SENATE.] Public Lands. [JAN. 24, 1857. they come among us. It is not wise, nor is it necessary, to give new bounties for emigration; nor have we a right to do it. Suppose the bounty to emigrants proposed in this bill were to be paid in money out of the Treasury, and the lands were sold in fair and open hate, to induce other gentlemen to support their favorite measure: they hate the tariff, but they will endure it; they do not like the compromise, but they will adhere to it, if this bill can be passed to ease the Treasury of its cash, and relieve the people of their burdens. The public lands-an unconstitutional surrender of the pub-market to raise the money, would any gentleman from lic lands-is the only thing that can reconcile or pacify them. Pacific as I am inclined to be, and much as gentlemen have operated on the easiness of my disposition, and. greatly as they have alarmed my fears, I am not yet disposed to make them this large peace-offering, until I am assured that we have the constitutional power to do it; I want to see our authority, and I would like, further, to know that we can do it and be just. This public domain is a fund placed under the guardianship of Congress by a compact prior to the constitution, and which is recognised and made obligatory by that sacred instrument. And Congress is bound, by that compact, to dispose of it bonafide for the benefit of all the States, members of this confederacy, according to their proportions of representative population. And it ought to be so, for it was bought with the common blood and common treasure of the people of all the States, old as well as new; for I acknowledge no pre-eminence in favor of the old States. Our common ancestors fought on their soil for our freedom; and they (the small remnant of them) and their descendants (now a mighty people) are spread over our whole vast territory; and wheresoever they are, they inherit the glory as well as the rights of their fathers. These public lands, then, are to be disposed of bonafide for the common benefit of all the States. The fund, of which we are thus made the trustee, is immenseworth not less than one thousand millions of dollars: this is now admitted; though a few years ago, when the estimate of its value was made by my friend from Kentucky, [Mr. CLAY,] it was scouted by gentlemen who then wanted to get the land, not because it was overflowing our Treasury with money, but because this land was not worth surveying and selling. Gentlemen, it is true, do not now ask it as a gift, but they admit the choice tracts to be worth from $15 to $40 per acre. And they ask us to withdraw from them all competition at public and at private sales, to give pre-emptions to those who shall intrude on the land, and thus secure it to them at $1 25 per acre. They only ask us to give them from about $14 to $39 an acre on all the choice land of the United States that remains to be sold. These demands, it must be admitted, are moderate, especially when addressed to a trustee who is bound to administer the fund bonafide for the equal benefit of all who have an interest in it. The privilege, therefore, which these gentlemen ask for their constituents, or those who shall become so, is a donation, and a very large one. against common right, and it promotes no meritorious object whatever. Suppose it to induce emigration: is that desirable to a greater extent than is now going on? Should it be the object or is it the interest of the United States, as a whole, to induce by bounties the citizens of the old States, on or near the seacoast, to abandon their farms and their homes, and migrate to the West? It is The last census shows that the older portions of the old States are in fact depopulating. From the year 1820 to 1830, Virginia, east of the Blue Ridge, lost about 100,000 of its population. The same was the case, though in a less degree, with several extensive districts in others of the old States. Now, I make no objection to this; but I do not think it a desirable state of things. It is enough for us, in the West, if we receive the natural increase of the population of the old States; and it is enough for them if their increased population finds an easy access to our fresh lands, and a cheap home when the old States, having the least regard for the rights and interests of his own constituents, consent to it, or even entertain the proposition for a moment? I think not. And where is the difference? It is the same thing in substance and effect: the mode of bringing it about gives it a different aspect. Having considered the general objects of the bill, both as expressed and as professed by its advocates, I will now examine some of its provisions, and endeavor to show how those objects are to be carried into effect. The bill is entitled and professes to be "A bill to limit the sales of the public lands to actual settlers;" but I have said it is in fact no such thing. I call the attention of the Senate to its provisions. Who may enter land under it? Any one-man or woman, husband or wife, or both, without any evidence of residence, or of any declaration of intent to reside upon it. All they have to do is to swear that they enter it for their own use, and not for the purpose of speculation. Here is the initiation of the title. And how much land may be entered by making this oath, and under this particular section of the bill? The husband may enter 1,240 acres, the wife 1,240, the son and daughter, over eighteen years of age, 1,240 acres each-making in all, for an ordinary family of four persons, 4,960 acres; and this may be all entered in tracts of 40 acres each, making 128 tracts