Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1873 — President Grant and the Indians. [ARTICLE]

President Grant and the Indians.

It will he very difficult to convince the American people that President Grant can he held even remotely responsible for the assassination of General Canby and Commissioner Thomas by Captain Jack and bis associates, and, therefore, we deplore the attempt to turn that catastrophe into a party attack on the Administration. Nothing is so unjust as a passionate public opinion, except a partial partisan judgment, At first there was an almost resistless outcry for the extermination of all the Indian tribes, and now there is almost an equally earnest demand for the Indictment jOt the President by certain party journals; arid yet-we think it will soon, be shown, not simply that there is another side to this question, hut that General Sherman himself, in a most sagacious forecast of the Indian character, predicted the precise tragedy that took place at the. lava hells on April 11,1873. "We should recollect that every administration of a State or General Government is the very best judge of its own actions until indiflerence or treason is proved unOn >f. TKo EiooiitTye in this country must listen to the general constituency. When: there is no despot to make and enforce the laws, public opinion becomes the actutil ruler, and yet it often happens that those most urgent to insist upon remedies are most critical when these remedies fail. President Grant tried and is still trying the alternative of Indian conciliation because lie-preferred it to Indian carnage. That remedy has certainly not failed in consequence of the death of Canby and Thomas. Perhaps the cruelty of the Modocs and the terrible punishment of the Government may work out the speedy solution of a difficult problem, hut, in any event, we do not doubt that President Grant and General Sherman have done their best under all the circumstances. They have neither more nor less interest in the. settlement of the question than any of their fellow-citizens, and are therefore no more entitled to the censure of the extremest partisans than if they were tiie same private citizens they were in March, 1861, before the outbreak’ of the rebellion.—Forney's Press..