SENATE.] Mr. Foot's Resolution. [JAN. 19, 1830. Without paus propositions connected with the public lands; more than licy and that of every other nation that has ever attempted half of our acts embrace provisions growing out of this to establish colonies or create new States. fruitful source. Day after day the changes are rung on ing to examine the course pursued in this respect at earlier this topic, from the grave inquiry into the right of the periods in the history of the world, I will come directly to new States to the absolute sovereignty and property in the the measures adopted in the first settlement of the new soil, down to the grant of a pre-emption of a few quarter world, and will confine my observations entirely to North sections to actual settlers. In the language of a great America. The English, the French, and the Spaniards, orator in relation to another "vexed question," we may have successively planted their colonies here, and have all truly say, "that year after year we have been lashed adopted the same policy, which, from the very beginning round the miserable circle of occasional arguments and of the world, had always been found necessary in the settemporary expedients." No gentleman can fail to per- tlement of new countries, viz: A free grant of lands, ceive that this is a question no longer to be evaded; it" without money and without price." We all know that must be met—fairly and fearlessly met. A question that the British colonies, at their first settlement here, (whether is pressed upon us in so many ways; that intrudes in such a deriving title directly from the crown or the lords proprievariety of shapes; involving so deeply the feelings and in-tors) received grants for considerations merely nominal. terests of a large portion of the Union; insinuating itself The payment of "a penny," or a "pepper corn,” was into almost every question of public policy, and tinging the stipulated price which our fathers along the whole the whole course of our legislation, cannot be put aside, Atlantic coast, now composing the old thirteen States, paid or laid asleep. We cannot long avoid it; we must meet for their lands, and even when conditions, seemingly more and overcome it, or it will overcome us. Let us, then, substantial, were annexed to the grants; such for instance be prepared to encounter it in a spirit of wisdom and of as "settlement and cultivation.” These were considered justice, and endeavor to prepare our own minds and the as substantially complied with, by the cutting down a few minds of the people, for a just and enlightened decision. trees and erecting a log cabin-the work of only a few The object of the remarks I am about to offer is merely days. Even these conditions very soon came to be conto call public attention to the question, to throw out a few sidered as merely nominal, and were never required to be crude and undigested thoughts, as food for reflection, in pursued, in order to vest in the grantee the fee simple of order to prepare the public mind for the adoption, at no the soil. Such was the system under which this country distant day, of some fixed and settled policy in relation to was originally settled, and under which the thirteen colothe public lands. I believe that, out of the Western coun-nies flourished and grew up to that early and vigorous try, there is no subject in the whole range of our legisla- manhood, which enabled them in a few years to achieve tion less understood, and in relation to which there exists their independence; and I beg gentlemen to recollect, and so many errors, and such unhappy prejudices and miscon-note the fact, that, while they paid substantially nothing to ceptions. the mother country, the whole profits of their industry 99 There may be said to be two great parties in this coun-were suffered to remain in their own hands. Now, what, try, who entertain very opposite opinions in relation to the let us inquire, was the reason which has induced all nations character of the policy which the Government has here- to adopt this system in the settlement of new countries? tofore pursued, in relation to the public lands, as well as Can it be any other than this; that it affords the only certo that which ought, hereafter, to be pursued. I pro- tain means of building up in a wilderness, great and prospose, very briefly, to examine these opinions, and to perous communities? Was not that policy founded on the throw out for consideration a few ideas in connexion with universal belief, that the conquest of a new country, the them. Adverting first, to the past policy of the Govern-driving out "the savage beasts and still more savage men,' ment, we find that one party, embracing a very large por-cutting down and subduing the forest, and encountering tion, perhaps at this time a majority of the people of the all the hardships and privations necessarily incident to the United States, in all quarters of the Union, entertain the conversion of the wilderness into cultivated fields, was opinion, that, in the settlement of the new States and the worth the fee simple of the soil? And was it