Mr. SHERMAN. I need not remind the Senate that I have always opposedations for Indian treaties on approprh the groun that I have always been opposed to this mode of dealing with Indians. besides that, my attention is now called to a letter of the SecyInterior to the ComFinance to whom this subject properly belongs and to whom the estimates for the negotiation of new treaties are generally sent to be included in the Indian appropriation bill, and they are generally examined by the ComFinance. I have in my hands a large number of estimates containing the details of this sum of 121,000 and odd dollars. It is a sum extraordinarily large. Indeed, the largest sum I ever remember to have been appropriated for making an Indian treaty is about 20,000 dollars. This is $121, 785. We have not had time or occasion to examine these documents in detail, because the Indian appropriation bill has not yet come to the senate. hese papers would have been examined by us at the time we received them but for the fact that we supposed they were intended to apply to the Indian appropriation bill which has not yet come to us. Now, unless the Senfrom Wisconsin can satisfy the Senate that there is pressing and urgent necessity for action on this appropriation, I do not see why we should pass a separate bill. It is unusual to do so. My own opinion is that some Senator would distinguish mself as a valuable public servant who would take hold of this whole matter and transfer the Indian Bureau to the War Dept, or organize some other mode of treating with Indian tribes than treating them like foreign nations. The idea of getting together the head men of the Indian tribes and giving them pork and beans very sensible articles of food feedingl them up and then negotiating a treaty with them, and bringing that treaty in here to be ratified as a high nego tiation with a foreign Power, has always seemed to me so ridiculous that I hope some time or other the Senate will abolish the whole system. These Indians will be athered together as a grand conclave, they wilIhave a 4th of July celebration for about 2 or 3 weeks, and they will sign anything presented to them by the Indian agents. This $121,000 will be used as a corruption fund not improperly by the officers of the Government, but it will be used to make these Indians feel good while it lasts, and then the agent sent. there to negotiate a treaty will write out what he pleases and they will sign it, without an knowledge of what is contained in it; and i they are satisfied with the terms of it afterward, well and good; if not, the will take up the tomaliaivk and the rifle an commence a war, if they are incited to it by white men. That mode of dealing with the Indians has always seemed to me so ridiculous that I never had any patience in examining these matters. But. if the Senate still insists on that policy of negotiating treaties with the Indian tribes, the ComIndAffrs must take the responsibility for this appropriation, because the ComFinance to whom these papers were referred have never yet had time to examine them; nor has the properoccasion arrived when we could examine them. It would have been our duty, of course, to examine the details of these estimates if the Indian appropriation bill had come to us before this time and an amendment had been proposed to that bill to meet this object. I have not even read these papers; my attention has been just this moment called to the fact that the whole subject was referred to the ComFinance. I shall therefore take no responsibility as to the amount involved or as to the necessity of the opproriation.