SENATE.]

French Colonial Trade.

[MARCH, 1828.

Government, except under treaty stipulation | is true, as the gentleman says the trade has and for a fair equivalent. Mr. S. said, that he vastly increased; and it is this increasing trade had understood that our trade with France was not navigation-that induced her to promul probably now the subject of negotiation be- gate this ordinance. France, feeling that we tween the two Governments; and, said Mr. S., have some advantages in navigation, requires would it be wise or sound policy to interpose a of us other commercial advantages, as an measure like this, and thereby derange the equivalent; and now the gentleman urges the progress of negotiations? It has just been said passage of this bill, as an object of great imthat a leading object with France, in her trade portance, to conciliate the shipping interest of with this country, is to get her produce and France. Sir, France wants our markets. Her manufactures into this country, on favorable object is, to get from us what she wants, in exterms: if this be the case, the proposed amend- change for what she can give us. She knows, ment would give to the French Government a that the moment the duties are equalized, our great advantage in negotiations which may now national advantages will give us the carrying. be pending. It might give to France all that She finds her advantage and her equivalent in she wanted. And it was certainly bad policy, the valuable and increasing trade. The shipwhen we were endeavoring to make an advan- ping interest will not be conciliated by this tageous arrangement, to make such an offer in bill. What can they anticipate from the oper advance, without knowing whether any equiva- ation of a principle which the gentleman says lent would be received for it. France may they are dissatisfied with, and which, he adds, say, we have already a right of introducing our gives us nine-tenths of the carrying trade? produce and manufactures into the United States, through the colonies, and therefore do not wish to negotiate on that subject. The possibility of interrupting an arrangement which could be made so much more satisfactorily by treaty than by legislation, ought to be avoided.

Mr. JOHNSTON, of Louisiana, said the amendment of the gentleman from Maryland is unnecessary, and is confounding two things, which are entirely distinct in their nature. The bill was carefully prepared by the committee, with a perfect knowledge of the whole subject, and it embraces every thing proper to meet the terms of the French ordinance.

The direct trade between this country and France is regulated by a convention, and it has been settled that the vessels of either may touch at any colonial or foreign port for information, without a deviation from the direct voyage. But, if a French vessel touches at the colonies, and breaks bulk, it is a deviation, because the French colonies are excluded from the operation of the convention; but this trade will fall within the operation of this bill. It is, therefore, unnecessary to connect what properly belongs to the construction of the convention, with the regulations of the colo

nial trade.

This ordinance is temporary in its character —it is revocable at the will of the sovereign; and we have had no evidence that it was intended to be permanent. There can be no indisposition in this Government to reciprocate the terms of it. But the gentleman from Maryland is entirely mistaken in his views of France, in passing this regulation. Navigation is not the object of France. She knows that she cannot contend with us. It is trade the exchange of productions, to which she looks. The gentleman says we have nine-tenths of the carrying trade since the operation of the convention; and then says, France had the interest of her navigation in view, in passing the ordinance, which is to equalize the duties. It

Mr. SMITH, of Maryland, said, if the gentleman would desist, he would withdraw his amendment.

Mr. HAYNE said he should suppose that the very fact of our being about to pass this law now, furnished a sufficient reason why we should have passed it a year ago, if we had then possessed the information we have now. The gentleman from Louisiana says, that the French Government, in issuing this ordinance, had acted with regard only to its own interests; but, said Mr. H., can there be a doubt that the duties on American produce, carried into the French islands in American vessels, have been reduced in a manner highly favor able to us? Can it be doubted, that such reduction of duties on American tonnage was calculated to benefit the American farmer and ship-owner? And, farther, can there be a doubt, if we do not reciprocate, that we will be holding out an inducement to the French Government to rescind the ordinance? He must say, that it was unfortunate-he would use no harsher term, in this debate, than unfortunate-that this matter had not been laid before Congress by the Executive, and that a bill, meeting the liberal views of the French Government, had not been passed a year ago. He took it to be the true, he might say, the settled policy of this country to reciprocate every act of foreign Governments, which had a tendency to put our commercial intercourse on a more liberal footing. This we had done, in some instances, by treaties, and in others by legisla tion. He took it for granted that the French Government, in issuing this ordinance, Lad been influenced by a due regard to their own interests, but it by no means followed that they would adhere to the policy of imposing low duties on our produce, if we persevered in imposing high duties upon theirs. There was no fact in this case to show (as the gentleman from Louisiana had contended) that the French ordinance was merely temporary, or that it was not expected of us to reciprocate it. If t

APRIL, 1828.]

