could not be prepared for service during the present year.

On motion of Mr. SOUTHARD, corresponding reductions were made in other amendments.

The bill was then reported to the Senate as amended. Mr. HILL asked for the ayes and noes on the first amendment, which increases the appropriation for the pay of the navy from $1,974,178 91 to $2,544,338 16, and they were ordered.

The question was then taken on concurring in the amendment, and decided as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Benton, Black, Brown, Buchanan, Clayton, Cuthbert, Davis, Ewing of Illinois, Goldsborough, Grundy, Hendricks, Hubbard, King of Alabama, Knight, Leigh, Linn, McKean, Mangum, Morris, Nicholas, Niles, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Robbins, Robinson, Ruggles, Shepley, Southard, Swift, Tipton, Tomlinson, Walker, Webster, White, Wright-37.

NAYS-Messrs. Ewing of Ohio, Hill, King of Geor gia, Moore, Naudain-5.

The other amendments were then concurred in. Mr. HILL moved to reconsider the vote by which the amendment appropriating money for an exploring expedition was agreed to; but the motion was negatived. The question being on the engrossment of the amendment,

Mr. HILL asked the ayes and noes; which were ordered.

The question was then taken, and decided in the af firmative: Yeas 44, nay 1.

FLORIDA WAR.

Mr. WEBSTER, from the Committee on Finance, reported, without amendment, a bill from the House making further appropriations for the suppression of hostilities in Florida, and asked of the Senate to act on the bill at this time.

The bill was then considered, and ordered to a third reading.

A bill from the House, authorizing the President of the United States to accept the services of volunteers in certain cases, and also of mounted riflemen, was read twice, and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs.

Mr. WHITE moved the Senate to proceed to the consideration of executive business, for the purpose of considering important business, which ought to have been acted on.

Mr. CLAY stated that he had been unable to read the voluminous papers which belong to this matter, but expected he should be able to get through by to-morrow or the day after.

After a few words from Mr. CALHOUN, of similar import, the motion was negatived.

LAND BILL.

The bill to appropriate for a limited time the proceeds of the sales of the public lands among the States, and to grant lands to certain States, was taken up as the order of the day.

Mr. BENTON moved to postpone the bill, for the purpose of taking up the bill making appropriations for fortifications.

Mr. B. would take the sense of the Senate in the most formal manner on this mode of proceeding with the business of the country. It was now the end of the fifth month of the session, and scarcely a bill for the service of the country had yet been passed. He had been fifteen years a member of the Senate, and had never seen the parallel of it before. Not to go into the enumeration of the immense number of bills lying upon the tables, and not acted upon, here was the fortification bill, reported in January from the Military Committee, and not yet

[ArniL 27, 1836.

acted upon, although there were no appropriations for fortifications last year. The Senate and the House had both engaged in ample discussions, to show who was in fault for the failure of the fortification bill last year; no such discussion would be necessary to show who occasioned the virtual defeat of it this year. Mr. B. considered the fortification bill for the present year as virtually defeated. The year would be half out before the appropriations would be ready; and by that time the season for work in the South would be gone by; and in the Middle and North, workmen and laborers would be engaged for the season; and the United States would find it difficult to obtain laborers, and be under the necessity of paying enhanced prices for them.

