SENATE.] Public Deposites. [JUNE 17, 1836. golden apple which the Goddess of Discord rolled over the festive board; contend for it, and fraud and cunning award the prize. Elections in every county, legislation upon every subject, fall within its vortex. Projects of all kinds spring up: the people get nothing. Associated wealth, joint stock companies, chartered monopolies, paper barons, South Sea bubbles, and Mississippi schemes, take it all. The counties will in vain ask for their share: if they get it, the townships will in vain solicit their proportion from the county. If perchance the township obtained its ratable share, then some projector of that township would get all to himself, "The large fish eat the small ones. On the contrary, if the whole sum is fairly divided among the whole population, and every head of a family gets what he is entitled to, what is it then but the spectacle of a people pensioned by the Federal Government, fed from the Treasury, like degenerate Romans, or receiving annuities like mendicant Indians? Sir, there is no right way to do this thing. It is a connexion against nature between the States and the Federal Government; and, like all unnatural connexions, must end in misery and mischief to both parties. an exposition, as candid and perspicuous as it is patriotic Let me A word to the small States. They have come into this measure upon the tempting advantage of double shares, a share for their Senators as well as for their Representatives! That is some advantage for them; but do they see they have no security for it in future divisions? It is the rule of division put into the proposed amendment of the constitution by the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. CALHOUN;] there it would have been safe. If the constitution had been amended, as proposed, they would have had their security; but it has not been amended, but evaded. A word is changed; the constitution is dodged; and the small States lie at the mercy of the large ones in all future distributions. Not only in the rule of distribution, which will soon be changed; first, to bear on all the small States by taking away the divisions for Senators; and next, to bear on all the slave States by counting only the white population. Not only in changing the rule will the small States be injured, but by another and more vexatious process; it will be in the appropriations. The large States make the appropriations, and will take care of themselves. Twice they will take the lion's share; once by appropri ations, when their strength will enable them to take what they please; again, by distribution, when their numbers will give them nearly all the remainder. Admitting that the year produces more revenue than is wanting, is it wise, is it statesmanlike, is it consonant with our experience, to take fright at the event, and throw the money away? Did we not have forty millions of income in the year 1817? and did we not have an empty Treasury in 1819? Instead of taking fright and throwing the money away, the statesman should look into the cause of things; he should take for his motto the prayer of Virgil: Cognoscere causa rerum. know the cause of things, and, learning this cause, act acccordingly. If the redundant supply is accidental and transient, it will quickly correct itself; if founded in laws, alter them. This is the part not merely of wisdom, but of common sense. It was the conduct of 1817, when the excessive supply was seen to be the effect of transient causes-termination of the war and efflorescence of the paper system-and left to correct itself, which it did in two years. It should be the conduct now, when the excessive income is seen to be the effect of the laws and the paper system combined, and when legislation or regulation is necessary to correct it. Reduction of the tariff'; reduction of the price of land to actual settlers; rejection of bank paper from univer. sal receivability for public dues; these are the remedies. After all, the whole evil may be found in a single cause, A word to the States in which revenue is to be raised. and the whole remedy may be seen in a single measure. We have no revenue but from land and imports. The The public lands are exchangeable for paper. Seven new States contain the land, the planting States to the hundred and fifty machines are at work striking off South furnish the exports which bring home the imports paper; that paper is performing the grand rounds, from which furnish the duties. The West and South, then, the banks to the public lands, and from the lands to the are to bear the burdens of a revenue which others are banks. Every body, especially a public man, may take to share more largely than themselves. To keep up as much as his trunks can carry. The public domain is and to increase that revenue will be the care of the machanging into paper; the public Treasury is filling up jority. Farewell now to all prospect of reduction in the with paper; the new States are deluged with paper; the price of public lands; farewell to pre-emptions-to occurrency is ruining with paper; farmers, settlers, culti- cupant rights--to grants to States and colleges-to all vators, are outbid, deprived of their selected homes, or equitable settlement of French and Spanish concessions. made to pay double for them, by public men