Graduation of the Price of the Public Lands.

has continued unrepealed to this day, notwithstanding our omission to take the smallest notice of it, we might well regard it as a permanent regulation; but if it had been temporary, the reason would only be strengthened, why we should have reciprocated it without delay. Mr. TAZEWELL said he should not vote for this bill, but for the proviso which it contained. This would enable the Executive to meet the contingency of the French Government repealing its ordinance. He had information, upon which he entirely relied, that, at this very moment, such a contingency had probably occurred. Should this prove to be the case, it was necessary that our regulations should conform to those established by France in reference to this subject; and the power to produce such a conformity on our part, was given to the Executive by this proviso.

The event, which the intelligence he had referred to, rendered so probable, (a change of the policy of France since the promulgation of this ordinance,) had occasioned him to reflect upon the causes which might have contributed to its production; and amongst these causes he could see none so probable, as the inattention of the United States during so long a period, to meet the overtures made to us by France in this ordinance. The history of the transaction, as he understood it, was this:

In the summer of 1823, Great Britain, not having concluded any satisfactory arrangement with the United States in relation to her colonial trade, passed a law, whereby the ports of her colonies were closed, after a certain day, to any nation who did not reciprocate with her the provisions of that law, and opening them to any nation who should do so. The Executive of the United States, although in possession of this act of Parliament, failed to submit it to Congress, as he ought to have done. In consequence of this, the time limited by the act expired without any reciprocal aid being passed by us. Great Britain then finding herself in a different situation from that which she had before occupied in relation to the United States, gave effect to her own statute, and her West Indian ports were so closed to the vessels of the United States.

[SENATE.

Mr. MACON said that the publication of the French ordinance at Norfolk and at Baltimore did not give it that credit to which it would have been entitled had it been published here, in papers which have extensive circulation, and which are authorized to publish the laws of the United States; especially had it been said that the information was communicated by the Department of State. It was natural to suppose that the obscurity of the papers in which it was published, rendered the information doubtful."

[The question being then taken on engrossing the bill for a third reading, it was determined in the affirmative; and the next day the bill was read the third time, passed, and sent to the House.]

TUESDAY, April 1.

Graduation of the Price of the Public Lands. The bill to graduate the prices of public lands, was taken up, Mr. HENDRICKS' amendment still pending.

Mr. JOHNSON, of Kentucky, said that nothing but a deep conviction of the importance of the subject now before them, could justify him in occupying the time of the Senate, after the luminous remarks of the Senator who introduced the bill, (Mr. BENTON,) and others who have so ably supported it. The great object of legislation is the happiness of the people; and a measure calculated to give every man a home of his own, and without diminishing the resources of his neighbor, should find an advocate in every patriot and philanthropist. It is a measure, said Mr. J., which is calculated to strengthen the sentiment which unites the citizen to his Government and to his country. The interest which it involves is not merely local. The most needy from every State in the Union will enjoy its benefits; and my own constituents being contiguous to the States and Territories in which these lands lie, have a claim on my efforts to advocate the measure. It is not from a desire to be heard, for it is with great reluctance that I venture to tax your patience, but it is in the discharge of that claim that I presume to give my views; not in detail, but in some general remarks, which I hope may be the less tedious upon a subject so exhausted, and yet so inexhaustible.

France acted with more discretion; and, in February, 1826, adopted this ordinance, by which the British act of Parliament is reciprocated by her. The effect of this ordinance, If I mistake not, about eight States and Terhowever, is, to open the ports therein men- ritories have memorialized Congress, by their tioned to the vessels of any nation. The Legislatures, upon the subject of this graduaUnited States, therefore, might have entitled tion in the price of the public lands, and, in themselves to its benefits as well as any other addition to those, numerous petitions have been power. To enable, as well as to induce them presented from the citizens of several of these to do so, in June, 1826, the Baron de Mareuil, States, calling for the same measure. The deep the French Minister at Washington, communi- solicitude thus manifested by so respectable a cated this ordinance to our Government. The portion of this Confederacy, calls for a rigid Minister, afterwards, expressed to our Secre- investigation of the subject. The interest tary of State a wish, which the Chairman of the which this proportion has excited, is prima Committee of Commerce has read from the de-facie evidence of its correctness. I am aware spatch containing it, that the liberal provisions that it has been imputed to selfishness on the of this ordinance should be reciprocated by us. part of the new States and Territories. There

SENATE.]