His present motion was intended to bring things to an issue; it was to have the sense of the Senate formally taken upon the question of proceeding with the fortification bill; and therefore he should move, and should ask the yeas and nays upon it, to postpone the land distribution bill for a week, and in the mean time to proceed with the fortification bill, and afterwards with all the bills for appropriations and for the defence of the country. The distribution bill was now the antagonist, not of fortifications only, but of every bill for the service of the country. It was the antagonist of every bill that tended to diminish the mass of money for distribution. Many were the bills which had already suffered under it; too many to be enumerated; but the fate of one, that of the Cumberland road bill, was too striking in itself, and too clearly characteristic of the distribution policy, and its effects upon the country, to be overlooked. This bill was to carry on the oldest and best-established work of internal improvement in the country; one resting upon compact, and sanctioned by every administration from Mr. Jefferson's time to the present day. This road was to go to the Mississippi, at the least, and appropriations for it were brought in early in the session. What was the fate of that appropriation? A sacrifice to the distribution scheme! It was resisted for many weeks, the amount reduced, and a determination openly announced to discontinue the only thing that could give it any value, that of making it permanent by Macadamizing or gravelling. Thus the Cumberland road has fallen a victim and a sacrifice to the distribution spirit; and the fate of that bill is to be the fate of many more. At pres ent the fortifications are to suffer, and may be consid ered as defeated for this year. Thus far nothing has been done; all bills for the service of the country have been delayed and postponed; all the heavy appropriations have been kept back, and for a purpose which is perfectly understood in this chamber, and ought to be understood by the country. It is to make a surplus? It is to make a fictitious, delusive, and unreal surplus, to excite the cupidity of distributees, and to form the new rallying point of the same party which has had the career of so many new projects and changes in a few years past. They now proclaim a surplus of thirty mil lions in the Treasury; and how have they got it there? By stopping the appropriations; by delaying every bill that they can; by cutting down every appropriation to the lowest dollar! By these tactics, they have succeeded in damming up the money in the Treasury, while the business of the country has stopped for want of that money. Every branch of service is suffering for want of the money now in the Treasury, and which is ridiculously called surplus, while the officers of the Government are in vain calling for it. Mr. B. said that every person knew, or might, that officers were borrowing money, or getting public money without law, from banks, to carry on the public business, while Senators here are proclaiming a surplus of thirty millions, and absolutely refusing to go on with appropriation bills, and giving all their time and all their pathetic eloquence to the

was in possession of said tract proposed to be entered, or cultivating the adjacent tract.

Mr. CLAY observed that the proposition of the Senator from Illinois [Mr. ROBINSON] was to reduce the price of all lands which have been in the market twenty years, down to fifty cents per acre, making a reduction of ten per cent. every year for a period of five years. The proposition of the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. WALKER] was to confine the proposed reduction to what he considered actual settlers. He must repeat, that he had the most insuperable objections to any alteration of the existing prices of the public lands. According to the proposition of the Senator from Mississippi, the person making the entry must file an affidavit of his intention to settle and cultivate the land. Now, who could know what any man's intention was; or how could it be proved, should he violate his contract, that it was not his intention, at the time of making the affidavit, to fulfil it? Could he not say that such was his intention, and that he changed his mind? It was true that the patent would not issue for three years, yet that would not prevent the person making the entry from getting it, even if he did not settle and cultivate the land. He believed that the effect of the introduction of the principle of graduation would be this: it would throw the question of reduction before the new States, which would continually agitate them with hopes of further reduction. The question of reduction would be brought into the elections, and candidates would build their hopes on it. If they looked to the land sales, they would find there was no reason for reduction, as they had increased to such an extent that they would this year amount to twenty-four millions. There was no earthly motive for the reduction, as respected the sales and the consequent settlement of the public lands. The new States were increasing at a ratio of 87 per cent. in a term of 13 years, while the old States were increasing only two and a half per cent. Indeed, some new States were increasing at the rate of 18 per cent. per annum, and Mississippi was increasing at a still greater ratio. The settlement of the public lands was sufficiently rapid for all safe and salutary purposes, and for the well-being of the new States themselves. Any plan of the reduction of prices would only tend to increase speculation, and the interests of the new States, as well as the old, were actually opposed to it.

Mr. WHITE said if the gentleman would modify his motion, so as to require the person declaring his intention to settle to be the head of a family, to make an actual settlement on the land, and to continue to reside upon and cultivate it for three years, with a provision that it shall be forfeited to the Government if he removed or transferred the land within that period, he would vote for it; otherwise he must be compelled to vote against both the amendment of the Senator from Illinois and that of the Senator from Mississippi.