loaded, Farewell to all that! Hail to the new tariff! to that not like Philip's ass, with bags of gold, but like bank tariff which the elections of Jackson and Van Buren advocates, with bales of paper. Sir, the evil is in the laid low in 1832; and which in 1840, and under the maunbridled state of the paper system, and in the uncheck- ternal incubation of this miscalled deposite bill, will ed receivability of paper for federal dues. Here is the spring forth from the thigh of its father, like the fabuevil. Banks are our masters; not one, but seven hun-lous offspring of Jupiter, full grown and armed, helmet dred and fifty! and this splendid federal Congress, like a chained and chastised slave, lies helpless and powerless at their feet. Thus far, Mr. President, I have contemplated this measure in its effects upon the Federal Government; now let us turn our eyes to the States, and see what is to be its effect upon them. In the very outset, it is to them the on the brow and lance in the hand. Sir, I can see nothing but evil, turn on which side I may, from this fatal scheme of dividing money; not surplus money, but appropriated funds; not by an amendment, but by a derisory evasion of the constitution. Where is it to end? History shows us that those who begin revolutions never end them; that those who com mence innovations never limit them. Here is a great innovation, constituting in reality—not in figure of speech, but in reality-a revolution in the form of our Government. We set out to divide the surplus; we are now dividing the appropriated funds. To prevent all appropriations except to the powerful States, will be the next step; and the small States, in self-defence, must oppose all appropriations, and go for a division of the whole. They will have to stand together in the Senate, and oppose all appropriations. It will not do for the large States to take all the appropriations first, and the bulk of the distribution afterwards; and there will be no way to prevent it but to refuse all appropriations, divide out the money among the States, and let each State lay it out for itself. A new surplus party will supersede the present surplus party, as successive factions supersede each other in chaotic revolutions. They will make Congress the quæstor of provinces, to collect money for the States to administer. This will be their argument; the States know best what they need, and can lay out the money to the best advantage, and to suit themselves. One State will want roads and no canals, another canals and no roads; one will want forts, another troops; one wants ships, another steam-cars; one wants high schools, another low schools; one is for the useful arts, another is for the fine arts, for lyceums, athenæums, museums, arts, statuary, painting, music; and the paper State will want all for banks. Thus will things go on, and Congress will have no appropriation to make, except to the President, and his head clerks, and their under clerks. Even our own pay, like it was under the confederation, may be remitted to our own States. The eight dollars a day may be voted to them, and supported by the argument that they can get better men for four dollars a day, and so save half the money, and have their work better done. Such is the progress in this road to ruin. Sir, I say of this measure, as I said of its progenitor, the land bill: if I could be willing to let evil pass, that good might come of it, I should be willing to let this bill pass. recoil, a reaction, a revulsion, must take place. This Confederacy cannot go to ruin. This Union has a place in the hearts of the people which will save it from nullification in disguise, as well as from nullification in arms. One word of myself. It is now ten years since schemes of distribution were broached upon this floor. They began with a Senator from New Jersey, now Secretary of the Treasury, [Mr. DICKERSON.] They were denounced by many for their unconstitutionality, their corrupting tendencies, and their fatal effects upon the Federal and State Governments. I took my position then, have stood upon it during all the modifications of the original scheme, and continue standing upon it now. My answer then was, pay the public debt, and reduce the taxes; my answer now is, provide for the public defences, reduce the taxes, and bridle the paper system. On this ground I have stood-on this I stand; and never did I feel more satisfaction and more exultation in my vote, when triumphant in numbers, than I now do in a minority of six. When Mr. BENTON had concluded A Mr. RIVES rose and spoke with great energy in favor of the bill; expressed his approbation of the removal of the deposites, as restoring them to the power of Congress; and vindicated the portion of the bill relating to the deposite banks as almost wholly free from objection. He approved the portion of the bill in regard to the State deposites, which he maintained were neither a loan nor a distribution. He expressed his utter repugnance at the large expenditures proposed by Mr. WRIGHT; and maintained that economy is absolutely indispensable to a free Government. He also replied to various objections which had been made to the bill. [SENATE. Mr. TALLMADGE rose and addressed the Senate to the following effect: Mr. President, it is no affectation in me, when I say it was not my