shall not undertake to pay debts forced upon any man by misfortune. If debts have been contracted in consequence of disease or death; or of fire or water, or any other misfortune; or if, as is too often the case, they have been contracted by a foolish improvidence, or by drinking and gaming, I cannot and will not, in my legislative capacity, undertake to provide the means for their payment.

Suppose you give these lands in the mode proposed: Is there not great danger, that at the end of the five years' occupancy, a great deal of them will pass into the hands of sharpers and speculators, as the bounties to your soldiers have passed? It is no disparagement to mankind to say, that hundreds and thousands of them have no capacity for the transaction of business. God has made them so. May not a class of men more cunning than those for whom you are providing, draw settlers into contracts, involve them in debt, and at the end of five years, seize the very land you are now so generously giving?

It is not more a matter of reproach than of pity, that men will drink and gamble, and thus waste their substance. One man plies another with intoxicating drinks, or decoys him to the gaming table. In the one or the other case, he is made the easy victim of craft or villany, and this land which you are now voting in a spirit of generosity, may go to settle the account between them.

It is no man's fault that misfortunes fall upon him, and yet disease may prostrate him and involve him in debt. His domestic animals may die. Too much rain or too much drought, a late spring or an early frost, may cut off or destroy his crop. Floods, storms, or fires, may lay waste his property. A thousand misfortunes like these may run him in debt; and then inexorable creditors may come and take away his land, and leave him no better off than before you gave it to him.

To all this I am opposed, and against all these contingencies I would provide, as far as possible; and hence the substitute which I have proposed to the original bill.

The leading idea of my substitute is, that the settler shall have the right of occupancy so long as he chooses to remain on the land, being never required to pay for it, but always at liberty to do so whenever it becomes his desire and his interest to own the soil in fee simple. The fee under my substitute remains in the government until the occupant can receive it with safety, of which he is made the judge. If the substitute is adopted, it will make no difference how a squatter's debts may have been contracted-whether by improvidence or dissipation or misfortune-his home is secure. The government gives him the right of occupancy, and no power on earth can take it from him. Secure in its possession, the energies of his mind and body will be free to expand and rise above the petty tyranny of a neighboring creditor. He will not be afraid to improve his grounds, or repair his fence, or stop the leaks in his cabin, lest he excite the eye of cupidity. He will not watch the clouds with a aching brow, lest it fail to rain upon his growing crop, thus dooming it to destruction, and himself to bitter disappointment in getting the means to buy his preemption. Let fortune smile, or fortune frown; let it rain, or let it shine; let storms or devastating floods come upon him, he may look them all in the face, and say, this is my home, this the castle of my defence: my government stretches over me its strong protecting arms, and bids my heart be still, for

in this, at least, I am secure. I fix no five years of security; and after that, nor any other period, expose the poor man's home to execution sale; but for five years, and for all time thereafter, he is made secure in its occupancy. He need not look with a sad heart to the end of the five years, nor fear that his creditors will then come to take possession of his home, and turn him out of doors. His wife need not water with her tears a favorite plant, nor count the hours that are bringing the moment of her separation from her humble cottage. His children may pursue their childish sports, nor sigh as they look for the last time on some favored spot, made sacred by the recollection of many an happy hour spent there in childish revelry. Whatever may be his and their relations with the world, the whole family-husband, wife, and children -may rest secure in the possession of their home. There they may cluster around them the comforts of life-nor disturb their moments of quiet or repose with anxious fears, lest some inexorable creditor shall snatch it from them. Such, sir, is my substitute.

If fortune smiles on the humble occupant; if, by his labor, he has enhanced the value of the land, and for this, or for any other reason, he desires to possess it in his own right, he may pay for it at the minimum price of $1.25. This is his privilege; but it is a privilege that belongs to no one else. If, by his labor, he makes the land worth $10 an acre, he may still buy it for $1.25; and this he may do at the end of five years, or twenty years, or at any other time that suits him best. And if he never does it, the government will never permit another to take it from him. If he has made an unfortunate location, my substitute allows him to change it; and this he may do as often as he chooses-it being stipulated that whenever a place is abandoned or given up by an occupant it is again subject to entry or occupancy by any one who may choose to take it. If the husband dies, his right of occupancy survives to his widow. If both husband and wife should die, leaving infant children, the fee passes to these children, and it may be sold for their benefit. This provision has been inserted for two reasons: first, infant children cannot occupy the land alone; and secondly, these objects of misfortune, thrown, without father or mother, on the charities of the world, are entitled to our protection. If they find a parent's care nowhere else, I would let them to this extent, at least, find it in their government.