not believed disposition of the public lands, Congress has pursued not that the mother country found ample remuneration for the only a highly just and liberal course, but one of extraor-value of the land so granted in the additions to her power dinary kindness and indulgence. We are regarded as hav- and the new sources of commerce and of wealth, furnishing acted towards the new States in the spirit of parental ed by prosperous and populous States? Now, sir, I subweakness, granting to froward children, not only every mit to the candid consideration of gentlemen, whether thing that was reasonable and proper, but actually robbing the policy so diametrically opposite to this, which has been ourselves of our property to gratify their insatiable de- invariably pursued by the United States towards the new sires. While the other party, embracing the entire West, States in the West has been quite so just and liberal, as insist that we have treated them, from the beginning, not we have been accustomed to believe. Certain it is, that like heirs of the estate, but in the spirit of a hard task- the British colonies to the north of us, and the Spanish and master, resolved to promote our selfish interests from the French to the south and west, have been fostered and fruit of their labor. Now, sir, it is not my present pur-reared up under a very different system. Lands, which pose to investigate all the grounds on which these opposite had been for fifty or a hundred years open to every setopinions rest; I shall content myself with noticing one or two tler, without any charge beyond the expense of the surparticulars, in relation to which it has long appeared to me, vey, were, the moment they fell into the hands of the that the West have had some cause for complaint. I no- United States, held up for sale at the highest price that a tice them now, not for the purpose of aggravating the public auction, at the most favorable seasons, and not unspirit of discontent in relation to this subject, which is frequently a spirit of the wildest competition, could proknown to exisit in that quarter-for I do not know that duce, with a limitation that they should never be sold bemy voice will ever reach them-but to assist in bringing low a certain minimum price; thus making it, as it would others to what I believe to be a just sense of the past po- seem, the cardinal point of our policy, not to settle the licy of the Government in relation to this matter. In the country, and facilitate the formation of new States, but to creation and settlement of the new States, the plan has fill our coffers by coining our lands into gold. been invariably pursued, of selling out, from time to time, Let us now consider for a moment, [said Mr. H.] the certain portions of the public lands, for the highest price effect of these two opposite systems on the condition of a that could possibly be obtained for them in open market, new State. I will take the State of Missouri, by way of and, until a few years past, on long credits. In this re-example. Here is a large and fertile territory, coming inspect, a marked difference is observable between our po-to the possession of the United States without any inha JAN. 19, 1830. Mr. Foot's Resolution. [SENATE. that all the sales that have been effected had been made by the State, and that the proceeds had gone into the State treasury, to be returned back to the people in some of the various shapes in which a beneficent local government exerts its powers for the improvement of the condition of its citizens. Who can say how much of wealth and prosperity, how much of improvement in science and the arts, how much of individual and social happiness, would have been diffused throughout the land! But I have done with this topic. bitants but Indians and wild beasts-a territory which is to be converted into a sovereign and independent State. You commence your operations by surveying and selling out a portion of the lands, on long credits, to actual settlers; and, as the population progresses, you go on, year after year, making additional sales on the same terms; and this operation is to be continued, as gentlemen tell us, for fifty or a hundred years at least, if not for all time to come. The inhabitants of this new State, under such a system, it is most obvious, must have commenced their operations under a load of debt, the annual payment of which must In coming to the consideration of the next great quesnecessarily drain their country of the whole profits of tion, What ought to be the future policy of the Governtheir labor, just so long as this system shall last. This ment in relation to the Public Lands? we find the most debt is due, not from some citizens of the State to others opposite and irreconcileable opinions between the two of the same State, (in which case the money would re- parties which I have before described. On the one side main in the country) but it is due from the whole popu- it is contended that the public land ought to be reserved lation of the State to the United States, by whom it is re- as a permanent fund for revenue, and future distribution gularly drawn out, to be expended abroad. Sir, the among the States, while, on the other, it is insisted that amount of this debt has, in every one of the new States, the whole of these lands of right belong to, and ought to actually constantly exceeded the ability of the people to be relinquished to, the States in which they lie. I shall pay, as is proved by the fact that you have been compel proceed to throw out some ideas in relation to the proled, from time to time, in your great liberality, to extend posed policy, that the public lands ought to be reserved the credits, and in some instances even to remit portions for these purposes. It may be a question, Mr. President, of the debt, in order to protect some land debtors from how far it is possible to convert the public lands into a bankruptcy and total ruin. Now, I will submit the ques-great source of revenue. Certain it is, that all the efforts tion to any candid man, whether, under this system, the heretofore made for this purpose have most signally failpeople of a new State, so situated, could, by any industry ed. The harshness, if not injustice of the proceeding, or exertion, ever become rich and prosperous. What puts those upon whom it is to operate upon the alert, to has been the consequence, sir? Almost universal pover-contrive methods of evading and counteracting our polity; no money; hardly a sufficient circulating medium cy, and hundreds of schemes, in the shape of appropriafor the ordinary exchanges of society: paper banks, tions of lands for Roads, Canals, and Schools, grants to relief laws, and the other innumerable evils, social, politi- actual settlers, &c. are resorted to for the purpose of concal, and moral, on which it is unnecessary for me to dwell. trolling our operations. But, sir, let us take it for grantSir, under a system by which a drain like this is constantly ed that we will be able, hereafter, to resist these applicaoperating upon the wealth of the whole community, the tions, and to reserve the whole of your lands, for fifty or country may be truly said to be afflicted with a curse for a hundred years, or for all time to come, to furnish a which it has been well observed is more grievous to be great fund for permanent revenue, is it desirable that we borne" than the barrenness of the soil, and the inclemen-should do so? Will it promote the welfare of the Unitcy of the seasons." It is said, sir, that we learn from our ed States to have at our disposal a permanent treasury, own misfortunes how to feel for the sufferings of others; not drawn from the pockets of the people, but to be deand perhaps the present condition of the Southern States rived from a source independent of them? Would it be has served to impress more deeply on my own mind, the safe to confide such a treasure to the keeping of our grievous oppression of a system by which the wealth of a national rulers? to expose them to the temptations incountry is drained off to be expended elsewhere. In seperable from the direction and control of a fund which that devoted region, sir, in which my lot has been cast, it might be enlarged or diminished almost at pleasure, withis our misfortune to stand in that relation to the Federal out imposing burthens upon the people? Sir, I may be Government, which subjects us to a taxation which it re- singular--perhaps I stand alone here in the opinion, but quires the utmost efforts of our industry to meet. Near-it is one I have long entertained, that one of the greatest ly the whole amount of our contributions is expended safeguards of liberty is a jealous watchfulness on the part abroad: we stand towards the United States in the rela- of the people, over the collection and expenditure of the tion of Ireland to England. The fruits of our labor are drawn from us to enrich other and more favored sections of the Union; while, with one of the finest climates and the richest products in the world, furnishing, with one-third of the population, two-thirds of the whole exports of the country, we exhibit the extraordinary, the wonderful, and painful spectacle of a country enriched by the bounty of God, but blasted by the cruel policy of man. The rank grass grows in our streets; our very fields are scathed by the hand of injustice and oppression. Such, sir, though probably in a less degree, must have been the effects of a kindred policy on the fortunes of the West. It is not in the nature of things that it should have been otherwise. Can public money--a watchfulness that can only be secured where the money is drawn by taxation directly from the pockets of the people. Every scheme or contrivance by which rulers are able to procure the command of money by means unknown to, unseen or unfelt by, the people, destroys this security. Even the revenue system of this country, by which the whole of our pecuniary resources are derived from indirect taxation, from duties upon imports, has done much to weaken the responsibility of our federal rulers to the people, and has made them, in some measure, careless of their rights, and regardless of the high trust committed to their care. any man believe, sir, that, if twenty-three millions per anLet gentlemen now pause and consider for a moment nun was now levied by direct taxation, or by an apporwhat would have been the probable effects of an oppo- tionment of the same among the States, instead of being site policy. Suppose, sir, a certain portion of the State raised by an indirect tax, of the severe effect of which of Missouri had been originally laid off and sold to actual few are aware, that the waste and extravagance, the unsettlers for the quit rent of a peppercorn" or even for authorized imposition of duties, and appropriations of a small price to be paid down in cash. Then, sir, all the money for unconstitutional objects, would have been tomoney that was made in the country would have remained lerated for a single year? My life upon it, sir, they would in the country, and, passing from hand to hand, would, not. I distrust, therefore, sir, the policy of creating a like rich and abundant streams flowing through the land, great permanent national treasury, whether to be derivIf I had, have adorned and fertilized the whole. Suppose, sir, ed from public lands or from any other source. VOL. VI.--5 66 SENATE.] Mr. Foot's Resolution. [JAN. 19, 1830 sir, the powers of a magician, and could, by a wave of ety, and by so doing you will but fulfil the great trust my hand, convert this capitol into gold for such a pur- which has been confided to your care. pose, I would not do it. If I could, by a mere act of my Sir, there is another scheme in relation to the public will, put at the disposal of the Federal Government any lands, which, as it addresses itself to the interested and amount of treasure which I might think proper to name, selfish feelings of our nature, will doubtless find many adI should limit the amount to the means necessary for the vocates. I mean the distribution of the public lands among legitimate purposes of the Government. Sir, an immense the States, according to some ratio hereafter to be settled. national treasury would be a fund for corruption. It would Sir, this system of distribution is, in all its shapes, liable to enable Congress and the Executive to exercise a control many and powerful objections. I will not go into them at over States, as well as over great interests in the coun- this time, because the subject has recently undergone a try, nay, even over corporations and individuals-utterly thorough discussion in the other House, and because, from destructive of the purity, and fatal to the duration of our present indications, we shall shortly have up the subject institutions. It would be equally fatal to the sovereignty here. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." I and independence of the States. Sir, I am one of those come now to the claims set up by the West to these lands. who believe that the very life of our system is the inde- The first is, that they have a full and perfect legal and conpendence of the States, and that there is no evil more to stitutional right to all the lands within their respective libe deprecated than the consolidation of this Government. mits. This claim was set up for the first time only a few It is only by a strict adherence to the limitations imposed years ago, and has been advocated on this floor by the genby the constitution on the Federal Government, that this tlemen from Alabama and Indiana, with great zeal and system works well, and can answer the great ends for ability. Without having paid much attention to this point, it which it was instituted. I am opposed, therefore, in any has appeared to me that this claim is untenable. I shall shape, to all unnecessary extension of the powers, or the not stop to enter into the argument further than to say, influence of the Legislature or Executive of the Union that, by the very terms of the grants under which the Unitover the States, or the people of the States; and, most of ed States have acquired these lands, the absolute properall, I am opposed to those partial distributions of favors, ty in the soil is vested in them, and must, it would seem, whether by legislation or appropriation, which has a di- continue so until the lands shall be sold or otherwise disrect and powerful tendency to spread corruption through posed of. I can easily conceive that it may be extremely the land; to create an abject spirit of dependence; to inconvenient, nay, highly injurious to a State, to have imsow the seeds of dissolution; to produce jealousy among mense bodies of land within her chartered limits, locked the different portions of the Union, and finally to sap the up from sale and settlement, withdrawn from the power of very foundations of the Government itself. taxation, and contributing in no respect to her wealth or But, sir, there is another purpose to which it has been prosperity. But though this state of things may present supposed the public lands can be applied, still more objec- strong claims on the Federal Government for the adoption tionable. I mean that suggested in a report from the of a liberal policy towards the new States, it cannot affect Treasury Department, under the late administration, of so the question of legal or constitutional right. Believing regulating the disposition of the public lands as to create that this claim, on the part of the West, will never be reand preserve, in certain quarters of the Union, a popula- cognized by the Federal Government, I must regret that tion suitable for conducting great manufacturing establish- it has been urged, as I think it will have no other effect ments. It is supposed, sir, by the advocates of the Ame-than to create a prejudice against the claims of the new rican System, that the great obstacle to the progress of States. manufactures in this country is the want of that low and But, sir, there has been another much more fruitful degraded population which infest the cities and towns of source of prejudice. I mean the demands constantly made Europe, who, having no other means of subsistence, will from the West, for partial appropriations of the public work for the lowest wages, and be satisfied with the small-lands for local objects. I am astonished that gentlemen est possible share of human enjoyment. And this diffi- from the Western country have not perceived the tendenculty it is proposed to overcome, by so regulating and li-cy of such a course to rivet upon them for ever the sysmiting the sales of the public lands, as to prevent the tem which they consider so fatal to their interests. We drawing off this portion of the population from the manu- have been told, sir, in the course of this debate, of the facturing States. Sir, it is bad enough that Government painful and degrading office which the gentlemen from should presume to regulate the industry of man; it is suf- that quarter are compelled to perform, in coming here, ficiently monstrous that they should attempt, by arbitrary year after year, in the character of petitioners for these legislation, artificially to adjust and balance the various petty favors. The gentleman from Missouri tells us, "if pursuits of society, and to "organize the whole labor and they were not goaded on by their necessities, they would capital of the country." But what shall we say of the never consent to be beggars at our doors." Sir, their resort to such means for these purposes! What! create course in this respect, let me say to those gentlemen, is a manufactory of paupers, in order to enable the rich pro- greatly injurious to the West. While they shall conprietors of woollen and cotton factories to amass wealth? tinue to ask and gratefully to receive these petty and parFrom the bottom of my soul do I abhor and detest the tial appropriations, they will be kept for ever in a state idea, that the powers of the Federal Government should of dependence. Never will the Federal Government, or ever be prostituted for such purpose. Sir, I hope we rather those who control its operations, consent to emancishall act on a more just and liberal system of policy. The pate the West, by adopting a wise and just policy, looking people of America are, and ought to be for a century to to any final disposition of the public lands, while the people come, essentially an agricultural people; and I can con- of the West can be kept in subjection and dependence, by ceive of no policy that can possibly be pursued in relation occasional donations of those lands; and never will the to the public lands, none that would be more "for the Western States themselves assume their just and equal stacommon benefit of all the States," than to use them as the tion among their sisters of the Union, while they are conmeans of furnishing a secure asylum to that class of our stantly looking up to Congress for favors and gratuities. fellow-citizens, who in any portion of the country may What, then, [asked Mr. H.] is our true policy on this find themselves unable to procure a comfortable subsist-important subject? I do not profess to have formed any ence by the means immediately within their reach. I would fixed or settled opinions in relation to it. The time has by a just and liberal system convert into great and flour- not yet arrived when that question must be decided; and I ishing communities, that entire class of persons, who would must reserve for further lights, and more mature reflecotherwise be paupers in your streets, and outcasts in soci- tion, the formation of a final judgment. The public debt JAN. 20, 1830.] Mr. Foot's Resolution. [SENATE. must be first paid. For this, these lands have been so result from adopting the resolution. Indeed, it gives no lemnly pledged to the public creditors. This done, which, new powers, and hardly imposes any new duty on the if there be no interference with the Sinking Fund, will Committee. All that the resolution proposes should be be effected in three or four years, the question will then done, the Committee is quite competent, without the resobe fairly open, to be disposed of as Congress and the coun- lution, to do, by virtue of its ordinary powers. But, sir, try may think just and proper. Without attempting to although I have felt quite indifferent about the passing of indicate precisely what our policy ought then to be, I will, the resolution, yet opinions were expressed yesterday on in the same spirit which has induced me to throw out the the general subject of the public lands, and on some other desultory thoughts which I have now presented to the Sen- subjects, by the gentleman from South Carolina, so wideate, suggest for consideration, whether it will not be sound ly different from my own, that I am not willing to let the policy, and true wisdom, to adopt a system of measures occasion pass without some reply. If I deemed the resolooking to the final relinquishment of these lands on the lution, as originally proposed, hardly necessary, still less part of the United States, to the States in which they lie, do I think it either necessary or expedient to adopt it, on such terms and conditions as may fully indemnify us for since a second branch has been added to it to-day. By the cost of the original purchase, and all the trouble and this second branch, the Committee is to be instructed to expense to which we may have been put on their account. inquire whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasGiving up the plan of using these lands forever as a fund ten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of the either for revenue or distribution, ceasing to hug them as public lands. Now, it appears that, in forty years, we a great treasure, renouncing the idea of administering them have sold no more than about twenty millions of acres of with a view to regulate and control the industry and po- public lands. The annual sales do not now exceed, and pulation of the States, or of keeping in subjection and de- never have exceeded, one million of acres. A million a pendence the States, or the people of any portion of the year is, according to our experience, as much as the inUnion, the task will be comparatively easy of striking out crease of population can bring into settlement. And it a plan for the final adjustment of the land question on just appears also, that we have, at this moment, sir, surveyed and equitable principles. Perhaps, sir, the lands ought and in the market, ready for sale, two hundred and ten not to be entirely relinquished to any State until she shall millions of acres, or thereabouts. All this vast mass, at have made considerable advances in population and settle- this moment, lies on our hands, for mere want of purment. Ohio has probably already reached that condition. chasers. Can any man, looking to the real interests of the The relinquishment may be made by a sale to the State, at country and the people, seriously think of inquiring a fixed price, which I will not say should be nominal; but whether we ought not still faster to hasten the public surcertainly I should not be disposed to fix the amount so veys, and to bring, still more and more rapidly, other vast high as to keep the States for any length of time in debt quantities into the market? The truth is, that, rapidly as to the United States. In short, our whole policy in population has increased, the surveys have, nevertheless, relation to the public lands may perhaps be summed outran our wants. There are more lands than purchasers. up in the declaration with which I set out, that they They are now sold at low prices, and taken up as fast as ought not to be kept and retained forever as a great trea- the increase of people furnishes hands to take them up. It is sure, but that they should be administered chiefly with a obvious, that no artificial regulation, no forcing of sales, view to the creation, within reasonable periods, of great no giving away of the lands even, can produce any great and flourishing communities, to be formed into free and and sudden augmentation of population. The ratio of inindependent States; to be invested in due season with the crease, though great, has yet its bounds. Hands for labor control of all the lands within their respective limits. are multiplied only at a certain rate. The lands cannot [Here the debate closed for this day.] be settled but by settlers; nor faster than settlers can be found. A system, if now adopted, of forcing sales, at whatever prices, may have the effect of throwing large quantities into the hands of individuals, who would, in this way, in time, become themselves competitors with the Government in the sale of land. My own opinion has uniformly been, that the public lands should be offered freely, and at low prices; so as to encourage settlement and cultivation as rapidly as the increasing population of the country is competent to extend settlement and cultivation. Every actual settler should be able to buy good land, at a cheap rate; but, on the other hand, speculation by individuals, on a large scale, should not be encouraged, nor should the value of all lands, sold and unsold, be reduced to nothing, by throwing new and vast quantities into the market at prices merely nominal. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 20, 1830. The Senate resumed the consideration of the resolution of Mr. FOOT, which was the subject of discussion yesterday. Mr. F. rose and said, that, in conformity with the suggestion of Mr. SPRAGUE, made yesterday, for the purpose of meeting the views of Mr. WOODBURY, he would modify his motion to read as follows: Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of the public lands remaining unsold within each State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit, for a certain period, the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the minimum price; and also, whether the office of Surveyor General, and some of the Land Offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the public interest; or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of the pub 1.c lands. Mr. WEBSTER said, on rising, that nothing had been further from his intention than to take any part in the discussion of this resolution. It proposed only an inquiry, on a subject of much importance, and one in regard to which it might strike the mind of the mover, and of other gentlemen, that inquiry and investigation would be useful. Although [said Mr. W.] I am one of those who do not perceive any particular utility in instituting the inquiry, I have, nevertheless, not seen that harm would be likely to I now proceed, sir, to some of the opinions expressed by the gentleman from South Carolina. Two or three topics were touched by him, in regard to which he expressed sentiments in which I do not at all concur. He held In the first place, sir, the honorable gentleman spoke of the whole course and policy of the Government towards those who have purchased and settled the public lands and seemed to think this policy wrong. it to have been, from the first, hard and rigorous; he was of opinion that the United States had acted towards those who had subdued the Western wilderness, in the spirit of a step-mother; that the public domain had been improperly regarded as a source of revenue; and that we had rigidly compelled payment for that which ought to have been given away. He said we ought to have followed the analogy of other Governments, which had acted on a SENATE.] Mr. Foot's Resolution. [JAN. 20, 1830 much more liberal system than ours, in planting colonies. And here, sir, at the epoch of 1794, let us pause, and surHe dwelt particularly upon the settlement of America by vey the scene. It is now thirty-five years since that scene colonists from Europe; and reminded us that their go- actually existed. Let us, sir, look back, and behold it. vernments had not exacted from those colonists payment Over all that is now Ohio, there then stretched one vast for the soil; with them, he said, it had been thought that wilderness, unbroken, except by two small spots of civi the conquest of the wilderness was, itself, an equivalent lized culture, the one at Marietta, and the other at Cinfor the soil; and he lamented that we had not followed the cinnati. At these little openings, hardly each a pin's point example, and pursued the same liberal course towards our upon the map, the arm of the frontiersman had levelled own emigrants to the West. the forest, and let in the sun. These little patches of earth, Now, sir, I deny altogether, that there has been any and themselves almost shadowed by the over hanging thing harsh or severe in the policy of the Government to-boughs of that wilderness, which had stood and perpetuwards the new States of the West. On the contrary, Iated itself, from century to century, ever since the creamaintain that it has uniformly pursued towards those tion, were all that had then been rendered verdant by the States, a liberal and enlightened system, such as its own hand of man. In an extent of hundreds and thousands of duty allowed and required, and such as their interests square miles, no other surface of smiling green attested and welfare demanded. The Government has been no the presence of civilization. The hunter's path crossed step-mother to the new States; she has not been careless mighty rivers, flowing in solitary grandeur, whose sources of their interests, nor deaf to their requests; but from the lay in remote and unknown regions of the wilderness. It first moment, when the Territories. which now form those struck, upon the North, on a vast inland sca, over which States, were ceded to the Union, down to the time in the wintry tempests raged as on the ocean; all around was which I am now speaking, it has been the invariable ob- bare creation. It was a fresh, untouched, unbounded, ject of the Government to dispose of the soil, according magnificent wilderness! And, sir, what is it now? Is it to the true spirit of the obligation under which it received imagination only, or can it possibly be fact, that presents it; to hasten its settlement and cultivation, as far and as such a change, as surprises and astonishes us, when we fast as practicable; and to rear the new communities into turn our eyes to what Ohio now is? Is it reality, or a dream, equal and independent States, at the earliest moment of that, in so short a period even as thirty-five years, there their being able, by their numbers, to form a regular has sprung up, on the same surface, an independent State, government. with a million of people? A million of inhabitants! an I do not admit sir, that the analogy to which the gen-amount of population greater than that of all the cantons tleman refers is just, or that the cases are at all similar. of Switzerland; equal to one third of all the people of the There is no resemblance between the cases upon which United States, when they undertook to accomplish their a statesman can found an argument. The original North independence. This new member of the republic has American colonists either fled from Europe, like our New already left far behind her a majority of the old States. England ancestors, to avoid persecution, or came hither She is now by the side of Virginia and Pennsylvania; and at their own charges, and often at the ruin of their for- in point of numbers, will shortly admit no equal but New tunes, as private adventurers. Generally speaking, they York herself. If, sir, we may judge of measures by their derived neither succor nor protection from their govern- results, what lessons do these facts read us upon the ments at home. Wide, indeed, is the difference between policy of the Government? What inferences do they authose cases and ours. From the very origin of the Go-thorize, upon the general question of kindness, or unkindvernment, these Western lands, and the just protection of ness? What convictions do they enforce, as to the wisdom those who had settled or should settle on them, have been and ability, on the one hand, or the folly and incapacity, on the leading objects in our policy, and have led to ex- the other, of our general administration of Western affairs? penditures, both of blood and treasure, not inconsiderable; Sir, does it not require some portion of self-respect in us, not indeed exceeding the importance of the object, and to imagine that, if our light had shone on the path of gonot yielded grudgingly or reluctantly certainly; but yet vernment, if our wisdom could have been consulted in its not inconsiderable, though necessary sacrifices, made for measures, a more rapid advance to strength and proshigh proper ends. The Indian title has been extinguished perity would have been experienced? For my own part, at the expense of many millions. Is that nothing? There while I am struck with wonder at the success, I also look is still a much more material consideration. These colo- with admiration at the wisdom and foresight which originists, if we are to call them so, in passing the Alleghany, nally arranged and prescribed the system for the settledid not pass beyond the care and protection of their own ment of the public domain. Its operation has been, withGovernment. Wherever they went, the public arm was out a moment's interruption, to push the settlement of still stretched over them. A parental Government at the Western country to the full extent of our utmost means. home was still ever mindful of their condition, and their But, sir, to return to the remarks of the honorable wants; and nothing was spared which a just sense of their member from South Carolina. He says that Congress necessities required. Is it forgotten that it was one of has sold these lands, and put the money into the treasury, the most arduous duties of the Government, in its earliest while other Governments, acting in a more liberal spirit, years, to defend the frontiers against the Northwestern gave away their lands; and that we ought, also, to have Indians? Are the sufferings, and misfortunes under Har- given ours away. I shall not stop to state an account bemar and St. Clair not worthy to be remembered? Do tween our revenues derived from land, and our expenthe occurrences connected with these military efforts show ditures in Indian treaties and Indian wars. But, I must an unfeeling neglect of Western interests? And here, sir, refer the honorable gentleman to the origin of our own what becomes of the gentleman's analogy? What En- title to the soil of these territories, and remind him that glish armies accompanied our ancestors to clear the forests we received them on conditions, and under trusts, which of a barbarous foe? What treasures of the exchequer would have been violated by giving the soil away. For were expended in buying up the originial title to the soil? compliance with those conditions, and the just execution What governmental arm held its ægis over our fathers' of those trusts, the public faith was solemnly pledged. heads, as they pioneered their way in the wilderness? Sir, The public lands of the United States have been derived it was not till General Wayne's victory, in 1794, that it from four principal sources. First, Cessions made to the could be said we had conquered the savages. It was not United States by individual States, on the recon.mendatill that period that the Government could have considered tion or request of the old Congress. Second, The comitself as having established an entire ability to protect those pact with Georgia, in 1802. Third. The purchase of who should undertake the conquest of the wilderness. Louisiana, in 1862. Fourth, The purchase of Florida, in |