[Footnote 626:  United State Congressional Globe, 37th congress, second session, part ii, p. 1246.]

[Footnote 627:  Dole to Smith, April 2, 1862, Indian Office Report Book, no. 12, 353-354.]

[Footnote 628:  Dole to Smith, March 17, 1862, Ibid., 335-337.]

of Indian relations."[629] And he insisted that the whole of the present Indian country should be left to the Indians.[630] The honor of the government was pledged to that end.  Almost coincidently he negatived[631] another suggestion, one advocated by Pomeroy for the confiscation of the Cherokee Neutral Lands.[632] For the time being, Dole was strongly opposed to throwing either the Neutral Lands or the Osage Reserve open to white settlers.

Behind Pomeroy’s suggestion was the spirit of retaliation, of meting out punishment to the Indians, who, because they had been so basely deserted by the United States government, had gone over to the Confederacy; but the Kansas politicians saw a chance to kill two birds with one stone, vindictively punish the southern Indians for their defection and rid Kansas of the northern Indians, both emigrant and indigenous.  The intruders upon Indian lands, the speculators and the politicians, would get the spoils of victory.  Against the idea of punishing the southern Indians for what after all was far from being entirely their fault, the friends of justice marshaled their forces.  Dole was not exactly of their number; for he had other ends to serve in resisting measures advanced by the Kansans, yet, to his credit be it said that he did always hold firmly to the notion that tribes like the Cherokee were more sinned against than sinning.  The government had been the first to shirk responsibility and to violate sacred obligations.  It had failed to give the protection guaranteed by treaties and it was not giving it yet adequately.

[Footnote 629:  Dole to Smith, March 17, 1862, Indian Office Report Book, no. 12, 335.]

[Footnote 630:  Report of April 2, 1862.]

[Footnote 631:  Dole to Smith, March 20, 1862, Indian Office Report Book, no. 12, 343-344.]

[Footnote 632:  Daily Conservative, May 10, 1862.  Note the arguments in favor of confiscation as quoted from the Western Volunteer.,]

The true friends of justice were men of the stamp of W.S.  Robertson[633] and the Reverend Evan Jones,[634] who went out of their way to plead the Indian’s cause and to detail the extenuating circumstances surrounding his lamentable failure to keep faith.  Supporting the men of the opposite camp was even the Legislature of Kansas.  In no other way can a memorial from the General Assembly, urging the extinguishment of the title of certain Indian lands in Kansas, be interpreted.[635]