intention to trouble the Senate with a single word on this all-important subject. After various propositions had been submitted by different gentlemen, and partially discussed, the whole matter was committed, by the order of the Senate, to a select committee of nine, composed of some of the ablest and most distinguished members of this body, with my honorable colleague [Mr. WRIGHT] as chairman. This committee, with much labor and ability, digested a bill, which embraced the propositions submitted to them, and presented it to the Senate in a form which they supposed would meet its approbation. Much interesting debate took place upon its different provisions. With the exception of an amendment, which I offered to the bill, and which I shall advert to in the course of my remarks, I contented myself with being a silent listener to the views of others, rather than occupy the time of the Senate with any views of my own. I was content to rest the correctness of my course upon the vote which I intended to give, and did give, in favor of the engrossment of the bill. That vote was given after the maturest reflection and most anxious deliberation. My honorable colleague and other Senators rested their votes upon reasons which were by them fully assigned, whilst I was willing to rest mine upon what appeared to me to be the intrinsic merits of the bill, without regard to the reasons of my own mind, which led to the result of my action. Such was the state of the case, when the question was yesterday taken on ordering the bill to be engrossed, which was carried in the affirmative by the extraordinary and almost unanimous vote of forty to six. In this stage of a bill, discussion is ordinarily closed. When we adjourned last evening, I supposed it had closed in this case; but, on the bill being called up this morning for a third reading, my honorable colleague, as it was perfectly proper for him to do, although out of the usual course, renewed the debate on its merits, and entered upon a justification of his vote of yesterday against the engrossment of the bill. As he and myself differed in our votes on that occasion, and as he has to-day assigned additional reasons for his course, I feel myself called upon, not without great reluctance, to assign some for my own; a reluctance, in the first place, in feeling constrained to differ from him on any subject, and, in the next place, in feeling obliged to break the silence which I usually maintain on this floor, from a deep conviction that, except on special occasions, it is better to be a listener than a talker bere. On many of the important subjects which have been before the Senate, and in the discussion of which I have not participated, my views have been so fully and ably expressed by my honorable colleague, in giving utterance to his own, that I have contented myself with a silent vote. I have sometimes even yielded my own to his better judgment. If, in this silence, I have done any injustice to myself, I hope I have done no injustice to my constituents. Differing on this subject, as we now do, I trust the Senate will indulge me, although at this late hour, in making such remarks as seem to be called for by the peculiarity of my position and the importance of the occasion. These remarks may be crude and undigested, and I must, for that cause, claim its indulgence; for, although I have bestowed much reflec tion on this subject, in order to satisfy my own mind for the vote I was to give, still I came here to-day entirely unprepared, and without the remotest expectation of being called on, by any state of things, to assign my reasons for that vote. Mr. President, my honorable colleague has intimated that he shall soon return to bis constituents, by reason SENATE.] Public Deposites. of the expiration of his present term; and if, in the vote my constituents. The purity of motive by which he is [JUNE 17, 1836. grossing topic. Every one seems to have felt the importance of quieting the public mind on this subject, and of restoring public confidence in our monetary system, by such legal regulations of the deposite banks as should not only render them safe depositories, but should give to the whole community entire confidence in their safe. ty. That the deposite banks are perfectly safe, for the amount of the public money which they possess, I have not a particle of doubt. That those in my own State are so, I could vouch for, from my own personal knowledge of their concerns. But it is one thing to be safe, and another thing to have the confidence of the whole country in that safety. The present bill is intended to accomplish both those objects. This is the principal feature of the bill. This is what the President has often Sir, this is a bill to regulate the deposites of the public recommended us to do. This is what we have often exmoney. After the creation of the late Bank of the Uni- pressed our own desire to do. This is what the whole ted States, the public money was deposited in its vaults. commercial community expect us to do; and this, too, In the fall of 1833, in anticipation of the expiration of its let me add, is what the great and paramount interests of charter, and from the deep conviction that it would not the whole country require at our hands. Shall that be renewed, it became necessary to provide for the