Mr. WALKER replied that, if the Senator from Tennessee would confine his restriction on the settler to one year, he would agree to it. It would be a hard condition on the settler to compel him to reside three years on the land before getting his title. He wished the amendment to apply not merely to the actual settlement, but to the actual settlement and cultivation. He thought that a cultivator who resided on a small tract, and wished to increase his cultivation by entering the adjoining tract, should be permitted to do so.

Mr. ROBINSON could not give his assent to the amendment of the Senator from Mississippi, because it would produce injurious effects, and was not at all necessary, because his amendment went on the principle that the lands that had been in the market for twenty years were not worth more than one dollar per acre. He did not know how it was in the other States, but he knew that in Illinois it was better for a man to give $1 25

[APRIL 27, 1836.

for fresh lands, than to have these refuse lands given him for nothing. The reduction was so gradual and so small that he was surprised that any objections had been made to it. There was no inducement for any human being to enter these lands for any purpose whatever, except actual settlement and cultivation. His plan would offer no inducements whatever to speculation, and he hoped that this moderate reduction, so long asked for by the new States, would be made.

Mr. PORTER said that the amendment was only intended to secure the rights of the poorer class of persons who might make settlements on the public lands, and he would therefore vote for it.

The question was here taken on Mr. WALKER'S amendment, and it was lost.

The question then recurring on Mr. ROBINSON'S amendment, Mr. EWING, of Ohio, suggested to him that he would obtain more favor for it by adding the words "twelve and a half" after the word " dollar;" which Mr. R. agreed to, and modified his amendment accord. ingly.

Mr. WHITE moved to amend the amendment by providing that the person making the entry should be the head of a family, and continue to reside on the land for three years before receiving his patent, and that in case he removes from or transfers the land, it shall revert to the United States; prefixing to it the first part of Mr. WALKER'S amendment.

After some remarks from Mr. WALKER,

Mr. PORTER observed that he did not want to enter into a discussion with the Senator from Mississippi as to the relative merits of Mississippi and Louisiana. He only rose to notice some remarks of the gentleman, which deserved the most serious consideration. The policy of the Government had been to remove the Indians from the new States, and to throw them on the frontiers; and had he known as much when this policy was first put into operation, he would have protested against it with all his might. The Indians had been taken from the places where nature intended them to be, and cast upon the borders of his State, from whence, in time, they might prove a source of the most serious annoyance and danger. They were now in such numbers upon the frontiers, that it only required some master spirit among them-some Tecumseh-to stir up a war which would carry blood and desolation from the Mississippi to the banks of the Sabine.

Mr. LINN returned thanks to his honorable friend from Louisiana for coming to his aid, and for the opinions expressed on this occasion. Yes, sir, a genius of the commanding character of Tecumseh, possessing a mind to concur, and a hand to execute, could form combinations among the discordant elements that would set that whole border in a blaze. They are our hereditary enemies, and we may expect such combinations. From the moment the foot of the first white man touched the soil of this continent, a system of injustice and aggression commenced towards the Indians, which has been persevered in and perfected, until they find themselves on the confines of the great western plains, far from their homes and the graves of their fathers. Their hatred, therefore, is natural. But the laws governing population can no more be stayed than the tides of the ocean. Cain slew Abel, and the farmer will ever possess power over the hunter or herdsman. The Indians are therefore a doomed race; treat them with all the kindness and humanity in your power, and to this melancholy complexion it must come at last. To relieve the old States from the evils of their presence, they have been placed along the western line of frontier. Against the danger to us of their existence there, you will surely not refuse us protection, ample protection. But should Congress, in a moment of delusion, refuse, we will be com

pelled, reluctantly compelled, to resort to the first law of our nature, necessity, for protection. Should the hour of trial come, we will be forced either to kill off your Indians, or by reversing the kind and humane policy of the Government which has ever exerted its influence to prevent collisions between the different tribes, excite them to kill each other off. It will be for Congress to say whether either horn of the dilemma should be presented us. He said he found himself wandering from the object which induced him to obtrude himself on the notice of the Senate. He rose merely to state, that for months previous to the celebrated Black Hawk having crossed the Mississippi to commence the war which afterwards raged, he had despatched emissaries to every tribe from the Mississippi to the Sabine, with a view to form combinations, and holding out inducements to the different tribes, to make a simultaneous attack on the whole line of frontier. He said, from the information which had been imparted to him, and which came from a source every way to be relied on, he felt himself perfectly justified in asserting that if Black Hawk had gained a decisive battle, such an assault would have been made, the consequences of which would have been such as to harrow up every feeling of the soul.