Graduation of the Price of the Public Lands.

is scarcely a measure of the Government, however national in its character, but what is more immediately interesting to one particular section of the country than to another; and the charge of selfishness would lie with equal propriety against that section. If a harbor is fortified, or even a light-house erected, the vicinity of its location is more immediately benefited by it, than places remote from its establishment; yet the measure is national, and no person envies the neighborhood that receives more immediate benefit, nor charges its Representative with selfishness in advocating the measure. Upon the most thorough investigation which I have been able to give of this subject; in viewing its bearings upon the whole country; in regarding its intrinsic merits, and the universal diffusion of its benefits, I am compelled to pronounce it a national measure, divested of the character of selfishness.

[APRIL, 1828.

The bill before us proposes so to graduate the price, as to reduce it after next November to one dollar per acre; after a lapse of two years from that time, to seventy-five cents: and thus continuing a reduction of twenty-five cents every two years, till it shall sink to twenty-five cents per acre; and then to give to the actual settler the privilege of purchasing a quarter section of one hundred and sixty acres for eight dollars. After this, it proposes to relinquish the remainder to the State in which it shall lie.

About 140,000,000 of acres of public lands have been surveyed and offered at public sale. About 20,000,000 of acres have been purchased, and about the same quantity has been appropriated to military bounties, benevolent institutions, and purposes of education; leav ing 100,000,000 now in the market, equal to about sixty acres to every family in the United States. Some of these lands have been in the market forty years; some twenty, and all for several years. During this lapse of time, every purchaser has made his selection of the most valuable tracts; and what now remain are the cullings of the original domains, the whole of which have been offered at public sale, and from which four-tenths have been taken by choice of the purchasers. The public having thus received the advantage which the fertility of select portions of public lands could afford, and individuals able to purchase, having made their selection, the sales are become sluggish on account of the refuse being held at the same price. The proposition is now to graduate the price of the refuse lands according to their value, and the ability of the less opulent, though not less meritorious citizen, to provide for himself and family a home and a support.

This Government, for upwards of forty years, has been the proprietor of extensive domains; and during the same period, these domains have every year occupied much of the time of Congress. For the disposal of these lands, Congress have, at different times, adopted three different systems. The first exposed the lands to sale for one dollar per acre, payable in certificates of stock of the national debt. This system continued for about fifteen years, and was abandoned. It had been resorted to as a convenient method of sinking the national debt, but proved abortive. The next system was that of credit. The minimum price was fixed at two dollars per acre; and, on the payment of one-fourth of the purchasemoney, a credit was given upon the residuary of two, three, and four years, without interest, and extended to five years with interest. Under this system debts were incurred by individ- We have a virtuous and industrious populauals to the Government, which increased from tion among us, who are willing to cultivate year to year, till they amounted to the enor- these lands, if they may be permitted to call mous sum of twenty millions of dollars. It their labors their own; and if the wealth and was then perfectly obvious that the payment of resources of the nation in any degree consist in this large amount within five years, was utterly the improvements of the country, only speak impossible; and an attempt to enforce it would the word, and they will raise the nation to ruin thousands of families of the most merito- opulence unexampled. The forest will bow to rious, because the most industrious and enter- the husbandman, and your wilderness will prising of our citizens, and without benefiting smile like Eden. Their habits urge them to the public. Relief was very properly pro- the work, and a waste domain, almost boundvided, by permitting each one to retain what less, invites them to its banquet. The laboring he had actually paid for, and relinquish the re- poor, in a country like ours, constitute the mainder. The defects of the system having strength and glory of the nation. We must been thus demonstrated, it was abandoned. accommodate our measures to the peculiar ge The present system was then adopted, which nius of our citizens, and not follow the pol reduces the minimum price of the public lands luted footsteps of despotic Governments. It to one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, is not with us as with them, where the poor and requires the money to be paid in hand. may be reduced to a dependence upon the lord The operation of this system, though more of the manor, and bow submissively to his beneficial than either of the others, is still de-pleasure, because he gives him leave to toil. fective. It leaves many families destitute of a home, because, without land on which to raise the means, they are unable to purchase at the present rate, while so many millions of acres lie waste, inviting them to labor, and promising them an ample reward,

An American may be poor, but he cannot be servile. He may be without property, but you cannot deprive him of his independence. We have too long followed bad example, in a course calculated to break his spirit, if the spirit of an American could be broken. We

Graduation of the Price of the Public Lands.

