Mr. SHERMAN. I will call the attention of the Senate also to the character of the presents estimated for as part of the $121,000. will give only a few of the items 1300 pairs of blankets. to cost $9, 750; 120 dozen se arlet shirts, cotton handkerchiefs, woolen blouses, 30,000 yards of fancy prints, and various presents, amounting altogether to about 30,000 dollars, for some 10,000 Indians. It is not very much for each Indian, but. it shows the peculiar mode of making treaties with them. We gather these Indians together at various forts of the U.S. under military authorit; we there feed them for 20 or 30 ays, we furnish them blankets and clothing, &c., and then our commissioners I do not know who they are write out a treaty of peace, and the Indians sign it, ignorant of its provisions, unable to read, poor, miserable creatures as they are admitted to be: and that treaty is sent to the Senate of the U.S., the highest political body in this nation; and bow is it considered here? It is ratified, as a matter of course. I remember that in one case when I was a member of the HoRep, 5 Indian treaties were ratified, as I was informed by a Senator, without their being read in the Senate, on the last day of an executive ession, and when we came to make up the estimates to carry those treaties into execution, theywere so large that they were actually suspended, and not carried out for a time. That was the Oregon case. I believe there was a misunderstanding in reward to the terms of the treaty, and finally it le toa war. Perhaps this is as good an occasion as any to shy that there ought to be an end to this mode of dealing with Indians. I have no doubt these 5 treaties to be made by GenlCurtis and others and no man could be selected in the U.S. whom I would more cheerfully trust with an power than GenlCurtis, whom I have hnown for many years will be made in this way, and will probably entail on the Government an annuity for a number of years amounting perhaps to from $100,000 to $500,000; Icaunot tell how much. The expense of our Indian service now is between 2 and a half and 3 million dollars, and the whole number of treaty Indians, so far as I can gather from the best information I can get, does not exceed 125,000; there are other Indians, with whom we have no treaties; so that the cost of governing our Indians is greater than the cost of governing this country during the late war. It amounts probably to from ten to 20 dollars ahead; and in addition to that are all the vast sums that are expended through the Army to keep the Indians in subjection. The amount actually appropriated every year for the benefit of the In inn service proper is from 2 and a half to 3 million dollars, and that merely to carry into execution treaties and to pay the expenses of agents and superintendents. The number of Indians that are included in our treaty stipulations has been variously estimated from 100 to 300,000, but I believe it has been more accurately estimated at the lower number, because they are constantly diminishing in number. Then the Indians with whom we have no treaty stipulations are now constantly, year after year, making treaties, thus adding to the expense of our Indian relations. It seems to me that a system like this conducted in this manner ought to be put a stop to. I have not the information on which I can say that this sum ought not to be appropriated; indeed, it seems that the Government have placed themselves in a position where they have agreed to meet these Indians in council in the way they have heretofore made treaties with them. The stipulation has gone outwith the assent of the POTUS, and the military authorities have undertaken to convene the Indians enmasse atvarious forts of the U.S., and I do not see but that we are bound, under the circumstances, to appropriate the money in some form, either to give it to the military authorities, or to the In ian Bureau. It is, however, a fair illustration of the manner of our dealing with the Indian tribes. I have been in hopes for some years that the Indian Committee would report some measure by which the Indians might be transferred to the Military Dept, there to be governed by military law until they should be absorbed in the general population of our Territories to be governed by civil law. I know that some objection has been made to transferring the Indians over to the territorial authorities and to the authorities of the new States, on the ground that there is an antag onism between the whites and the Indiaus that will lead the white man to disregard the rights of the Indians; but I believe it would be wiser and better to give to the infant States and territories of the West a rtion of the money now appropriated by the government for the support of the Indians, and trust to the people of the infant States and Territories to govern those tribes, and disband our whole Indian system; or, if that cannot be done on account of the antagonism between the whites and the Indians, then to transfer this whole Indian service to the Army, and let them govern the Indians as subjects of the U.S.; but the present system of governing the Indians by treaty stipulations, by bribes and presents, beans and corn and pork, furnishedat the enormous expense of from ten to 20 dollars a head to every Indian in the U.S., is a system that ought not to be tolerated longer. will take this occasion to inquire of the honorable chairman of the ComIndAffrs whether a prosition to transfer the Indian service to the or Dept in not now pending in that committee.