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accord with my views of justice and policy to give away the public lands altogether, as mere matter of gratuity, I am asked by the honorable gentleman on what ground it is that I consent to vote them away in particular instances?

3. How, he inquires, do I reconcile with these professed sentiments my support of measures appropriating portions of the lands to particular roads, particular canals, particular rivers, and particular institutions of education, in the West? This leads, sir, to the real and wide difference in political opinion between the honorable gentleman and myself.

4. On my part, I look upon all these objects as connected with the common good, fairly embraced in its object and its terms; he, on the contrary, deems them all, if good at all, only local good. This is our difference. The interrogatory which he proceeded to put at once explains this difference. "What interest,” asks he, “has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio?"

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5. Sir, this very question is full of significance. develops the gentleman's whole political system; and its answer expounds mine. Here we differ. I look upon a road over the Alleghany, a canal around the falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway from the Atlantic to the western waters, as being an object large and extensive enough to be fairly said to be for the common benefit.

6. The gentleman thinks otherwise, and this is the key to open his construction of the powers of the government. He may well ask what interest has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio. On his system, it is true, she has no interest. On that system, Ohio and Carolina are different governments, and different countries; connected here, it is true, by some slight and ill-defined bond of union, but, in all main respects, separate and diverse.

7. On that system, Carolina has no more interest in a canal in Ohio than in Mexico. The gentleman, therefore, only follows out his own principles; he does no more than arrive at the natural conclusions of his own doctrines; he only announces the true results of that creed, which he has adopted himself, and would persuade others to adopt, when he thus declares that South Carolina has no interest in a public work in Ohio.

8. Sir, we narrow-minded people of New England do not reason thus. Our notion of things is entirely different. We look upon the states, not as separated, but as united. We love to dwell on that union, and on the mutual happiness

which it has so much promoted, and the common renown which it has so greatly contributed to acquire.

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9. In our contemplation, Carolina and Ohio are parts of the same country, states, united under the same general government, having interests common, associated, intermingled. In whatever is within the proper sphere of the constitutional power of this government, we look upon the states as one. We do not impose geographical limits to our patriotic feeling or regard; we do not follow rivers and mountains and lines of latitude, to find boundaries beyond which public improvements do not benefit us.

10. We who come here as agents and representatives of these narrow-minded and selfish men of New England, consider ourselves as bound to regard, with an equal eye, the good of the whole, in whatever is within our power of legislation.

11. Sir, if a railroad or canal, beginning in South Carolina and ending in South Carolina, appeared to me to be of national importance and national magnitude, believing, as I do, that the power of government extends to the encouragement of works of that description, if I were to stand up here and ask what interest has Massachusetts in a railroad in South Carolina, I should not be willing to face my constitu

ents.

12. These same narrow-minded men would tell me that they had sent me to act for the whole country; and that one who possessed too little comprehension, either of intellect or feeling, one who was not large enough, both in mind and in heart, to embrace the whole, was not fit to be intrusted with the interest of any part.

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13. Sir, I do not desire to enlarge the powers of the government by unjustifiable construction, nor to exercise any not within a fair interpretation. But when it is believed that a power does exist, then it is, in my judgment, to be exercised for the general benefit of the whole.

14. So far as respects the exercise of such a power, the states are one. It was the very object of the constitution to create unity of interests to the extent of the powers of the general government. In war and peace we are one; commerce, one; because the authority of the general government reaches to war and peace, and to the regulation of

commerce.

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15. I have never seen any more difficulty in erecting lighthouses on the lakes, than on the ocean; in improving the har

bors of inland seas, than if they were within the ebb and flow of the tide; or of removing obstructions in the vast streams of the west, more than in any work to facilitate commerce on the Atlantic coast.

16. If there be any power for one, there is power also for the other; and they are all and equally for the common good of the country. There are other objects, apparently more local, or the benefit of which is less general, towards which, nevertheless, I have concurred with others, to give aid by donations of land.

17. It is proposed to construct a road in or through one of the new states, in which this government possesses large quantities of land. Have the United States no right, or, as a great and untaxed proprietor, are they under no obligation, to contribute to an object thus calculated to promote the common good of all the proprietors, themselves included?

18. And even with respect to education, which is the extreme case, let the question be considered. In the first place, as we have seen, it was made matter of compact with these states, that they should do their part to promote education. In the next place, our whole systern of land laws proceeds on the idea that education is for the common good; because, in every division, a certain portion is uniformly reserved and appropriated for the use of schools.

19. And, finally, have not these new states singularly strong claims, founded on the ground already stated, that the government is a great untaxed proprietor, in the ownership of the soil? It is a consideration of great importance, that, probably, there is in no part of the country, or of the world, so great call for the means of education as in those new states, owing to the vast numbers of persons within those ages, in which education and instruction are usually received if received at all.

20. This is the natural consequence of recency of settlement and rapid increase. The census of these states shows how great a proportion of the whole population occupies the classes between infancy and manhood. These are the wide fields, and here is the deep and quick soil, for the seeds of knowledge and virtue; and this is the favored season, the very spring-time, for sowing them.

21. Let them be disseminated without stint. Let them be scattered with a bountiful broadcast. Whatever the government can fairly do towards these objects, in my opinion, ought to be done. These, sir, are the grounds, succinctly

stated, on which my votes for grants of lands for particular objects rest; while I maintain, at the same time, that it is al' a common fund, for the common benefit.

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Brakenbury. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
Clarence. O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,

Though 't were to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time!

Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you tell

me.

Clar. Methought that I had broken from the tower,
And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,

And in my company my brother Gloster,
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches. Thence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,

That had befallen us.

As we passed along

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought that Gloster stumbled, and in falling
Struck me (that sought to stay him) overboard,

Into the tumbling billows of the main.

Lord! Lord! methought what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in my ears!
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
I thought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels;

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 't were in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,

And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.

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Brak. Had you

such leisure, in the time of death, To gaze upon the secrets of the deep?

Clar. Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

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Brak. Awaked you not with this sore agony?
Clar. No, no! my dream was lengthened after life
O, then began the tempest to my soul!

I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman* which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first that there did greet my stranger soul
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,
Who cried aloud, "What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?"
And so he vanished.

Then came wandering by

A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud,
"Clarence is come! false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury!
Seize on him, furies! take him to your torments!"
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, and howléd in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
I trembling waked; and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell,
Such terrible impression made my dream.
Brak. No marvel, lord, that it affrighted you;
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

Clar. Ah! Brakenbury, I have done those things,
That now give evidence against my soul,

For Edward's sake; and see how he requites me!
O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,.
But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone;

O spare my guiltless wife, and my poor
I prithee, Brakenbury, stay by me;
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

children!

*Grim ferryman, Charon, who, according to the ancient mythology, carried the souls of the dead in his boat across the river Styx and Acheron, to the tribunals of Minos, acus and Rhadamanthus.

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