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27S TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



as they are pretty well throughout America. But this 

 hate does not always spring from the same reasons, 

 much less from those altogether just. It is beginning 

 to be extensively and learnedly posited that none of the 

 Indian tribes, as many of them as are still scattered 

 throughout the whole of broad America, have the re- 

 motest right to the land wherein they and their fore- 

 fathers for unthinkable ages have lived. I have seen a 

 few outgivings on this subject in the United States 

 Magazine + which sound strange enough. For example, 

 " The whole earth is given to man, and all the children 

 of Adam have an equal right in it, and to equal parts 

 of it." The right of earlier possession and of heredi- 

 tary possession is accounted non-sense, + and after all 

 manner of digressions, the main proof continues, " that 

 " the revealed law has given the earth to man under 

 " the fixed condition that he use it in the sweat of his 

 " brow. Now the Indians do not use their extensive 

 ' woods in the sweat of their brow, but only hunt 

 ' there. Therefore it is plain as day that they have no 

 1 right to the land and it is permissible to drive them 

 " out at will. For it would be as ludicrous to seek to 

 " buy the land of the buffalo and deer which inhabit 

 " the American wilds as of the roving Indians ; for if 

 wandering about in the forest gave a title to it, the 

 buffalo and deer would have as good a one as these 

 Indian nations." On the same page the philanthropic 

 author admits that a German who finds along the 

 thickly settled Rhine no bit of free land for himself 

 and his family, following the natural law may sure 

 enough, in the less populous Pensylvania, justly de- 

 mand an allotment of land for nothing ; but at the same 

 time he discreetly mentions that nobody would give 



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