I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to
prescribe the religious exercises suited to it, but have left
them, as the Constitution found them, under the direction and
discipline of the church or state authorities acknowledged by the
several religious societies.
The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with
the commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the
faculties and the rights of men, breathing an ardent love of
liberty and independence, and occupying a country which left them
no desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing
population from other regions directed itself on these shores;
without power to divert or habits to contend against it, they have
been overwhelmed by the current or driven before it; now reduced
within limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity enjoins
us to teach them agriculture and the domestic arts; to encourage
them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain
their place in existence and to prepare them in time for that
state of society which to bodily comforts adds the improvement of
the mind and morals. We have therefore liberally furnished them
with the implements of husbandry and household use; we have placed
among them instructors in the arts of first necessity, and they
are covered with the aegis of the law against aggressors from
among ourselves.
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