Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. President. some of the remarks of my friendfrom Ohio, I think, challenge a moments consideration. I do not look upon what we give to the Indians as in the nature of bribes. I do not think that the presents which are given, that what we contract to pay them annually in the shape of provisions an clothing, (for the payment of money to Indiana has been almost entirely abandoned; what annuities are paid are paid in clothing, or in provisions, or in some articles which contribute to their support) should be regarded as bribes. The truth is, the Indians inhabited all this vast country. I do not claim that they held it by a title such as that by which the civilized man holds his land in fee simple; but they existed, lived, and occupied the country. The Indian thinks, and the world believes, and mankind must admit, that the Great Father above gave him his life, his existence, upon these vast plains, and in this rich and beautiful country. Our people, full of the Anglo Saxon blood and the Anglo Saxon disposition to make aggressions every where, powerful, increasing, s reading, ag grandizing, press in upon the p ains and the prairies and among the mountains to dig for the gold and the silver of the mines of those mountains, where the Indians and their fathers before them perhaps for 1,000years, have lived and held undisputed control. Now, if we enter into all this goodly land, and by our going there, cut off the game upon which the ndian lived, surround him witi the institutions of civilization, which are death to the savage man, surround him so that he cannot live in the way in which he was accustomed to live, do we owe him nothing? Is it just in the sight of God or man for us to say that we owe nothing to these people whose land we are appropriating at our pleasure? I cannot feel in that way. I think, therefore, that all we give the Indian, if we ive him ten times as much as we do, would not pay him any more than the debt that we really owe. M honorable friend says we should at this who 8 service into the hands of the I ar Dept. I do not now discuss the question whether the Indian Bureau would be better managed under the War Dept than under the Interior Dept. That is not the question that arises on this appropriation bill, and I do not propose to discuss this question in advance of the action of our committee. It is one of the seriousquestions pending before our committee on which we mean to make a report during the present session for the action of Congress. But, sir, putting the con. trol of the Indians into the hands of the War Dept is by no means certain to reduce the actual expenditures of the Government. I will tell you what it may do. It may reduce very much the troubles of Congress; it will certainly reduce the troubles of the Indian Committee; it will reduce the applications for special appropriations in reference to Indian tribes, because the estimates of the War De rtment will all be made in one grand sum, or the commissary Dept so many millions, for the quartermasters Dept so many millions, for the payment of troops so many millions more. IThat will involve all your dealings with Indians, and in those great sums you will not see them, you will not feel them and you will think nothing about them, and say nothing about them. they will come up in the regular Army appropriation bill, and it will all be done in an hour.