Brigadier General Albert Pike

"Masonry will do all in its power, by direct exertion and cooperation, to improve and inform as well as to protect the people; to better their physical condition, relieve their miseries, supply their wants, and minister their necessities. Let every Mason in this good work do all may be in his power."

"Man advances only by degrees. The removal of one pressing calmity gives courage to attempt the removal of the remaining evils, rendering men more sensitive to them, or perhaps sensitive for the first time. Serfs that writhe under the whip are disquited about their political rights; manumitted from personal slavery, they become sensitive to political oppression. Liberated from arbitrary power, and governed by the law alone, the begin to scrutinize the law itself, and desire to be governed, not only by law, but by what they deem the best law. And when the civil or temporal despotism has been set aside, and the municipal law has been molded on the principles of an enlightened jurisprudence, they may wake to the discovery that they are living under some priestly or ecclesiastical despotism, and become desirous of working a reformation there also."

In 1861 Albert Pike successfully counseled on behalf of the Choctaw Nation to the Supreme Court of the United
States.

Just before the Civil War, Pike wrote a letter to the Northern States.

"I believe I can think dispassionately upon the question of slavery as I needed for household servants.... I am not one of those who believe slavery a blessing. I know it is an evil, as great cities are an evil; as the concentration of capital in a few hands, oppressing labor, is an evil; as the utter annihilation of free will and individuality in the army and navy is an evil; as in this world everything is mixed with evil and good. Such is the rule of God's providence, and the mode which he has chosen to arrange the affairs of the world.

The Negro race is advancing towards freedom, and climbing upward in the scale of humanity, as England's villeins and the peasantry of France did, as the Gypsy and Russian serf are doing, and the lower classes of Hindostan; but by a slower and more gradual process. Sit is that God brings about all great and beneficial results.

The ascent from brutality and barbarism to civilization, from servitude to freedom, is slow and painful. It is hardly perceptible in the compass of a single generation. Nature works slowly, to produce...The Negro will be free in God's good time; and the coming of that time we cannot hasten."

In 1861, Acting Confederate Secretary of State, Robert Tombs, suggested to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, that Albert Pike be appointed as Commissioner of Native American tribes. It is important to note that the Provisional Confederate Congress thought friendship with the Native American tribes was of tremendous of importance. It may be concluded that the secessionist tribes were fed up with the United States indifference to political equality.

"In pursuance of a resolution passed by Congress the 5th Day of March, 1861, I appointed Albert Pike, a citizen of Arkansas, Comissioner of this Government to all the Indian Tribes west of Arkansas and south of Kansas." - President Jefferson Davis.

Albert Pike was given plenary power to oversee treaties with slave holding tribes; Cherokee, Comanche, Osage, Quapaw, Senecas, and Shawnee nations.

"I have been appointed by the President of the Confederate States, a Commissioner to your Nation, and all other Nations and Tribes west of Arkansas; that I shall at the proper time come among you to counsel with you, and that I shall take your interests in charge, see that your title to your lands, and all annuities, and other moneys due to you by the United States are assumed and guaranteed by the Confederate States. On this you may implicitly rely; as it is the promise of one who never breaks his word." - Albert Pike letter to the Choctaw Nation, June 1861.

Like most other Rebel officers, Albert Pike was indicted for treason by the United States, but was subsequently restored to his civil rights.