that a single family, such as I have described, may enter, on this "actual settlement" principle; and these 128 tracts may be dotted over all the public lands in the United States, occupying all the most commanding positions in the country. They may take your woodland in a prairie region, your springs and brooks in a country where water is scarce, and your coal banks and quarries where fuel and stone are valuable. Having thus sworn and made the entry, and obtained the certificate, the next step to procure a title is to reside on some part of the land one year within the first five; it must not be a continuous residence, but one year in all; or, erect a dwelling-house, clear and cultivate, within the five years, one tenth part of the whole; that is to say, select in the entry somewhere one tenth part of your purchases in a dry prairie, which will burn over in October or November. This burning is a compliance with the first requisition, that "to clear." The next is "to cultivate," and that can be done, as I have already shown, in a most compendious manner. A few bushels of grass seed, and one man, two horses and a harrow, for a month or two, are sufficient to make the "cultivation;" for it has only to be sworn to generally as "cultivation"-the mode and manner of it being in no wise designated. The next step to be taken to procure a title is to "swear" again, or to produce the affidavits of those who will swear-swear to residence, or swear to the erection of a dwelling-house, and swear to the clearing and cul tivation of the one tenth part in five years. "Our army swore terribly in Flanders," said Corporal Trim. But the person making an entry of the public lands must swear that he enters it, not in trust for any other person, but for himself or herself only. This provision prevents the father from entering in behalf of his child, the guardian for his ward, or the trustee of a will in be half of the widow or orphan devisees; it prevents, also, an entry in execution of a charity. All open, honest trusts, those that deserve the countenance of mankind and the favor of Government, are excluded by this bill, while every species of fraudulent and secret trust will come in and evade its provisions. A person, before he JAN. 24, 1837.] Public Lands. [SENATE. is allowed to make the entry, must swear that he enters for himself, and not in trust for another. Now, suppose the affidavit to be wholly false, how is it ever to be proved that it is so? It is swearing to intent merely, and the intent at the time the oath is taken; and if some other person, who furnished the money to make the entry, go on in one month after, and clear and cultivate the one tenth part of it, and the patent issue at the end of one year, and the land is transferred accordingly, the capitalist has got the land, and he may go through the same process with hundreds, as far as his friends will go; and where is your evidence to convict of perjury or subornation of perjury? You clearly have none-the proof must come home to the time of making the affida. vit; and doing of an act inconsistent with it afterwards would convict the party of a change of purpose, but not of perjury. And all who know the facility with which these ex parte affidavits are made, where much money is to be got by them, will agree with me that the fear of the law is the only restraint upon perjury in cases like this-conscience is nothing, public opinion is nothing, for all society is placed under like temptation, and public morals would, by reason of that temptation, become generally vitiated. The man who would hold out against such a state of things would be considered an enemy to his country and the interests of it, and he could reclaim his character in no way but by joining in the general plunder. If there should be a case of prosecution, and strong proof of perjury, there could seldom be a conviction, for the fountains of justice are poisoned when the public morals are thus vitiated; and there would be great danger that the registers and receivers in the several land offices would join in the fraud and share the spoils. We should hesitate long before we place before any portion of our community such a temptation to vice-such a vast amount of plunder to be obtained by fraud and crime. There is a clause several times repeated in the bill, and of course intended to be efficacious, which provides, in substance, that no legal encumbrance whatever, and no sale, or lease, or contract, as to such land, shall be, in any wise, binding, if made before a patent issues, but all such shall be absolutely null and void. Now, whatever might be the effect of this provision in the Territories, where we have a right to interfere as a local Legislature, I hold that it is wholly nugatory in the States. If an individual have title either complete or inchoate, that title is property, and, as such, is at once amenable to the local law, and must be gov erned and controlled by its principles. A judgment would bind the interest when the local law should declare judgments binding on imperfect titles. A contract would attach to it, and equity would enforce its obliga-provisions which it is intended to have, and which, if it tions. A conveyance with covenants made prior to the issuing of the patent would draw to it the perfect title after the patent bad issued, upon the principle either of estoppel, enurement, or relation. Gentlemen cannot, if they would, destroy the application of these principles to effect, or serve to effect, this or any other such object; and it is well that they cannot. They may provide that no patent shall issue to an assignee, for, as the