We have thought it important thus to review the doctrine of the Report of the Senate Judiciary Committee, because, from the high standing of the Committee, from the assumption which the Report[P] makes of completeness in the citation of "treaties, laws, and judicial decisions" pertinent to the subject, on the express ground of a desire to enlighten, not only Congress, but the country, in respect to our Indian relations, and from the wide circulation given to the Report, as compared with that obtained by an ordinary decision of the Circuit or Supreme Court of the United States, the Report has apparently come to be accepted by Congress and the country as an authoritative exposition of the history and law of the subject although, in the very month in which it was submitted to Congress, the Supreme Court, in the Cherokee Tobacco, pronounced a doctrine which cuts up that of the Report, root and branch. Such being the constitutional competence of Congress to deal with the Indians, without restraint either from the self-government hitherto permitted them, or from treaties to which the United States are a party, it is for Congress to decide, firstly, what the good faith of the nation requires, and, secondly, what course will best accomplish the social and industrial elevation of the native tribes, with due consideration had for the interests of the present body of citizens. How, then, stands the matter with the faith of the nation? By the Report on Indian Affairs for 1872, there appear (p. 16) to be in the neighborhood of 120,000 Indians with whom the United States have no treaty relations. These certainly can have no claims to exemption from direct control, whenever the United States shall see fit to extend its laws over them, either to incorporate them in the body of its citizenship, or to seclude them for their own good. There are, again, as nearly as we can determine by a comparison of treaties with the Reports of the Indian Office, about 125,000 Indians with whom the United States have treaties unexpired, but to whom no distinct guaranty or promise of autonomy has been made. Examination of these treaties reveals nothing which should prevent the United States from establishing a magistracy and a code of laws for the government of these tribes, according to principles suited to their present condition, yet tending to raise them to a higher social and industrial condition. On the other hand, the perpetual interdiction of all white persons upon the reservations of these tribes, except "such officers, agents, and employees of the government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties enjoined by law," would seem to preclude the possibility of these regions ever being opened to settlement, and the Indians thereon resolved into the body of citizens on equal terms. But, as matter of fact, not even such treaty provisions need, with intelligent and firm but kindly management, greatly or long embarrass