SENATE.]

Payment of Interest to States.

[APRIL, 1828.

not procure a comfortable settlement at home, | set apart for the payment of the public debt, find it in the new. A population, which would and their whole net proceeds have not paid otherwise become penurious and fugitive, are one-tenth part of the interest of the national settled in the enjoyment of competency; and debt, from the commencement of their sales to thus the tide of emigration becomes as bene- the present day. The gross amount of receipts ficial to the old States as to the emigrants them- into the Treasury, for sales of public lands, selves. It also strengthens the interest which within forty years, is about 35,000,000 of doleach section of the Union feels for the pros- lars, and the expenses of surveys, sales, and perity of the whole. It perpetuates the ties of contingencies of various kinds, have exceeded consanguinity; a pledge of union that will re- 30,000,000 dollars, so that the whole net promain secure, when clashing interests and dis- ceeds are less than five millions, not far excordant passions might otherwise threaten its ceeding 100,000 dollars a year. If the exdissolution. penses of the two Houses of Congress should be taken into the account, for the time occupied in legislating upon these lands, the printing of documents and volumes of books upon the subject, with many incidental items, not set down to this head, it is doubtful whether they have yielded one cent of clear revenue to the Government. Where, then, can be the utility or the policy of pursuing the old systems in relation to them, when by a different policy they may be made a source of happiness to thousands, and of immense benefit to the whole nation?

In every old State there will be a kind of floating population, depressed by misfortune, without a home, and without employment. Many of these seek a subsistence in the Army and Navy, and many become vagabonds in a land of freedom and plenty. For this crying evil the measure before us provides a happy remedy. If you prefer for your posterity the life of the independent farmer to that of the fugitive and the vagabond, or to that of the private soldier or the sailor, adopt this measure, and you place the fortune of industry within his reach.

It has been objected that a reduction of the price will encourage speculation; that capitalists will monopolize immense domains, to the exclusion of the industrious poor. This objection has been so ably considered, and so conclusively answered by the Senator from Illinois, (Mr. KANE,) that I need not dwell upon it. His arguments must, I think, have carried conviction to every dispassionate mind where doubts were before entertained. The defeat of speculators in the military bounty lands to soldiers of the last war, will admonish capitalists to beware of such speculations. Even if a wealthy speculator should venture to purchase many thousands of acres, he could not hold them up at an advanced price, because purchasers could procure what they wanted of the public, upon terms as favorable as his original purchase; and before he could turn them to any considerable account, the interest of the purchase-money, and the annual taxes, would double their original cost; and when no entailments exist, when no primogeniture rights are recognized by our laws, they would be so subdivided by descent among his heirs, before any considerable appreciation of their value would give him an undue ascendency, that no possible injury could arise.

A prominent feature in this bill, which ought, in my humble opinion, to recommend it to universal support, is the provision which it proposed to make in favor of the actual settler. If a person can receive land at a reduction of twenty-five cents per acre, on condition of becoming a permanent settler upon it, he will always purchase of the Government in preference to a speculator, because it will be his interest to do so. If, after all these lands have passed the order of inspection and selection, for a limited number of years, the actual settler can procure a sufficiency for a home, and a support to himself and family, at five cents an acre, as the bill proposes, the advantages will be incalculable. The country will be enriched by the industry of a class whose misfortunes will otherwise render them a burthen rather than a blessing to the country. The refuse lands, which will otherwise lie waste, only to increase the distance betwixt improvements, and so render more inconvenient all useful business, will be rendered fruitful by cultiva tion. The settlers will escape many tempta tions to vice and dissipation. They will form a bulwark of defence to the nation. Their patriotism, and the republican simplicity of their manners, will be a protection to our liberties. They and their families will be virtuThe principal objection, and I presume the ous and happy. Manufacturing towns and vil only weighty objection in the minds of the lages will grow up spontaneously among them, gentlemen to the measure, is that of its bear-equal at least to the wants of their own settleing upon the finances of the country. On this point, the estimate set upon our public lands is proven, by actual demonstration, to be entirely fallacious. The statements of the Senator from Missouri, (Mr. BENTON,) who has given such a lucid and unanswerable exposition of this subject, are calculated to remove this delusion. What, I would ask, have the sales of those lands done for our public coffers? They were

ments, and requiring no other protection than what the produce of these refuse lands will be certain to afford.

FRIDAY, April 4.
Payment of Interest to States.

On motion of Mr. CHAMBERS, the bill mak ing further provision for the payment of inter