That such combinations will take place, no reasonable thinking man will permit himself to doubt. If, when the Indians resided in the very heart of many of the States, surrounded by a white population, they broke through all restraints and commenced war, what may we not expect from them in their present position? Why, sir, we may expect, whenever it suits their thirst for plunder or revenge, to have our exposed borders attacked, our women and children to pass under the tomahawk and scalping-knife, and our property destroyed. They can burn, plunder, and destroy; and if met at length by an overpowering force, they can fly to the boundless plains behind them, where they can sustain themselves on the countless herds of buffalo that roam over these plains, until such period as they may think proper to renew the attack.

Nothing, at some future day, will prevent this state of things, but the presence of a force sufficiently great to overawe the disaffected, and restrain the unruly. The presence of such force is due to them from humanity, and to us from justice. He said that, previous to his arrival here, this subject had excited his attention; and among the first measures proposed by him was, a depot of arms, a military road from the Mississippi to Fort Gibson, and an increase of the military forces of the United States. On the latter subject, (on a call made by him,) the Secretary at War had sent to the Senate an elaborate and interesting report, recommending an increase of the army, on which the Military Committee reported a bill. When that bill comes up for consideration, he would, perhaps, take part in the discussion, and give his opinions more at large.

On taking the question, Mr. WHITE's amendment was lost: Yeas 20, nays 21, as follows:

YEAS--Messrs. Benton, Buchanan, Crittenden, Hendricks, King of Alabama, Knight, Linn, McKean, Mangum, Moore, Nicholas, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Ruggles, Shepley, Swift, Walker, Webster, White--20.

NAYS-Messrs. Black, Brown, Calhoun, Clay, Davis, Ewing of Illinois, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Grundy, Hill, Hubbard, Kent, Morris, Naudain, Niles, Rives, Robbins, Robinson, Southard, Tallmadge, Tomlinson-21.

The question was then taken on Mr. ROBINSON's amendment, and it was rejected; as follows:

YEAS--Messrs. Benton, Black, Davis, Ewing of Illinois, Ewing of Ohio, Grundy, Hendricks, King of Alabama, Linn, Moore, Morris, Nicholas, Porter, Robinson, Walker, Webster--16.

[SENATE.

NAYS--Messrs. Brown, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay, Clayton, Crittenden, Goldsborough, Hill, Hubbard, Kent, King of Georgia, Knight, Leigh, McKean, Mangum, Naudain, Niles, Preston, Prentiss, Rives, Robbins, Shepley, Southard, Swift, Tallmadge, Tomlinson, White--27.

The bill was then reported to the Senate; and the amendments made in committee being concurred in, Mr. BROWN here moved to strike out that part of the bill which gives the ten per cent. fund to the new States.

Mr. MANGUM did not like the provision in relation to Missouri and the other new States. He thought it gave them more than they were justly entitled to. But he had made up his mind to vote for it on the principle of a compromise. But if taken out of this bill, he would not vote for it in a separate bill.

On taking the question, Mr. BROWN's motion was rejected by the following vote:

YEAS--Messrs. Brown, Buchanan, Cuthbert, Hill, Hubbard, King of Georgia, McKean, Mangum, Niles, Ruggles, Shepley--11.