vendors of property, we have a right to make what condition we please with the purchaser. But when the land lies in the States, and we sell it, we are vendors only, and we cannot accompany our sale with legal encumbrances, or immunities inconsistent with the general principles of law. ter how great may be its value, at the minimum price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. I object to the principle of this section; and if the principle be adopted, I object to the language and the details, as open to the practice of the most stupendous frauds. We have upon our statute book, yet unrepealed, an early law, punishing intruders upon the public lands. That law directs that the marshal of the district shall remove those who intrude against law on the public land, and that a fine shall be assessed upon them, on conviction in the district courts of the United States. Nor has this law become obsolete. It was recognised and its provisions extended in 1833, and it is now in full force, and as familiarly known as any other of the laws of the land. I object, therefore, in principle, to giving an important privilege, a great pecuniary advantage, to a class of individuals, merely because they have violated the laws. That statute, if it be unwise or unjust, should be repealed before any rights are permitted to accrue by intrusion on or over portions of the public lands. But, sir, that law is a necessary and proper law-it ought to remain, and its provisions ought to be regarded and enforced. It was enacted to prevent the intrusions of the whites upon the Indian lands, and to avoid the fraud, imposition, and oppression which is the consequence of such intrusion; and, further, to prevent a possession in advance of the sales, which would encumber the lands, and operate to the injury of the purchaser. We have recently seen enough, in our own times, to satisfy us of the wisdom and foresight of our predecessors. Whence arose your Black Hawk war in the Northwest, which cost some lives and several millions of money, but from the haste of a horde of greedy speculators to possess themselves of the fine lands belonging to the Sac and Fox Indians at the Prairie du Chien? Whence your threatened Creek war? Whence your actual war in Fiorida, now raging, and which has cost already so many valuable lives, and which has cost and will cost more than twenty millions of treasure before it is quelled, except from the avarice, and pride, and oppression, of these intruders upon the public land and the Indian property? If the laws of the United States had been enforced, if this breach had been punished instead of being rewarded, we should have escaped all this, with its attendant train of misery to individuals and mortification to a people. I would next call the attention of the Senate to the 4th section of the bill, which grants pre-emptions to actual settlers on the public lands; that is, it permits any one who shall have gone in advance of the surveys and sales, or even of the purchase from the Indians, and intruded upon choice parts of the public land, to prove that they have done so, and then enter the land, no matVOL. XIII.-35 But if no evils arose from this contemplated law except those which fall on the individuals themselves who seek to take advantage of it, it would be enough to decide us at once against its policy. Those who framed it must have been aware of its tendency, and aware also that that tendency would be obvious, if the bill had, in form, the pass, it must have, in effect. The right of pre-emption is by the bill limited to those who have occupied, and does not extend in terms to those who shall hereafter occupy, the public lands. This is the form of the bill; but the effect is to give the right to all future occupants. For this measure is even now urged, on the ground that we have held out encouragement to settlers by former pre-emption laws; that, under the provisions of those laws, past settlers had been protected, and that those who entered on the public lands too late to claim protection under those laws had a right to expect that the same favor would be extended to them which was extended to their predecessors. This is the argument, and will it be less strong when urged next winter in behalf of those who shall have occupied and cultivated the public land during the summer of 1837, than it is now in favor of those who occupied during the past year? I can see no distinction. And if we pass this law now, we must pass another then, and so on in all future time. I would rather, therefore, pass at once a pre-emption law, to operate in all future time, and fairly, by law, hold out this reward to settlers on the public land, than to continue in force, as we do, the law against such settlement, with the assurance in advance that all those who break it shall hereafter receive the reward. All the evil consequences which would flow from a prospective pre-emption law, and they are many, flow from this state of things; and in addition thereto we hold out the assurance to the people that, whatever our laws may be, if resisted, they will not be enforced. If it become a fixed principle that the actual settler or occupant gets the land which he may select, at $1 25 per acre, then will arise contests and conflicts between individuals about the possession of favorite and valuable tracts. First, it will be a race who shall get on first to take possession; then a conflict to keep it. The first who gets on, if the tract be very valuable, is likely to be driven off by a stronger hand, with the loss, perhaps, of limb, and sometimes of life. Another yet stronger detachment drives off the