I have already replied to the suggestion as to the Indians being subject to our jurisdiction. They are not subject to our jurisdiction in the sense of owing allegiance solely to the United States; and the Senator from Maryland, if he will look into our statutes, will search in vain for any means of trying these wild Indians. A person can only be tried for a criminal offense in pursuance of laws, and he must be tried in a district which must have been fixed by law before the crime was committed. We have had in this country, and have today, a large region of country within the territorial limits of the United States, unorganized, over which we do not pretend to exercise any civil or criminal jurisdiction, where wild tribes of Indians roam at pleasure, subject to their own laws and regulations, and we do not pretend to interfere with them. They would not be embraced by this provision.
For these reasons I think this language is better than the language employed by the civil rights bill.