If Congress should hereafter grant alternate sections to States
or companies, as they have done heretofore, I recommend that the
intermediate sections retained by the Government should be subject
to preemption by actual settlers.

It ought ever to be our cardinal policy to reserve the public lands as
much as may be for actual settlers, and this at moderate prices. We
shall thus not only best promote the prosperity of the new States and
Territories and the power of the Union, but shall secure homes for our
posterity for many generations.

The extension of our limits has brought within our jurisdiction many
additional and populous tribes of Indians, a large proportion of which
are wild, untractable, and difficult to control. Predatory and warlike
in their disposition and habits, it is impossible altogether to restrain
them from committing aggressions on each other, as well as upon our
frontier citizens and those emigrating to our distant States and
Territories. Hence expensive military expeditions are frequently
necessary to overawe and chastise the more lawless and hostile.

The present system of making them valuable presents to influence them to
remain at peace has proved ineffectual. It is believed to be the better
policy to colonize them in suitable localities where they can receive
the rudiments of education and be gradually induced to adopt habits of
industry. So far as the experiment has been tried it has worked well
in practice, and it will doubtless prove to be less expensive than the
present system.

The whole number of Indians within our territorial limits is believed