second "actual settler," and they in turn have to defend their possessions against a fourth; and all apply in their order to the register and receiver, and make the necessary affidavits to obtain their titles. Cases of this kind are constantly occurring, even now. A friend of mine, in the other House, who recently travelled through Wisconsin and part of Illinois, informed me that when at Mineral Point he heard a conflict for the possession of a lead mine spoken of, not as an extraordinary but as a recent incident. Two parties who contended for the mine drove each other away, and alternately took possession four or five times, with the loss of several lives. One of the party who succeeded in keeping possession, and who had killed a young man in one of their engagements, was quietly amusing himself in a store or tavern a short time after, when a young woman addressed him, and inquired his name. He told it; and she at once drew a pistol from under her cloak, and shot him through. Private revenge in these cases seems to be the only redress for murder, as the law takes no notice of incidents so common and so unimportant. I am told that in travelling through the fine lands in the Northwest, you will see these actual settlements and improvements" constantly forming. If it is prairie, they merely run a furrow round it. If it is a choice piece of woodland that is to be held by improvement, they will fell trees all around it, so that the top of one will lap on to the stump of another; then the woodland is enclosed, and the party is entitled to it, as an actual settler. And perhaps it is the only spot of woods within many miles in the midst of a broad prairie, and therefore of immense value; if the woody island be very large, it becomes the subject of a kind of joint stock company, or association, who all unite to "improve it," and to secure each other in the possession of it. I find the following advertisement in a Chicago paper: SETTLERS, ATTENTION.-Notice is hereby given, that the semi-annual meeting of the Big Woods Claim Association will meet at the house of Thomas Paxton, on the east side of the Big Woods, on Saturday, the 4th day of February next, at ten o'clock, A. M., when a general attendance is requested. JANUARY 3. JOHN WARNE. The particular character and purpose of these associa tions I will show by and by more fully. There is a false face constantly put upon this subject, not intentionally, but from a mistaken notion of the thing, by gentlemen who urge, with so much zeal and perseverance, the claims of the squatters to the lands on which they intrude. Gentlemen represent the squatters generally as poor men, seeking a freehold and a home, willing to pay for the land on which they settle, but unable to do so, because the lands are not in market, and cannot be purchased. [JAN. 24, 1837. But how is the fact? You have more than one hundred millions of acres of land, a large portion of it excellent land, constantly in market, and open to entry at $1 25 per acre; but there is not much speculation in purchasing this, and therefore these "poor men" that gentlemen speak of, seeking a home, pass it by, and go habitually to the lands that are not in market; and they will continue to do so, let you push your surveys and sales to whatever point you may. Then the improvements by which, under this bill, the squatters are permitted to gain a right to the land. We had that subject under consideration last year, and the proof was ample that, in a vast number of cases, I should think a majority of cases, the improvement was merely colorable, for the purpose of enabling the individual to get the land, but having nothing actual or substantial about it; and this bill requires no substantial occupation or cultivation. The individual, to give him a title to his pre-emption, must have "actually occupied and cultivated the tract for six months before the 1st of December, 1836." "Actually occupied and cultivated." How occupied? Not by residing on it; for that is not necessary to make an occupation in law, much less in the opinion of the two witnesses who are to make affidavit to the occupation. He may go on the ground, mark the trees if there be any, and burn a brush-heap, and continue to go upon it once a month for the six months, claiming to Occupy, and he will make out his occupancy. He must also "cultivate." This, I am told, is done by building a little pen of rails, and sowing oats or turnips or radishes upon ten or twelve square feet of ground; and thus the "actual settler” “occupies and cultivates," and becomes the meritorious recipient of your large bounty. My col league informs me that he travelled through a part of these public lands not long since, last summer, I believe, and he saw great numbers of these little pens, with something growing in them. I did not think to ask him whether they were square or triangular, built with three rails or four. [Mr. MORRIS. They were triangular, built with three rails. 1 Mr. EWING. I should have guessed so, for the econo my of labor is important, and the actual settler" could thus save one rail for the whole height of his pen-no small matter. But, after proving this occupancy and cultivation, these actual settlers sell their claim, at an adva vance of some two or three hundred dollars, to large capitalists, who have their agents always at hand, ready to purchase, and they go again beyond the survey, and "actually cultivate" another pen full of something that will grow in a shade, and sell again. Thus squatting be comes a regular profession. A gentleman lately from Chicago informs me that he knew a great number of the pre-emption claimants about that place some years ago, who got their claims allowed and shortly after disappear ed, he knew not where; but last summer, as he was going across the country to the Prairie du Chien, he found and recognised them as old acquaintances. They were on the fine lands upon Rock river, waiting to take advantage of the next pre-emption law. I do not say that this is the habit of all who squat upon the public land for the purpose of obtaining a pre-emption; I am aware that it is not; but it is the business of many, and most of the preemptions fall into and pass through the hands of those who are employed for the purpose by the large capitalist, or who go in advance of him, and cater for him. The pre-emption laws (for we have tried them for a few years past) have already produced a most fruitful crop of fraud and perjury, From papers sent each year to the Committee on Public Lands, it appears that in many cases even the pretence of possession or cultiva tion was not resorted to in order to get a pre-emption or a float, which could be laid on the finest land in the United States, the choicest and most commanding spots, and take them at $1 25 per acre. There was actually set up somewhere in Louisiana a manufactory of affida. vits, in which the whole proof, with the justice's certifi cate, and every thing else necessary for the commencement of the title, were forged, leaving a blank for the name of the occupant and the tract of land. There is now pending a case of a French settler by the name of Baubien, who, about the year 1804, got permission to put up his hut under the guns of the United States fort at Chicago. When the pre-emption law was passed, as the United States had not sold this fort, he claimed it as a pre-emption. He was several times refused, but at last his claim was admitted by the register and receiver, and he got his certificate; his application for a patent is now pending. I understand that the land he claims on this state of his case is worth more than a million of dollars. That in order to obtain an influence, and a power by which it should be secured, he has disposed of parts of it, on very cheap terms, to men of high political standing, wherever he could find them. A valuable part of it, I am told, is now owned by members of Congress, and God knows to what point this interest and influence may at last extend; far enough, I presume, to secure the emanation of a patent. It is a subject worthy the inquiry of a committee of Congress. [SENATE. but in opposition to them, and its object is to embarrass their operations and destroy their force. I had hoped, at the last session, that we had got clear of this pre-emption system, with all its mischiefs, and all its demoralization; but a desperate effort is now made to revive it, and, if once more revived, it is fastened upon us, and forever. When Mr. EWING had taken his seat, Mr. TIPTON said that, as the subject of the gradua tion of the public lands had been frequently discussed, be should not trouble the Senate with any remarks in support of the amendment, but would content himself by requesting that the vote be taken by yeas and nays. The yeas and nays having been ordered, and the question being about to be taken, Mr. CLAY said he should be glad to hear some reason advanced in behalf of a proposition which went to reduce the price of all the public lands, after having been in the market at the low price of $1 25, down to $1, and then to 75 cents. What was the complaint which had been so strenuously urged in behalf of the present bill? It was, that the public domain was selling too fast, and at prices so low that persons who did not want the land to settle upon were buying it up, in vast quantities, for purposes of speculation. What would present itself as the natural remedy for such a state of things? Surely it These pre-emption laws have not only produced vio-would be either to take the land out of the market, or to lence and bloodshed among those who strove as rivals for increase its price; for the Senate were told, by the ada choice spot; they have not only produced fraud, and vocates of the bill, that the land thus bought up was perjury, and corruption, but they have taught your citi- worth, at once, from $5 to $30 an acre. In the name of zens to despise your laws, to resist by violence their Heaven, then, why reduce the price? Had any reason due operation, and form great and extensive combina- been given for it? Were our new States settling too tions to oppose them. It is well known by those who slowly? On that question, he would call the attention have attended the sales of public lands in the Northwest, of the Senate to a table he had had occasion to compile that violence and intimidation are used at those sales, some years ago, exhibiting the ratio of settlement in the and in the presence of the officers of the United States, different States. The table was based on authentic reto put down competition. Men who are occupants, or turns, and it showed that, at that time, the lands in the pretend to be so, or who buy the privilege of coming in State of Illinois were settling at the rate of 18 per cent. as an occupant, (and I am told that any one may buy that per annum; so that her population, proceeding at that privilege of the association for five or ten dollars,) gath rate, would double itself in a little more than five years. er together in a group by the stand at the place of sale, At the same time, the State of Delaware was increasing and when a tract which they have selected is proclaimed, its population at the rate of one half of one per cent.; some one who has a good strong voice cries out, "pre- having the cheering prospect of doubling her population emption;" and then, wo to the man who ventures to bid in a period of two hundred years. Illinois was populafor it. It is, as a matter of course, struck off at $1 25 per ting more rapidly, at that time, than others of the new acre. Associations are now forming over the whole States; yet the table would show that the others apNorthwestern country, the object of which appears to be, proached to nearly the same ratio; and he thought it either to bind the law to the purpose of the combina- would be safe to say that Missouri, Arkansas, and Michition, or to put down law by numbers and organization, gan, were settling at a rate quite equal to it. if not by force. 1 hold in my hand the constitution and earthly motive, then, could there be to reduce the price by-laws of one of these societies, which was forwarded of the lands? Was it to bring in more settlers? No; me by a prominent member, accompanied by a letter, for these States were settling too fast already. There in which he seems to claim my approbation of its object. was great truth in what had been said on that subject by I hope it may be read. his friend from Ohio, [Mr. EwING,] who had remarked that, when vast numbers of people were suddenly collected from different quarters, and thrown into close neighborhood, having no previous connexion with each other, no common sympathies, no similarity of education, nothing homogeneous, to form a natural bond of union, the natural and necessary result must be struggles in le gislation, and a loose, unsettled state of society, for a long period. It must surely be admitted by every reflecting man, that the public lands were selling quite fast enough. Yet, here was a proposition made, and from that side of the House which complained that the public domain was selling too fast, and who wanted this bill to pass in order to check the sales of it, whose effect would be to The Secretary here read the paper alluded to, of which the following are two of the principal articles: "ART. 11th. Resolved, That before the land is offered for sale, each district shall select a bidder to stand and bid off all claims in the claimant's name, and that, if necessary, each settler will constantly attend the sale, prepared to aid each other to the full extent of our abil. ity in obtaining every claimant's land at Government price." "ART. 13th. Resolved, That we will each use our endeavors to advance the rapid settlement of the country, by inviting our friends and acquaintances to join us, under the full assurance that we shall obtain our rights, and that it is now perfectly as safe to go on improving the public lands as though we already had our titles from Government."] This requires no comment; it is a Government established in a Government-imperium in imperio. It does not profess to be subordinate to the laws of the Union, What accelerate those sales at a rate that none could estimate; for, even at the present rate of $1 25, twenty-five mil lions of acres had been sold within the last year; and now, should the price be reduced still lower, what must the effect be, but still further to enhance the temptation to monopoly? Mr. C. said that he had not risen to speak to the general merits of the bill, but merely to inquire on what reasons the amendment was founded. [JAN. 24, 1837. upon reasonable terms. But suppose, sir, after this reduction of the revenue, there should still be a surplus in the Treasury, what further is to be done? My answer Mr. DANA said: Mr. President, I do not arise to at- is ready. Modify the tariff; reduce the duties. But, tack or defend the speculators on the public domain, sir, we are told of the compromise. Dare you touch whether they be private individuals or belong to some the compromise? I have nothing to do with the comof the Departments. I leave the gladiatorial part of this promise. I have no faith in it. It is not an article in warfare to those who have weapons for it, and have inclimy creed. I do not subscribe to the doctrine, that one nation and skill to use them; nor do I intend to go at length Legislature can, by their acts, bind subsequent Legisla into the merits of this bill, but only express my views tures. If so, the one of 1834 could not only bind its sucon the objects of it, and on some of its provisions. Its cessors for five or ten years, but for all time; and if they objects are threefold: first, to check the inordinate thirst could bind them in regard to the tariff, they might upon of speculation, which has so generally prevailed through every other subject—a doctrine too absurd to be spoken the country, and which first arose from the extravagant of. But, sir, if the modification of the tariff in 1834 was issues of the United States Bank, (furnishing ready a judicious one for that time, and so continues to this, I means,) and afterwards practised in preying upon the would make but few alterations in it, unless it should be. public domain. The second object of the bill is to pre- come necessary, in order to reduce the revenue to the serve the public lands; and the third, to reduce the rev- wants of the Government; because sudden and extreme enue to the legitimate wants of the Government. By legislation is always injurious, and often dangerous. la the provisions of this bill, its first and second objects will the consideration of this subject, I would pay no regard be accomplished, and the revenue will be greatly dimin- to the motives or intentions which induced the comproished. But, sir, the sales of the public lands of late have mise; whether they were for good or for evil; whether been