NAYS-Messrs. Benton, Black, Calhoun, Clay, Clayton, Crittenden, Davis, Ewing of Illinois, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Grundy, Hendricks, King of Alabama, Knight, Leigh, Linn, Moore, Morris, Naudain, Nicholas, Porter, Prentiss, Preston, Rives, Robbins, Robinson, Southard, Swift, Tomlinson, Walker, Webster, White--22.

Mr. BENTON would now make the motion for which he had given notice some days ago, namely, to strike the name of Missouri from the enumeration of States to which the grants of land were to be made. He repeated what he had often said, that it was an injury and an insult to those States to have their grants imbodied in this bill. He had brought forward the bill for the grant of Missouri before this land distribution bill had been thought of; it had been amended by the addition of the names of Louisiana and Mississippi, had been considered and agreed to by the Senate, ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, and actually engrossed and read the third time, when it was laid upon the table to be diverted from its passage, and to be incorporated in the provisions of this distribution bill.

This distribution bill had been vetoed by the Presi dent, and the grants to the new States, including the additional quantities to Alabama, Indiana, and Illinois, had all shared of the fate of the bad company in which they were found. They fell under the veto, not for any fault in themselves, but because they were connected with a measure in which the President found insuperable objections. Thus these six States had lost their grants for four years. Now, they are in all probability to share the same fate again. They are again put into that bill; that bill is more objectionable than it was before. Judging from the President's public messages, it was unquestionable that he would again affix his veto upon the bill if it went to him; and thus the States might be again defeated of their grants. It might be thought by the opposition members that they could break down the President by these vetoes. They might think that they would rouse the new States against him on account of the loss of these grants; but this was a mistake--one of those numerous mistakes into which the opposition were constantly falling, and which resulted from their underrating the intelligence and virtue of the people. Every man in the new States knows the state of this proceeding. They understand the subject too well to be the dupe of these crooked tactics. They know that Ohio has had a million of acres of land for internal improvement; that Alabama, Indiana, and Illinois, have had three or four hundred thousand each; that Missouri, Louisiana, and Mississippi, have had nothing.

They know that Ohio received hers in a bill by itself, a bill resting on its own merits; and they know that they ought to have theirs in the same way. They know that bills have been brought in for that purpose, and that the friends of the distribution bill have caught them up and put them into the distribution bill, where they have been once vetoed, and where they must be vetoed again. All this they know, and must feel indignant at the insult to their understanding and the injury to their interest which this conduct involves.

The calculation upon destroying the popularity of the President by these tactics is all in vain. The people know who to blame. They know where to point their indignant resentment. They know that the wrong to them lies not in the veto which rejects their grants with the land bill, but in the original act of stopping their grants, and putting them into the land bill, and putting them there to be vetoed! The authors of the land bill are the opponents of the President; they want to overthrow him, and for this purpose, among others, they mix up all these grants to the new States in this distri bution bill, that he may veto all together, and thus a great storm be raised against him. But it will not do. The people are neither ignorant nor corrupt. They can neither be divided nor seduced. They know that every Senator who votes for putting these grants into the distribution bill, and then votes for the distribution bill, is in effect voting for putting the grants where they are to be defeated. With those who vote to put them and their vote against the bill, it is different. They may have a laudable object in view; the object of getting a vote for the grants in one shape, after which they will have a right to expect the same Senators to vote for them in another shape. Mr. B. then made his motion, that the name of Missouri be stricken out of the bill, &c. Mr. LINN said it was far from his intention to vote for this bill, nor did he believe it could become a law, after what was known of the deliberate opinions of the Executive, as expressed in his veto on this, or a measure of a similar kind. Still he had no wish to see this five hundred thousand acres of land for Missouri left out of the bill. He would not only vote to retain this, but also vote for the five hundred thousand acres in his colleague's bill. His friends appeared to be amused at the extravagance of his demands and wishes; but, before he was done with the subject, he would convince them that the whole amount was not too much for Missouri, and that it was intimately connected with grave and serious considerations. By granting a million of acres, it could be employed in constructing a line of railroad from the point where the Cumberland road will terminate on the Mississippi, to the western boundary of the State, connecting it with the road marked out by authority of the United States, to the Mexican frontier. On it could surely and swiftly be transported arms and munitions of war, and, when necessary, any number of men, to repel sudden incursion or avenge outrage. He implored the Senate to look at the great western frontier from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico, and the examination he was sure would produce feelings of sympathy for the situation of the people of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and Wisconsin. The existence of numerous tribes of Indians, claiming to be independent within sovereign States, had shaken the Union to its centre, and at one time appeared to threaten a dissolution of the confederacy. To get rid of this embarrassing subject, and to save the Indians from destruction, their removal to the west bank of the Mississippi was determined on by the general Covernment; and, following out this line of policy, tribe after tribe has been located, until the aggregate amount had become alarming to contemplate. These Indians were placed there for the benefit of the old States exclusively. Have we not, then, the right to demand from the justice of Con

