it was wrong to make war; yet now he himself is making war, and killing a great many. Will you explain this to us? We do not understand it!' This was a hit, a palpable hit, let who will reconcile it. Mr. Heard gives us the following brief statement of the manner in which treaties are made with the Indians; and I earnestly call the attention of the Government and all just citizens to its statements. He says: