serious obstacles to a system of internal improvement which Illinois is about undertaking. We, sir, of the West, know that it is difficult to make roads of considerable length, when a part of the line of communication leads through an extensive district of unsettled lands, which, contributing nothing in taxation towards the first expense, and nothing in labor to keep them in repair, leaves the whole burden to be borne by the prosperous but scattered settlements which lie at distant points on the route. This objection is applicable to any work of internal improvement which we may undertake in Illinois; nor shall we be able to exert the actual energy we possess, until our population shall acquire vigor by its compactness and continuity of settlement.

[SENATE.

refuse remaining unsold ought to be abandoned to the States, and the machinery of our land system entirely withdrawn." He says in his last annual message, in reference to the restriction of the sales of the public land to actual settlers, that it remains for Congress, if they approve the policy which dictated this order, (alluding to the Treasury circular,) to follow it up in its various bearings. Much good, in my judgment, would be produced by prohibiting sales of the public lands except to actual settlers, at a reasonable reduction of price, and to limit the quantity which shall be sold to them. Although it is believed the General Government ought not to receive any thing but the constitutional currency in exchange for the public lands, that point would be of less importance if the lands were sold for immediate settlement and cultivation. Indeed, there is scarcely a mischief arising out of our present land system, including the accumulating surplus of revenue, which would not be remedied at once by a restriction on land sales to actual settlers; and it promises other advantages to the country in general, and to the new States in particular, which cannot fail to receive the most profound consideration of Congress.'

The only practical remedy for this evil which occurs to my mind is the principle of reduction and graduation, which has been so often and so ably urged upon the consideration of this body. If, after the lands within a certain district have been offered for sale for a named period, (as has been so repeatedly presented in the shape of amendments to this bill, and as often defeated,) and the choice tracts have been sold, the price should be reduced as has been proposed, the tide of emigration would roll back, and other selections Sir, these sentiments emanated from a source entitled would be made, embracing as large sales as had previ- to our confidence-from the Executive of our country--ously been made. After another term of years had ex- from an enlightened and venerable patriot, whose emipired, a further reduction in the price would take place, nent services and unwavering love of country, and purity and the attention of the crowd of purchasers, who would of purpose, have won for him a popularity and fame be pressing towards the frontier, would be called back which have never been surpassed. Mr. President, I asto the lands which they had but recently passed over. sume the position that the public land States are entitled to At every reduction, the intrinsic value of the land would more indulgent and magnanimous legislation at the hands be developed, and new sales consequently effected. The of Congress than many honorable Senators seem dis United States would thus rapidly dispose of her lands, posed to extend towards them. The perils, privations, and instead of encouraging the expansion of her territory, sufferings, of those who preceded us into the wilderness, and the diffusion of her citizens, which are already who have performed the work of reclamation by opentaking place, and must continue to do so, under the ing roads and farms, building houses and bridges, in the operation of a variety of active causes. She would bal-preparation of the country for (perhaps) a less meritorious ance, control, and regulate that tendency which is but more wealthy class of citizens, and in the creation of driving our population, with undue rapidity, beyond the the necessary facilities of easy and convenient intercomborders of our States, and would commence a process munication, constitute, in my poor opinion, considerations which would soon produce a more compact and vigor of great merit, and should have a marked influence on ous settlement of the country. The last period of re- the action of Congress in all questions touching the induction having arrived, little or no land would be found terest of the actual settler. Sir, these much-abused in the market, and the Senate would then have the frontier settlers form a distinctive class of men, little unproud satisfaction of witnessing the consummation of a derstood by their transmontane brethren. Proud and protracted act of justice to the public land States. It independent, generous and hospitable to a fault, brave would see those States placed on an equality with their without consciousness of danger, they raise up a bulelder sisters of the confederacy, and in the possession wark between the denser portions of our population and enjoyment of all the rights, privileges, and immu and the incursions of the savage! Standing as constant nities, of the original States; your federal offices within sentinels on the outposts of the country, daily accustomtheir limits removed, and the anxious care of the General ed to scenes of peril and privation, they acquire a charGovernment over the public domain forever cease. acter for daring and courage that no danger can appal, and which belong to no other class of men. Free from all the vices of populous communities, and their conse

It is to me no small recommendation of this salutary measure, that it has received the decided approbation of our venerated and patriotic Chief Magistrate.quent temptations, we hear of few or no instances of In his message of December, 1832, he remarked: "In examining this question, all local and sectional feelings should be discarded, and the whole United States regarded as one people, interested alike in the prosperity of their common country. It cannot be doubted that the speedy settlement of those lands constitutes the true interest of the republic. The wealth and strength of a country is its population, and the best part of that pop. ulation are the cultivators of the soil." In his message of the 4th of December, 1833, he says: "On the whole, I adhere to the opinion expressed by me in my annual message of 1832, that it is our true policy that the public lands should cease, as soon as possible, to be a source of revenue." And again: "I do not doubt that it is the real interest of each and all the States in the Union, and particularly of the new States, that the price of their lands should be reduced and graduated; and, after they have been offered for a certain number of years, the

crime amongst them. What stranger, that ever visited the log cabin of our pioneers, was not safer in his person and property than in the sumptuous abodes of the rich, surrounded by the votaries of luxury and vice? Where is the instance that he did not receive a heartfelt wel. come to all the hospitalities of his humble hearth, and when he departed went forth with the blessings of its inmates? Sir, the person and property of the stranger, I repeat, are more sacred in the log cabin of the borderman, than in the marble mansion of the rich and mighty. The public land States occupy a position of great danger and exposure. An exasperated and barbarous enemy prowl upon our frontier, extending over a distance that would cover more than half the kingdoms of Europefrom Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. It is now the settled policy of Government to establish all the interior Indians on this line of frontier. Are we sure of exemption for a month at a time from alarms of Indian

depredations, on this almost interminable frontier? No, sir. The war cry of the fierce Sac on our Northwestern frontier had scarcely been hushed into silence by the courage of my constituents, and the gallant miners under their brave leaders, when the savage yell of the marauding Seminoles proclaimed war on the frontiers of

Florida.

Can we reasonably expect this state of things to change for the better? Or should we not rather apprehend in creased dangers from the extension of our frontier and the continual accumulation of the Indians on our borders? It is true, we of Illinois have no longer an Indian frontier; but long, very long, will be the time before we can forget our sympathies for our brethren of those States who are exposed. Who, sir, have, and will ever have, to fight our frontier battles, but the citizens of those States and Territories occupying that frontier? Who are more willing to interpose the strong arm of their protection than they? None, sir; they have always fought our Indian battles, and will have to continue to do so. And who, sir, when a civilized Power, forgetful of its propriety, makes war upon us, are the first to rally under their country's standard? Let the victorious fields of the Thames and New Orleans answer.

Besides, sir, the general inability of the frontier settler to pay a greater than the Government minimum price for its lands, taken in connexion with their important services in the primitive settlement of the country, constitute strong claims upon the more generous legislation of this body.

[FEB. 2, 1837.

that no force dare attempt to suppress them by violence. But enact now and continue in force a liberal and just system of law in relation to the public domain and rights of the actual settler, and these conventions of the settlers will cease to exist, and in a few years be among the for. gotten things.

Who are these actual settlers, whom I boast of as being my constituents? They are men respectable in all the relations of life. As farmers, as mechanics, physi cians, teachers, ministers of the gospel, &c., men engaged in the honest pursuits of agriculture, building up towns and villages, establishing schools and churches, creating all the various of machinery of intelligent and respectable society, men having regard for the maintenance of good order in society, of elevated morality--yes, ele. vated morality; that is the word--and anxious for the promotion of the intellectual and moral culture of those around them, and those that are to come after them. These, sir, in brief, are the men that constitute my actualsettler constituency; and moreover, sir, they are men that know their rights, and, knowing them, are determined to maintain them; and it is these, too, that compose these associations, of which some Senators seem to entertain such a holy horror, and about which you have so much embellished declamation from every quarter of this chamber. Mr. President, it has been charged that those of my constituents who attended the late sale at Chicago entered into private and unlawful combinations, for the declared purpose of putting down competition at the sales. Sir, the imputation is unfounded. They did, it is con. We have heard iterated and reiterated complaints of fessed, unite with one another for mutual protection and combinations amongst the actual settlers; we have been the security of their property against the rapacity of the favored with the reading of their articles of association land robbers, who infested every avenue to the office, at the Secretary's desk; gentlemen declare that these like the frogs of Egypt. Thus far they went, and no combinations and associations are formed for the avowed farther, and this I have always considered a most praiseobject of setting at defiance your laws and Treasury regu-worthy act; I stand here their vindicator for it. lations in relation to the sale of the public lands. If this It is equally incorrect that, after having secured their be so, allow me to inquire, is it wise legislation to refuse pre-emption claims at these sales, the same purchasers to pass a law, the enactment of which would prevent the rose up like hordes of Tartars, and pitched their enviolation of existing laws, and avoid the recurrence of campments upon the beautiful plains of Rock river. Not those deprecated consequences? Is it conformable to so, sir; I am happy to have it in my power to state that your views of common sense and common justice to re- this incomparably fertile and healthful region is now fuse the re-enactment of a law (the pre-emption principle covered by a fresh set of emigrants, composed of some of this bill, for instance) because that law has been in of the most useful and intelligent constituents of Senators some instances set at defiance and its provisions evaded from all the Northern and Middle States; and I mention by the wicked and vicious? To refuse your assent to it as one of the many instances of the unparalleled the provisions of a bill that would make glad the hearts rapidity with which the West, and especially Illinois, is of ten thousand meritorious and good men, because settling and improving. Scarcely had the footstep of the some half dozen unprincipled individuals had made for- hostile Sac been obliterated, or the smoke of the last tunes by the evasion of these principles, and the com- watch fire disappeared from view in the distant horizon, mission of perjury? Sir, I flatter myself, not, I trust, when the Northern hive poured down its best population with the vain hope, that this honorable body will be gov- upon us. It is these, and not those who purchased their erned by more elevated views in its legislation on a sub- lands at the Chicago sales, that now inhabit the Rock ject so vitally interesting to so large a portion of these river country. But they are the same in all that constiStates. Pass this bill, and these much-abused associations tutes the character of good citizens and useful members will dissolve into their original elements; they will no of society. The one, however, is secure in the legal oclonger exist. Give the actual settler but the poor privi-cupancy of his rightful possessions, whilst the other is lege of pre-emption to a quarter section of your bound- anxiously awaiting the action of this Legislature for the less domain, embracing his domicil, and, as far as it will extension of its long-established munificent policy to go, his improvements; then you will no longer hear of them, for the security of their dearest interests. these unlawful associations, as gentlemen are pleased to call them. Do but this, then the actual settlers will cease to demand six hundred and forty acres or more.

In the absence of some law securing to the actual settler his improvements, which he acquired under circumstances of great privation and hardship, these associations will continue to exist until every acre of the two hundred millions that you now vauntingly boast the possession of will have been sold, and until the last acre of another two hundred millions is bought and sold; nay, sir, until the last fraction on the Pacific is disposed of. They have existed ever since the national domain has been national property; and such is their moral power,

Mr. President, there are provisions in the bill now under consideration which I think restrictive in the extreme, and which I feel certain will not be acceptable to the settlers on the public lands; but I am equally certain, from repeated efforts made pending this protracted dis cussion, that the objectionable portions of the bill cannot be stricken out, without endangering its passage. It here. fore feel disposed to yield my objections to the vicious parts, in order that the good may be retained. Let it go be fore the people. Let it undergo the ordeal of their scruti ny; and if they reject it, then will it be the duty of Congress to repeal the obnoxious provisions, and give us a more equitable and liberal system of law on this subject.

Mr. President, I again repeat that the legislation of Congress is not of that fair and equitable character towards the public land States that their wants and interests demand. All the old States in the Union, on their introduction into the great federal family, were invested with the attributes of sovereign power over all their internal affairs: they were imbued with authority to levy and collect taxes upon every species of property within their respective jurisdictions, for the maintenance of Government, and for whatsoever other legitimate purpose the legislative authority may devise. But not so with the public land States. They have heretofore been, and are now, admitted into the national fraternity manacled in every limb, and bound in fetters of paralyzing restriction. Your General Government, the influence of which is yet in the hands of the old States, and whose policy is directed by them, still retains its property in the public domain within our limits, and is every day exercising the power of making disposition of it, and laughs at all our efforts to place ourselves on an equality with them, as vain and impotent; thus leaving the public land States with a curtailed and limited sovereignty over the soil. If you, in your boasted bounty, set apart a section of land in each township in those States, for the most praiseworthy and commendable purpose of education, the otherwise munificent grant is made in consideration of ample equivalents. You will not permit us to receive an accession of a single emigrant, unless we yield our exemption of five years' taxation. This exemption is the bonafide condition upon which we receive the emigrant. Your policy is to sell your lands, and you compel us to bestow this boon, in order to enable you so to do, and before he is permitted to pass our limits and reside among us.

[SENATE.

parent States are moving in myriads to the fair valley of the Mississippi; whole communities rise up, as it were by common consent, and quit the father land, seeking homes in the West, taking with them much of our mechanical skill, useful industry, and wealth. This state of things must be checked, say they, and they act accordingly.

Every question affecting the interest of the public land States seems to me to be contested here with an unusual and most extraordinary pertinacity. Touch not the public domain, is the battle cry of the enemies of relief measures. It is a nation's richest treasure, bestowed by the immortal Old Dominion, the father of the republic, for the general good--for the whole people, and not for any particular part or portion of them.

Sir, are we doomed forever to endure this abject state of vassal dependence on the bountiful legislation of Con gress, for the rights which common sense and rigid juslice demand for us? Who will undertake to say that the new States do now enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities, of the old States? Sir, we cannot make a road from one county seat to another, without trespassing upon the public domain; we cannot pass the threshold of our humble domicil, without incurring the guilt of punishable trespass. We can go nowhere, build bridges across none of our watercourses, without obstructing Uncle Sam's highways, or building an abutment against and upon some portion of his endless domain. We dare not levy a tax upon nine tenths of the soil within our limits. We must wait the tardy and lingering policy of the Government, in making its sales of those lands, and then wait an additional five years, before the legislative authority of the State can reach them.

The federal authority adopts its system of laws in relation to its lands, and enforces them within our jurisdiction; whilst the State, with all becoming humility, must wait in patient servility until the contingency of sale takes place, and the five years' probation shall have passed away, before her jurisdiction accrues. And thus this humiliating process continues from year to year, the new States every day arriving nearer and nearer to induction within the pale of the constitution, until eventually, after a lapse of twenty, thirty, and forty years, perhaps, we are safely moored within the protection of the guns of the constitution; and we step in, and take our place, in our old age, among the federal family, on an equal footing, in all respects, with our elder brothers.

When Mr. EWING had concluded,

At the suggestion of Mr. WHITE, Mr. BENTON moved that the Senate adjourn, and that the amendment be printed, which was agreed to; and The Senate adjourned.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3.

If you grant a new State any land for the purpose of constructing a railroad or canal, no matter whether it be a national or local work, you are right sure to do it in such manner and under such restrictions as to secure to yourself the benefit of the grant. You most gracious ly bestow on us every alternate tract, whether it be of swamp, barren, prairie, rocks, or mountains. We, your most grateful donees, proceed in the establishment of the work, and with millions of additional cost complete some stupendous project of internal improvement, and thereby render your barren rocks and lagoons and desert prairie all saleable, and thus give a value to your property which no time or other circumstances could possibly have given it. Most gracious munificence this! If out of our own resources we improve the navigation of a river, if we drain a pond, we are giving a positive value to much of your property, which otherwise would be totally worthless. Every farm we open, every house we build, every town and village which springs up on your boundless domain, creates a value in thousands of contiguous acres, hitherto without any, or offering any inducement to the purchaser. Thus it is you receive for your vaunted princely gratuities equiv. Mr. DAVIS, from the Committee on Commerce, to alents and benefits absolutely amounting to speculations. whom was referred the Senate bill No. 79, made a writSir, I repel the declaration so often repeated here, that ten report, accompanied with a substitute for the bill; the public land States have received "princely gratuities" which substitute suspended, for one year, the tax of 20 in lands from Government. We have received no cents each on American seamen, for a hospital fund, and gratuities without corresponding benefits, and, in some appropriated $150,000, for one year, in lieu thereof, to instances, ten-fold equivalents. But, sir, instead of be paid from the Treasury. The report was accompani gratuities, there has been doled out to us a most parsi-ed with the following resolutions, calling on the Secremonious and niggardly legislation on all questions of retary of the Treasury for information on the subject: lief in any wise touching the public lands, or those occupying them. Your policy, hitherto, has been to encourage, by all practical means, the settlement of those lands; and the imposition of the inhibition against taxation for a limited period of time was among others held out as an inducement to emigration. Now, the policy seems to be changed. Gentlemen complain that the public lands are settling too fast; the redundant population of the VOL. XIII.-44

SICK AND DISABLED SEAMEN.

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be instructed to ascertain what it will cost to erect three hospitals, of suitable dimensions, for the relief of sick and disabled seamen and watermen upon the waters of the Mississippi river, at the most suitable places for that purpose; also, what it will cost to erect the same number, if needed, on the most important points of the Atlantic and

Gulf coasts.

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be further instructed to draw up the project of a law to regulate the disbursement of funds for the relief of sick and disabled seamen, and for the government of hospitals erected for that purpose.

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be instructed to enumerate those posts and places in the United States where, because suitable accommodations for the sick cannot be obtained, or from any other cause, there is a strong necessity for hospitals, and to make report upon this and the other instructions in these resolu tions at the next session of Congress.

Mr. DAVIS, after the reading of the report, asked for the immediate consideration of these resolutions; which requiring the unanimous consent of the Senate, Mr. CALHOUN, who had not heard the report, expressed the wish that the resolutions might lie one day on the table.

[FEB. 3, 1837.

and economy, and had been disbursed under the direc tion of the Government. But there had been no law on the subject, though the committee thought it was best that it should be regulated by law.

Now, all Mr. D. proposed by the resolutions before the Senate was an inquiry as to the expense of erecting three hospitals on the Western waters, and three on the Atlantic coast, and so many he was sure were needed. He did not propose now to commit the Government to any course of policy. In the bill there was indeed a proposition to change the policy for a single year; but the Government then retained the matter in its own hands, to pursue such a course as might be found expedient and proper. The passage of these resolutions was as much wanted, if the bill should not pass, as if it should.

Mr. CALHOUN said he knew the resolutions did not involve the principle to which he objected, but the bill did; and it was his design now to give notice that he should, therefore, oppose it. He agreed with the Sena tor that seamen were a meritorious class, and that they were not importunate on Congress. They would not do the mischief, but the persons interested in erecting and

Mr. DAVIS briefly explained the nature and objects of the bill and the resolutions, remarking that the bill was designed to supply the deficiency in the interim, while Congress might obtain the requisite information, and mature and adopt some proper system on the sub-conducting the hospitals. Mr. C. again insisted that ject.

Mr. CALHOUN said he understood this to be the commencement of a change in the system, as heretofore existing, by which the hospital fund was supplied by a tax on scamen. He believed that the great and prevailing disease of the times was centralism here; and he was utterly opposed to any thing which would tend to increase it. As soon as the system of affording relief to seamen from the Treasury should commence, there would be no limitation; and he would, therefore, give his protest in advance against the measure proposed by the bill. He was opposed to opening all sluices to further expenses of the Government, as tending to corrupt the public morals, and to endanger our institutions.

The burden (Mr. C. maintained) of relieving sick and disabled seamen did not fall on the seamen themselves, but on the particular branch of business in which they are employed, by which it ought to be borne; otherwise it would become, like harbors on the lakes, and lightbouses, an improper burden upon Congress.

Mr. DAVIS said that he was not exactly willing that the measure should go off under such an impression. The gentleman from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN,] he thought, would withdraw his objection, if he had paid better attention to the subject. The hospital tax, Mr. D. maintained, fell on the wages of the sailor; and the Senator would agree with him that no class required a higher degree of protection, or were more worthy and meritorious; and no class asked less of the Government. When did the Senator know a sailor to ask for any thing? Mr. D. had not known an instance in which a sailor had asked for a pension or any other grant. He would call the attention of the Senator to a notable case, the destruction of the Philadelphia. While a large number of people engaged in that portion of the service had been for a number of years asking Congress for something, it had never been done by a sailor; it had been demanded by their representatives, and not by themselves.

But all this had nothing to do with this matter. It was thought that something ought to be done for this class of persons on the Western waters, exposed to the peculiar diseases of that region, far away from their friends and the means of comfort. In order to effect this purpose, a tax of twenty cents each had been laid upon their wages by Congress. The Government had not been so liberal as the Senator supposed. The tax, indeed, proved inad equate to the purpose, and the Government had every year appropriated more or less; not much, but enough to cover the expenses. The fund had been conducted, as far as Mr. D. was able to ascertain, with prudence

though the tax imposed on scamen was taken in the first place from their wages, it ultimately fell on the branch of business in which they were engaged; and the interest concerned ought to pay the expense. The patronage of the Government, he maintained, ought not to be extended. He saw no reason why the Government should pay the expense of sickness in one branch of business more than in another. They might just as well pay such expense in the cultivation of sugar, or rice, or cotton. The tendency of the Government was already to the destruction of liberty, and he was opposed to every thing that would give impulse to that tendency. He had no objection to the resolutions, but hoped the bill would

not receive the sanction of the Senate.

Mr. DAVIS said he thought there was a very wide difference between the cases which the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. CALHOUN] had made parallel. Legislation in regard to seamen commenced with the existence of this Government, and was intimately connected with the subject of commerce, which was wholly subject to the legislation of Congress; and one leading object in this connexion had been to cherish the employ ment of seamen, as necessary to the defence of the coun try; and on this same account a preference had been giv en to American seamen, in contradistinction from foreign. ers. Was there no difference between extending protection to these men, far from home, destitute of the means of comfort, and not addicted to laying up their wages, and those men who lived on plantations, directly surrounded with the means of health and comfort? And were the two classes equally important in providing for the defence of the country?

Mr. NICHOLAS moved to amend the resolutions by inserting the Gulf," in connexion with "the Atlantic." Mr. DAVIS thought it was unimportant; the Gulf was a part of the Atlantic, and the insertion of it might lead to the enumeration of bays and inlets.

Mr. NICHOLAS preferred that it should be noticed more distinctly; and the amendment was accordingly adopted.

The resolutions, as amended, were then adopted.

PUBLIC LANDS.

The Senate resumed the consideration of the land bill; and the question being on Mr. NORVELL'S motion to reconsider the vote by which the Senate bad refused to strike out the 8th section of the bill, it was taken by yeas and nays, and decided in the negative, as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Benton, Black, Ewing of Illinois, Ful ton, Grundy, King of Alabama, Linn, Lyon, Moore,