safe- recommendation be disregarded? Shall that desire be keeping of the public money, by finding other places of stifled? Shall that expectation be disapppointed? Shall deposite. The Secretary of the Treasury, acting in ac- that requirement be denied? I answer, no; emphatically, cordance with the views of the President, removed the no. Shall we, by rejecting this bill, belie all our deposites from the Bank of the United States, and pla- former professions? Are we willing to subject ourselves ced them in several of the State banks. Of the proprie- to the imputation of defeating a measure which has been ty as well as the constitutionality of this measure, I have so loudly demanded by the public voice, and which heretofore given my views at large. This is not the has been so imperiously required by the public interproper time, nor the occasion, for renewing the discus- est; and that, too, after it has been so often urged upon sion of that all-absorbing and agitating question. It has us by the administration which we support? Can we become matter of history, and any thing we could now make the people of this country believe in our sincerity, say would not probably alter the opinions of any one in when we fail to carry through a measure recommended regard to that measure, whether it was for good, or whe- to us by every consideration of duty and of policy, as well ther it was for evil. I have seen nothing since it took as by the President himself? I put it to my political friends, place to alter my thorough conviction of its expediency that, as a party, we claim a majority in each House, and on at the time, neither do I believe I shall see any thing this subject have no obstacles thrown in our way by our pohereafter to change the opinions I then entertained, pro-litical opponents. Sir, it cannot, it must not be. What an. vided our measures in future in relation to the public money are characterized by that prudence and wisdom which have so signally characterized the other leading measures of this administration. The removal of the public deposites from the Bank of the United States was made the occasion, without cause, in my judgment, to impair the public confidence, and to convulse the whole monetary system of the country. Much of unjust reproach was cast upon the President for having seized, as it was termed, upon the whole public treasure of the Government, taken it under his own control, and placed it in the vaults of irresponsible State incorporations, and without the reach and custody of the law. Although the President, by using the State banks for this purpose, had done no more than preceding administrations had done, previous to the creation of the Bank of the United States, still no one was more anxious than the President himself to have those deposites in the State banks not only regulated by, but, in the strictest sense, in the custody of, the law. He has evinced his strong anxiety on this subject by repeated and earnest recommendations to Congress. The subject has been before both Houses for three successive sessions, and, thus far, without being able to agree upon any propositions which were satisfactory to both. The effort thus to regulate the public deposites by law has again been renewed at the present session, and the bill under consideration is the result of that effort. This bill contains the principal provisions of the bill which has been introduced for the two last sessions, and which was prepared under the supervision, and with the sanction, of the Secretary of the Treasury, and, as it is presumed, with the approbation of the President. At the present session, every member seems to have responded in good faith, by his desire to carry out the earnest recommendation of the President on this all-en swer can we make to the oft-repeated charge, that the Pres ident and his supporters wish to keep the control of the funds of the nation, in order to control the politics of the people? We all know, we all feel, that the charge is as unjust as it is base. Shall we, then, by any act of ours, give countenance to it? Or shall we repel it in the only way in which it can be repelled, by prompt, decisive, and manly action on this subject? I cannot hesitate as to my course. Between the alternative of adopting or rejecting this proposition, I feel that there is no choice left to me. From the time the question first arose in regard to the removal of the deposites from the Bank of the United States, I have, on all occasions, expressed my readiness to regulate them, by law, in the banks of the several States. I cannot shrink from the perform ance of that du'y. If others can see their way clear, in leaving this vast, this enormous, amount of public money in a great variety of State banks, without legal regulation, let them take the responsibility of it. I wash my hands clean of any such omission. Sir, in what I have said I have had reference to the amount of public money now in the deposite banks. I have not taken into the account the swollen, the overflowing current, which is constantly pouring in upon us. Those banks are already full to distension, and can receive no more, either with advantage to themselves or to the Government. The gentle streams of expenditure issuing from them are like rills compared with this mighty dashing mountain torrent of