, No. 50, p. 279. Clark to R. H. Lee.] had become
convinced that the treaties were utterly futile, and that the only right
policy was one of resolute war.
The War Inevitable.
In truth the war was unavoidable. The claims and desires of the two
parties were irreconcilable. Treaties and truces were palliatives which
did not touch the real underlying trouble. The white settlers were
unflinchingly bent on seizing the land over which the Indians roamed but
which they did not in any true sense own or occupy. In return the
Indians were determined at all costs and hazards to keep the men of
chain and compass, and of axe and rifle, and the forest-felling settlers
who followed them, out of their vast and lonely hunting-grounds. Nothing
but the actual shock of battle could decide the quarrel. The display of
overmastering, overwhelming force might have cowed the Indians; but it
was not possible for the United States, or for any European power, ever
to exert or display such force far beyond the limits of the settled
country. In consequence the warlike tribes were not then, and never have
been since, quelled save by actual hard fighting, until they were
overawed by the settlement of all the neighboring lands.
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