Mr. HENDRICKS. I expected the Senfrom Illinois being a very able lawyer, at the head of the Iudiciar Committee, to meet the question that I aske him and to answer it as a question of law, and not as a question of military power. I did not ask him the question whether the Government of the U.S. had the military power to go into the Indian territory and subjugate the Indians to the political war of the country; nor had he a right to understand the question in that sense. I asked him the question whether, under the Constitution, under the powers of this Ggvernment, we may extend our laws over the Indians and compel obedience, as a matter of legal right, from the Indians. If the Indian is bound to obey the law he is subject to the jurisdiction of the country; and that is the question I desired the Senator to meet as able 111 question, whether the Indian would be ound to obey the law which Congress in express terms extended over him in regard to questions within the jurisdiction of Congress. ow, sir, this question has once or twice been decided by the AttyGen, so far as he could decide it. In 1855he wnsinquired ofwhether the laws of the U.S. regulating the intercourse with the Indian tribes, by the general legislation in regard to Oregon, had been extended to Oregon; and he gave it as his opinion that the laws had been extended to Oregon, and regulated the intercourse between the white people and the Indians there. Subsequentl, the AttyGen was asked whether In ians were citizens of the U.S. in such sense as that theycould become the owners of the public lands where the right to acquire them was limited to citizens and in the conrse of that opinion he says that the Indian is not a citizen of the U.S. by virtue of his birth, but that he is a subject. He says: "The simpletruth is plain that the Indians are the subjectsof the U.S., and thereforeare not in more right of home birth, citizens of the U.S. The 2 conditions are incompatible. The momentit comesto be seen that the Indians are domestic subjectsof this Government, that momentit is clear to the perception that they are not the sovereign constituentingredients of the Government. This distinction betweencitizens proper, that is, the constituent members of the political sovereignty, and spbjeetsof that sovereignty.who are pot therefore citizens, isrecognizedin the best authoritiesof public aw." He then cites some authorities. says: “Not being citizensof the U.S. b mere dboiruthb.teedalny.they becomeso by naturalization un" But they cannot become citizens bynaturalization under existing general acts of Congress. (2 Kent’s Commentaries page72.) “Those acts apply only to foreigners.subjectsof another allegiance. The Indians are not foreigners, and the nrciii our allegiancewithout beingcitizens of the JU.S."