revenue rushing into them. What, then, sir, shall we do? What, I emphatically ask, does our duty require us to do? Shall we force into these reservoirs more than they have capacity to contain, and faster than they can permit it to escape? Shall we, by a kind of hydraulic pressure, force them till their embankments give way? And when we see desolation spread around them by reason of the breach, what consolation JUNE 17, 1836.] Public Deposites. [SENATE. reputation, from the fact that there are not enough of them to present the true state of the account. Now, sir, I do not intend to trouble the Senate with a detailed statement of Treasury estimates, for I did not come here expecting to be called on for any such purpose. Those estimates have been made by many, very many, during this discussion. I will not detain the Senate by repeat will it be to those who may have suffered to tell them that we were deceived in the strength of their embankments, and in their capacity to receive and contain all that was poured in upon them? It will not only be no consolation to them, but no justification to us. We shall be without excuse or apology. We have it in our pow er now to provide against any disastrous results, and we shall be held accountable then, if such provisions being them; but I will take the result of the lowest amongst not made. them all, and by that, including the stock in the Bank of the United States, there will be in the Treasury, on the first day of January next, from twenty-five to thirty millions of dollars. What, then, is the remedy? This bill provides it. For, although the regulation of the deposite banks is the principal object of it, still it incidentally provides for a disposition of the surplus revenue. Our duty, in Sir, if any of the estimates of receipts come within regard to the former, I have already shown; our obliga- millions of the truth, there must be a large, a very large, tion, in regard to the the latter, I will proceed to show. surplus in the Treasury at that time. Our appropriations, But, before we examine the best mode of disposing of since the late war, exclusive of the payment of the naa surplus, let us inquire whether any surplus will exist. tional debt, have ranged from ten to sixteen millions of For some gentlemen, in their over-zeal on this subject, dollars per annum. We have, at this time, appropriahave wrought themselves up to the expression of a be- tions of an extraordinary character, which will swell the lief against the existence of any surplus, the existence of amount to a much larger sum. The sum of thirty-five which seemed to be a fact all along conceded by every millions has been deemed, by almost every one, suffione. It is but very recently that any one has presumed ciently ample to cover them. These extraordinary apto express a doubt in regard to it. From the annual re-propriations will not be required the next year, and port of the Secretary of the Treasury, at the commence- therefore the future receipts of the Treasury will not be ment of the present session of Congress, down to a re- applied to them a second time. My colleague admits cent period in this discussion, the most zealous oppo- that the unexpended balances at the end of the year nents of this bill seemed to recognise a probable surplus, usually amount to one half of the appropriations; and and, following the example of the Secretary, were de- where the appropriations are unusually large, those balvising ways and means of getting rid of it. So confi- ances are increased in a still greater ratio. If the apdent was the Secretary on this subject, and so conscious propriations be $35,000,000, then we may safely assume was he of the impropriety of leaving it in the deposite the unexpended balances to be $20,000,000. But my banks, that he deemed it of sufficient importance to rec- honorable colleague, in order to make out his balance ommend a mode for a different disposition of it. My hon- against the Treasury at this time, swells our appropriaorable colleague, acting on the same principle, and with tions for the present year to the enormous amount of similar views, brought before the Senate the proposition from fifty-four to fifty-five millions of dollars. I confess of the Secretary, and submitted it for consideration. I I was astonished and amazed at the result. Would such shall have occasion to advert to the principle of this prop- an expenditure have been thought of, but for this pleosition in the course of my remarks, and now merely thora of the Treasury? allude to the proposition itself to show that, on all hands, a surplus has been anticipated. The bill proposes to operate upon the surplus which may be in the Treasury, beyond a certain amount, on the first day of January next. My honorable colleague has submitted a statement in figures, by which he attempts to show that the appropriations already made, and probably to be made, far exceed any amount now in the Treasury. There is nothing new in this. It is always so. ceipts into the Treasury of the current year are always calculated upon to meet appropriations made by Congress, and of which more than one half, in amount, remains in the Treasury as unexpended balances at the close of the year; so that his statement furnishes no satisfactory evidence as to the amount of surplus on the first