The government would exert “a rigid reformatory control,” requiring them “to learn and practice the arts of industry.” The government’s right to do this sprang from the “supreme law of public safety” that allowed it to discipline paupers and imprison criminals. Walker could so cavalierly classify Indians with paupers and criminals—something the North had vehemently objected to when Southerners attempted to do much the same thing in the black codes of the South—because the Indians were not citizens and enjoyed none of the rights or privileges of citizenship.