very great, and the revenue arising from them the object then was to save the nation from ruin, or equally so; and to stop them all at once would be neither individuals from a dilemma into which their rash and judicious nor just. Many of the new States bave vast headlong course had plunged them; but take up the subtracts of uncultivated lands, with a sparse population.ject, as we now find it, and reduce the duties on such They, doubtless, are anxious to see their territory set- and so many articles as we shall think best, in order to tled and cultivated. The support of their Governments, bring down the revenue to our wants. Prudence would as well as their strength and defence, depend upon it. seem to dictate that we should always be able to meet We cannot, therefore, expect that they will be willing unexpected and unavoidable occurrences, like the Into put a sudden and total check to the settlement of their dian war which has drawn millions from our Treasury. country; nor ought we to wish it. They are willing to These and similar wants we shall always be subject to. stop all speculations upon the public domain, and to re- And here, Mr. President, I would remind this honorable duce the revenue, but require that small tracts of land body, that while we are legislating upon this strange, may still be granted to actual settlers on easy terms. this unique subject, viz: the disposition of a surplus revThen, sir, the new States will continue to settle gradual- enue, a subject which before never occupied the attenly, and with a good population, from their own increase, tion of any other Legislature, from the days of Adam to or from the surplus population of the older States. the present, we should not forget that the Northeastern know, sir, that many are averse to having their sons and boundary line of this nation has not been settled. While, daughters go into the new world. They seem to think sir, our Treasury is overflowing, without a national debt, them lost to society and to their friends; but nothing is at peace with the whole world, and our foreign relations further from the truth. They may be as useful and hap established on the most firm and favorable basis, our terri py in the new as in the old States. Population is rapid- tory has been invaded, our citizens despoiled of their ly marching from the East to the West, and power is fol-rights, dragged from their homes, immured in foreign lowing in its train; these are facts which cannot be dis- jails. Nor is this all: a large part of the territory of one of guised or prevented. The great valley has heretofore, the States of this Union has been severed from the rest, undoubtedly, been the seat of empire, and is destined to and that constitutional protection which she has asked become so again. The Atlantic States will constitute has been withheld. A foreign Power has not only taken but a small part of this Union; and New England will be possession of it, but is making a thoroughfare from one but a speck upon our nation's map. What, then, shall be of her provinces to ano her. Provincial charters for a done? Shall we war against nature? Or pursue a wiser railroad have been granted, and these have been con. course-grant our lands, on reasonable terms, to actual firmed by their King-and no doubt, sir, before one year settlers, who will enter upon and cultivate them, and not passes, (unless force is interposed,) we shall see it made; debar the surplus population of the old States from crossand thus a permanent possession will be had by that Powing the Alleghany, and seeking in the vast regions of the er of an extensive and valuable portion of Maine, coverWest a more fertile soil and a warmer sun? They willed with forests of pines towering, as it were, to heaven, carry with them the enterprise, the activity, and perseverance, as well as the intelligence, the patriotism, and sound morality, of their fathers. And what have the East to fear from such a result? And better, far better, would it be for the West to have such a population, than to have their country flooded with the scum of the European population. Yes, sir, let the surplus population of the East flow to the West, and the sons of the Puritans and of Penn settle and inhabit that goodly land, and rear up 'a virtuous, enterprising, and intelligent race, to whom our liberties and the destiny of our republic may safely be committed. In this way, sir, the objects of this bill will be accomplished, wild speculation checked, the public domain secured, the revenue reduced, and the actual settlers and cultivators of the soil, the nerve and sinew of the country, its support in peace and its defence in war, be accommodated with settling lands only, and and not equalled by any in the Union; millions of which are annually swept off by the subjects of his Britannic Majesty. Thus, sir, we see our Union dismembered one of her States stripped of its sovereignty, despoiled of its possessions and wealth, and the dearest rights and privileges of its citizens trampled under foot. is not this aggression, insult, cause of war? Shall it be tamely submitted to? Shall Maine, sir, be tauntingly reminded of her wrongs by those who were the cause of them, and whose duty it was long since to have redressed them? Sir, the Governor of that State has, in his annual mes sage, called the attention of the Legislature to that subject, in a tone and with a spirit which cannot be mis taken, and soon there will be a legislative response: and then, sir, you may hear again from that border State, whose dearest interests have been too long neglected by this Government. This subject is directly connected |