The report of the Attorney-General contains several suggestions as to the administration of justice, to which I invite your attention.  The pressure of business in the Supreme Court and in certain circuit courts of the United States is now such that serious delays, to the great injury, and even oppression, of suitors, occur, and a remedy should be sought for this condition of affairs.  Whether it will be found in the plan briefly sketched in the report, of increasing the number of judges of the circuit courts, and, by means of this addition to the judicial force, of creating an intermediate court of errors and appeals, or whether some other mode can be devised for obviating the difficulties which now exist, I leave to your mature consideration.

The present condition of the Indian tribes in the territory of the United States and our relations with them are fully set forth in the reports of the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.  After a series of most deplorable conflicts—­the successful termination of which, while reflecting honor upon the brave soldiers who accomplished it, can not lessen our regret at their occurrence—­we are now at peace with all the Indian tribes within our borders.  To preserve that peace by a just and humane policy will be the object of my earnest endeavors.  Whatever may be said of their character and savage propensities, of the difficulties of introducing among them the habits of civilized life, and of the obstacles they have offered to the progress of settlement and enterprise in certain parts of the country, the Indians are certainly entitled to our sympathy and to a conscientious respect on our part for their claims upon our sense of justice.  They were the aboriginal occupants of the land we now possess.  They have been driven from place to place.  The purchase money paid to them in some cases for what they called their own has still left them poor.  In many instances, when they had settled down upon land assigned to them by compact and begun to support themselves by their own labor, they were rudely jostled off and thrust into the wilderness again.  Many, if not most, of our Indian wars have had their origin in broken promises and acts of injustice upon our part, and the advance of the Indians in civilization has been slow because the treatment they received did not permit it to be faster and more general.  We can not expect them to improve and to follow our guidance unless we keep faith with them in respecting the rights they possess, and unless, instead of depriving them of their opportunities, we lend them a helping hand.