day of January next. He merely shows what may probably be appropriated, but not drawn out of the Treasury, and omits to show what may probably be received into it. Sir, it would have been much much more satisfactory to me if my friend, skilled in figures, as we all know him to be, had given us an estimate of receipts as well as disbursements. Stopping short where he did, is calculated to produce a wrong impression on minds not accustomed to grasp and dwell on the vast expenditures, and still vaster receipts, of a Government like ours. It is an old and very familiar maxim, that figures cannot lie; but when they are paraded in this manner, and exhibit the debit without the credit side of the account, they may very easily give to the uninitiated erroneous ideas of the state of the Treasury at a particular period. I do not intend to impeach the truth of the maxim that figures cannot lie; but I mean to say that unless they are put in the right place, and enough of them, they are the greatest liars in the world. I am apprehensive that the gentleman's figures will suffer in VOL. XII.-115 The re Sir, when our means are ample, I am willing to go all reasonable lengths in any appropriations for the common defence of the country. I have, thus far, gone in my votes as far as any one. There is a propriety in making liberal appropriations for national objects, when our means are abundant. I will continue to vote on the same scale of liberality; but I cannot consent to make appropriations for the mere purpose of getting rid of a troublesome and embarrassing surplus. The habit of extravagance, which will thus be acquired, will be a far greater evil than any disposition of the surplus which has been or can be proposed. But if my honorable colleague's estimate of appropriations should be correct, then I say that the unexpended balances on the first of January next would alone be more than $25,000,000-a sum equal, or nearly equal, to any estimate of the surplus in the Treasury at that time! Sir, we are told by the honorable Senator from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] that he will hereafter hold us to our estimates. willing, sir, to be put upon the record, and will not deny my prediction of twenty-five or thirty millions of surplus on the first day of January next. Let this be placed alongside of his prediction of none, and I am content. But, say gentlemen, this unexpected surplus has arisen from the enormous amount of the sales of the public lands, which cannot be expected to be realized hereaf ter. I am Sir, I do not believe in such a sudden reduction for the present year. I think I can discern the elements and the operations by which the amount of sales is to be measurably kept up. This is not all speculation, as some gentlemen seem to suppose. The rise and value of property throughout the country is not a mere bubble. The sale of western lands is not all a bubble. If gentlemen's imaginations lag behind the reality, let them not urge their own tardiness as the rate of velocity by which the movements of others are to be governed. Let them not apply their fanciful theories, by which all these things are to be accounted for and explained. Property has risen throughout the world. It is one of the results of a long, and continued, and almost universal peace; where the physical energies of a whole population have been applied to objects of productive industry, instead of being wasted in destructive and sanguinary wars. Let them not compare our present condition with that at the close of the late war, which exhibited a factitious state of things. The application of more than $120,000,000 to the arts of war, instead of the arts of peace, gave an unnatural impulse to every thing. Property was raised above its real value, and, of course, fell when the cause which gave the impulse ceased to operate. Not so at the present time. Property has intrinsic value, generally speaking, equal to its market value; and it arises from the application of productive labor to the improved cultivation of the soil. This labor is made capable of being applied, by means of our canals and railroads, and all kinds of internal improvements. In regard to the State of New York, (I speak not without experience,) I have witnessed the rise and progress of her greatness. Her system of internal improvements was the commencement of a new era. The opening of the Erie canal wrought a complete revolution in the internal concerns of the State. There are those now living who well recollect the time when western New York was almost a wilderness; when the now beautiful city of Utica was a frontier settlement; and when Fort Stanwix was the ultima thule of the State. But, sir, the revolution produced by the Erie canal was for the benefit and advancement of the whole State. It wrought changes in the mode of cultivation; and whilst the counties on the Hudson river increased tenfold, those in western New York increased a hundredfold. Who can longer wonder at the rise of property, when he sees such an increase of the products of the soil? It is within my day when the county of Dutchess sent seven members to the Assembly; whereas now she sends but three, notwithstanding a continued and increasing population, whilst some of the western counties, which were then scarcely known on the map, now