I have purposely excluded the adult children from all interest in the homestead, and for the reason that, as they become of age, each one acquires the same right that his father had before him; and I desired to encourage the rising generation to enter upon the active duties of life at an early age, instead of lingering under the parental roof.

That the new states within which these lands lie might have no just ground of complaint, I have expressly reserved to them the right of taxation. It will be the privilege of states to tax the settler, and in default of payment to sell his right of occupancy. The purchaser at such sale will acquire the same and no greater right than the settler. That is, he will acquire the right of occupancy for an indefinite term, with the privilege of entering the land at his pleasure, and to suit his own convenience.

There is one feature in my substitute which I must not omit to mention. It perpetuates the existing preëmption laws. The same parties

who are entitled to preëmpt under the law as it now is, will have the right if the substitute is adopted, and they will enter upon the lands under the same regulations and in the same way that they now do. The only alteration proposed being in the removal of the twelve months' limitation, and all other limitations as to the time when the right of occupancy shall cease. The right of occupancy without payment, under my substitute, is unlimited, it being the exclusive privilege, but never the duty, of the occupant to buy the land. The perpetuation of the existing law of preemption is better than the enactment of new laws. First, because the old laws have been adjudicated by the courts; second, because they have been construed by the executive departments; and thirdly, because the people generally understand them, and will need only to be told, if the substitute passes, that the law exists just as it did before, with the single exception that they will not be compelled to pay until it suits them.

I have already pointed out some of the public and private advantages which will result from the passage of the original bill. All these will result in an equal degree from the adoption of the substitute. I have pointed out some of the advantages which are peculiar to my proposition; but there are others to which I must advert.

The proposition has been assailed on the ground of its squandering the public lands and cutting off the revenue resulting from their sale. I shall show that there is nothing in these objections. What is it that you give under my substitute? Nothing but the right of occupancythe right to occupy a bit of land in the wilderness, and therefore unproductive and the right to improve and cultivate that land, and make it useful to the occupant and beneficial to the general wealth. In this there is not only a private, but public advantage. You make that productive which was before useless, and of no public or private benefit. But you answer, that I put an occupant on the land who may be a drone -one who will not cultivate or buy it himself, and yet, by his occupancy, keeps off all others; and generally that these unlimited rights of occupancy will prevent sales, and therefore destroy the land revenue. In all this, I think you are mistaken. That which a squatter on the public lands most needs is to have his energies--physical and mentalleft free. This twelve months' limitation hangs like an incubus about him. It paralyzes his body and disturbs his mind. Whilst he can hope to pay for his land at the expiration of the time limited by law, his energies are unshaken; but when hope dies-when, from any one of a thousand causes I could name, he foresees that he cannot pay, his energies sink-then it is he becomes a drone. He will not work, because he sees that every lick he strikes enhances the value of his little home, and more strongly attracts the eye of the speculator. These are the shackles that have bound many an honest and industrious man, and made him an easy victim to idleness and vice. Let us knock them off -let the man's mind and body have fair play. Give him plenty of time and plenty of land to work out his fortune, and nine times in ten he will do it.

Your present preemption system is a curse to the settler. He is first inveigled on to a piece of public land, and then he is afraid to improve it, lest some speculator, with more money than himself, shall take it from him. It is this fear that cramps his energies, and makes him idle,

and sometimes vicious. I have great confidence in the squatters, if you will only give them an open field and a fair fight.

But, as a revenue measure, I should advocate this bill. Its earliest advantages will be found in the increased productions of the country. It will, as I said before, subtract largely from the consuming classes, and add as largely to the producers. I need not attempt to estimate the advantages to the national wealth, if all the loafers and idlers in the Union can be set to work. The advantages would indeed be incalculable. This measure proposes a bonus to all who will cultivate the soil. How many thousands will accept it I cannot say—but that many will I have no doubt.