[APRIL 27, 1836.

gress all the means necessary for our defence and protection? and for that defence and protection nothing was more important than a good road on which to transport arms and munitions of war. War, he said, was at all times terrible, but a war with Indians doubly so. The tide of emigration to Missouri was flowing on in a wide stream, bearing on its bosom much that was valuable, of industry, virtue, and capital.

During the last summer, in looking at the interests of a people so suddenly overspreading the land, his attention was arrested by their extraordinary wants in mail accommodations. For the purpose of obtaining all the information necessary to enable him to act efficiently here, he addressed a short circular letter to his constituents, in which will be found the following language: "That we have not our just proportion of mail facilities, any one will be convinced by an examination of the subject. This State contributes to the revenue of the Post Office Department several thousand dollars more than Illinois, and nearly as much as indiana; and yet we are far behind them in this respect. If there must be a disproportion, it ought to be in favor of this State, in consequence of its military position, its northern and western frontiers being darkened by hordes of Indians, indigenous and imported. We have acquiesced in the policy pursued by the general Government, in throwing clouds of savages along our borders; but it should be recollected that peace and tranquillity with them is not always to be expected, as a contest with Great Britain, or with our neighbors on the other side of the prairies, would soon have the effect of organizing and putting in motion the elements of hereditary hatred now sleeping in the bosom of thousands who roam along our frontiers. The recent conflict with Black Hawk's band should admonish that foreign influence is not always necessary to light up the flame of war between us." Recent events in Florida prove the truth of the last position, and since those lines were written, our neighbors over the prairies have brought down upon the Americans in Texas all the power of the great wandering tribe of the Camanches. We have seen within the 'last few months the beautiful Territory of Florida laid waste by the unexpected hostility of the Seminoles, and who to this moment are unpunished and unsubdued. Such, sir, are the scenes to be enacted from time to time on our borders.

Mr. BENTON's motion to strike out Missouri was then rejected: Yeas 6, nays 34, as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Benton, King of Georgia, Morris, Niles, Robinson, Ruggles-6.

NAYS-Messrs. Black, Brown, Buchanan, Calhoun, Clay, Clayton, Crittenden, Davis, Ewing of Illinois, Ewing of Ohio, Goldsborough, Hendricks, Hill, Hubbard, Kent, King of Alabama, Knight, Leigh, Linn, McKean, Mangum, Moore, Naudain, Nicholas, Porter, Prentiss, Rives, Robbins, Shepley, Swift, Tomlinson, Walker, Webster, White-34.

Mr. BENTON rose to present the amendments of which he had given notice. He said that some members might be supporting the bill under the belief that they were voting to divide the nett proceeds of the public lands, when in fact the division went to the gross proceeds. Under the bill, as it stands, nothing will be deducted from the gross proceeds but the five per centum to the new States, and the one half per centum to the registers and receivers. All the other expenses of the land system; all the heavy items for salaries and expenses in the General Land Office, in the offices of all the surveyors general, in the salaries to all the registers and receivers, in surveying the lands, in the purchase of the lands from the Indians, in the annuities to them on account of lands bought, in the expense of treaties for purchasing lands, and in the expense incurred in