outstrip her in population and representation. It is but two or three years since, when the amount of tolls on the Erie canal exceeded a million of dollars, and only one seventeenth part of the products which paid those tolls came from west of Buffalo. What but the rapid sale and settlement of our western lands could have produced such results? And if such were the astonishing effects within the borders of New York, what must they be in the far West, where emigration and population are increasing in a more than geometrical ratio? This brief statement of a few of the statistics of New York furnishes some idea of the almost inconceivable settlement and improvement of the whole region of the West. It is stated that thousands upon thousands of emigrants have already arrived this season at the single port of New York; and we are informed that from 2,000 to 2,500 daily leave the port of Buffalo, that Queen of the West. What does all of this indicate? These emigrants are not all paupers, thus suddenly thrown upon our shores. It is true there are some of this description. But the great body of them are those who have fled from the cares, the troubles, the oppressions, of the old world, to seek a home and an asylum in this land of liberty and of law. Most of them, too, have more or less means-means which, though small in the land from whence they came, are, nevertheless, sufficiently ample to make an investment, and to lay the foundation of a home and a fortune for themselves and their children in our western wilds. It is this flood-tide of emigration that is settling, and improving, and opening, this new world of the West; this tide setting in from Europe is swollen and accelerated by the [JUNE 17, 1836. immense tributary streams of emigration from New England and New York. Enterprise, intelligence, capital, and wealth, float upon its broad and resistless current, till they are scattered and spread over the vast fields of their destination. It is true, that with all this there are great speculations in the public lands; but these speculations are generally the results of a keen-eyed sagacity, of a far-reaching forecast, and of anticipated benefits, which are generally realized within the time which has been prescribed for their accomplishment. These are some of the elements that enter into the estimates for the sale and settlement of the public lands; these are some of the causes which contribute to the rapid advancement of our territorial population, until, like the aurora borealis, we see State after State shooting up into the firmament of the Union; stripe after stripe, and star after star, are thus added to that banner which so triumphantly waves "o'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave." Again, the products from the labor of this increased and increasing population are borne on a refluent tide, and emptied into the lap of the great commercial emporium of the western world. The city of New York presents one of the happiest illustrations of the effects pro duced by our system of internal improvements, and of internal commerce. The assessed value of her real and personal estate, and her population at different periods since the close of the late war with Great Britain, are an unerring index to the rapid and progressive improvement of the West, and the far West, which contribute so essentially to her greatness. Here, too, in the sudden advance of her real estate, the croakers of the present day will think they discover the work of specu lation; and that this apparent prosperity must give way to some violent reaction. Sir, I am not in the habit of making predictions, but I will venture one in the present case, and that is, that, without some great and unexpected calamity, the man is not now living who will ever see real estate in the city of New York cheaper than it is at the present time. The statistics of New York are applicable to every commercial city of the Union, in proportion to the foreign and internal commerce which they enjoy, and the elements which enter into her greatness are those which contribue to the general prosperity of the whole country. But, sir, some of our political economists are frightened at this prosperity. They, think they see in it the seeds of our sudden decline. They have measured us by the old standards of Europe, and cannot encompass our rapid and astonishing growth. In truth, we have astounded the European world-their statesmen and their philosophers have been baffled in all their calculations and investigations in relation to us. They have found that the rules which they have been accustomed to apply to the nations of the old world seemed to have no immediate application to us. A people of yesterday, and already the most prosperous on earth; our free institutions command the admiration of the world; our civil and religious liberty offer an asylum to the oppressed of all nations. And still, in the midst of this prosperity, in the full enjoyment of all these blessings, we find at home, as well as abroad, those who cannot discover the cause which makes us, above all others, a happy, great, and prosperous people. Sir, it * Comparative statement of the population, and of the val ues of real and personal estate, in the city of New York, at three different periods, from the opening of the Erie canal in 1825. |