The next advantage which I anticipate, will be found in the increased sales of the public lands. Yes, sir, instead of diminishing, I anticipato an increase of revenue from this source; and particularly if my substitute is adopted. When a man has settled on a piece of land, and has by his labor increased its value from one dollar and a quarter to five or ten dollars per acre, he will find many reasons for desiring to possess himself of the freehold; first, because he may want to sell it, and thus increase his active wealth; or he may, and in many cases he will, prefer to own the land in his own right, that he may enjoy the privilege of making an equal distribution of it among his children; and then there is a certain feeling of independence which all men experience in owning, by a clear title, the lands and houses they occupy. These are some of the reasons which will induce the settlers to purchase the land. What we ask of you is simply the right to occupy, free from all restraint and apprehension; and we give you the guarantee which these and other reasons afford, all of which are founded in human nature, that your sales will be increased instead of being diminished.

I pass over the general advantages resulting from early settlement on your frontiers; I say nothing of the gregarious habits of men-how one man goes because another has gone before him. I will not pause to count how much more land men will want when their industry has lifted them up in the world. These and many other considerations I pass over, because my time is almost out.

A word in conclusion to the friends of this measure.

It is an old trick in this House, when the enemies of a bill cannot slaughter it in an open field, to attack it in ambuscade. Many important bills have been killed off in this way, and you could no more discover the hand that strikes the blow, than you could tell "who it was that struck Billy Patterson." The bounty-land bill was disposed of in this way for ten years.

The modus operandi is this: We go into committee of the whole on a bill. Here the ayes and noes are not recorded, and consequently no responsibility attaches to any man's vote. All manner of amendments are offered. Some intended in good faith to perfect the bill, but much the greater portion to make it ridiculous. They are passed on a division, or by tellers indiscriminately, until finally the features of the bill are so distorted that its friends do not recognise it, and they turn from it in disgust. It is then left to the tender mercies of its enemies, and they table it without compunction or hesitation.

We are about closing the debate on this bill, and then we shall be brought to vote on amendments. I anticipate the usual course of pro

ceeding. I shall not be surprised to see an amendment proposing to give every man a horse and a plough; another to supply him with all the necessary farming utensils, and a third to give him a negro to work his land, and others of like kind, and all intended to bring the bill into ridicule, and finally to destroy it. I need not say that such a mode of attack is ungenerous. Give us a fair record vote; let every man take the responsibility, and if the bill is lost, the country will know who were its friends and who its enemies, and with this we shall be satisfied.

I call upon the friends of this measure to stand by it and protect it as far as possible in committee against these amendments. If amendments. are proposed in good faith, let us give to them a just, fair, and proper consideration. But let us stand united against all ridiculous and frivolous amendments meant only to destroy the bill. If improper amendments are adopted in committee, let us not on that account abandon the bill, or allow it to be tabled in the House. We can have the ayes and noes in the House on each amendment, and thus vote them out or force gentlemen to stand by them on the record. This is the only policy that will save this bill from the fate of many of its predecessors.

With an ardent desire that this measure may pass-that it may be sent as a messenger of joy to the humble abodes of the squatters; and that, as a harbinger of mercy, it may visit the landless, the houseless, and the homeless everywhere, I take my leave of it for the time being, and commend it to the paternal care of its friends in the House.

RIVERS AND HARBORS.

SPEECH, UNDER THE FIVE MINUTE RULE, IN THe house of REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 23D, 1852, ON THE SUBJECT OF RIVER AND HARBOR

IMPROVEMENTS.

I OFFER the following amendment :

For removing obstructions from the mouth of Pascagoula river, in the state of Mississippi, $60,000.

Gentlemen belonging to the Committee on Commerce say that appropriations of this kind have not been inserted in the bill because they have not been asked for. I sent to that committee a petition for this very appropriation, and not only has it been left out, but no sort of notice has been taken of it.

I was proceeding to say, that the members of the Committee on Commerce were wholly mistaken, as far as the proposed appropriation was concerned, when they said that it had been left out of the bill because it was not asked for. More than once, petitions for this appropriation have gone to that committee through the ordinary channels. I have not, it is true, gone and besought the members of the committee in person, to put into the bill this or any other appropriation. I have neither begged nor bargained for that which I have a right to demand in the name of my constituents. My constituents petitioned, as was their right; and I presented their petition, as was my duty. And I took it for granted, that the members of the Committee on Commerce, like the members of