In answer to this objection we would say, that this pledge can be fairly understood to mean nothing more than that, whenever the public lands are sold for the purpose of raising revenue, the net proceeds of them shall be applied towards the extinction of the public debt. Congress were in the habit both before, and since these pledges were made, of appropriating the public land to a variety of specific purposes, and of course, the public creditors, when they received these pledges, were bound to understand them as extending only to the net proceeds of ordinary sales, and not as amounting to a mortgage of the whole amount of the public lands. If the latter unlimited construction be correct, all the laws granting military bounty lands are made in violation of the public faith, a supposition which, we believe, has never for a moment been entertained. The pledge then, as intended by Congress, and as understood by the creditors of the United States, extends not to the lands themselves, but only to the net proceeds of sales, made in the ordinary course of law for the purposes of revenue. Of course no objection to the Maryland Resolutions upon this ground is tenable.

Nor is the objection more tenable, which has been made on the ground of expediency, on account of the quantity of public lands, which would be requisite to satisfy the just claims of the Atlantic states and Kentucky; as it is clearly shewn in the Maryland Report, that less than two and a half per centum of the four hundred millions of acres, which according to Seybert's Statistical Annals, belong to the United States, will be sufficient for that purpose, if the plan proposed in the subsequent part of these remarks should be adopted.

If we have been successful, as we hope, in our humble attempt to prove, that the school appropriations in favour of the states, formed out of the public lands, have not been paid for in the enhanced price, given by the purchasers of the lands, to which they are annexed, nor by the exemption for five years of the lands, sold by the United States, from taxation by the states, within whose limits they lie, we apprehend, that the inference must be admitted, that the Maryland Resolutions are founded in justice, and that the claim therein set forth, in favour of the states, which have had no appropriations of public lands for the purposes of education ought to be granted.

We shall now endeavour, according to the order prescribed in the beginning of these remarks, to discuss the mode in which the objects of the Maryland Resolutions may be obtained.

The principal difficulty in fixing upon a plan, which shall secure equal justice to all, arises from the difference in the circumstances of the states, in whose favour appropriations of school lands have been made, and of the others. The former are made out of the public lands. The fund for education therefore, is at hand, and actually consists of a part of each township, reserved in its centre. The latter have no lands belonging to the United States within their limits. Of course a fund must be raised out of lands, situated at a distance, within the boundaries of other states and territories.

The people being the subjects of education, an appropriation for that purpose in the different states, ought to be proportioned to numbers; and this in beneficial effect has, in the states formed out of the public lands, been accomplished, however paradoxical the assertion may at first appear.

Let it be recollected, that the school grants in these states are reservations in perpeptuity of lots No. 16, in the centre of every township. These lots can never be sold. Their value as a fund for the promotion of education, depends upon the rent which they will bring. In unsettled townships they will bring none. In townships, thinly settled, where land, in fee simple, can be purchased cheaply, they will bring but little. But they will command a high rent in townships thickly settled, where the price of land in fee simple will be high, and rentable land of course in demand. In short, cæteris paribus, the rent of these school lots will be in proportion to population. Their value therefore, as a fund for the support of schools, will be proportionate to numbers, and will increase with them—an advantage, by the way, incident to the local situation of the new states carved out of the public lands, which cannot be extended to the other states; for when lands at a great distance shall be appropriated to the latter for the purposes of education, they must necessarily be sold, and when sold, the value of the fund becomes fixed, and cannot increase.

From the foregoing view, it appears, that the school grants in the new states, though in form they are proportioned to territo

rial extent, operate nevertheless beneficially in a just proportion to population, and of course, as respects those states, in en tire conformity with the spirit of justice and the principles of the Constitution, as well as the meaning of the condition of the čessions by Virginia and the other states, to wit, that the lands ceded should enure to the benefit of the states, "according to their usual respective proportion in the general charge and expenditure," which is in proportion to representation in Congress, and of course in proportion to federal numbers.

Although the Massachusetts Committee were mistaken in supposing, that the Maryland Legislature had proposed territorial extent, as the basis of a ratio by which public lands, if granted by Congress, should be distributed amongst the Atlantic states and Kentucky, yet it is true, that in the Maryland Report a calculation was made upon that basis. The principal object, however, of that calculation, was to shew the aggregate quantity to which, according to it, they would be entitled. And this ratio, I think, upon mature reflection, is the best that can be adopted for the purpose of ascertaining the aggregate number of acres, which justice as well as sound policy requires to be assigned for the benefit of those states. For, although the number of acres devoted to the purpose of education in the west, be much greater, in relation to present population, than would fall to the lot of the east, yet, in fact, no substantial injustice will be done; for it is to be borne in mind, that the school lands in the states, formed out of the public lands, are reserved in perpetuity, in the middle of each township, and of course will be of no use or value for the purposes of education, as has just been shewn, until the townships are peopled; so that, in fact, as to practical benefit, the grants in the west will be operative according to population, though, in form, they are made upon the basis of territory.

The territorial apportionment is the only one practicable, as between the two great divisions of the country, comprising, on the one hand, the states and territories which have received grants, and on the other, the states for whose benefit none have been made. On the basis of population, the latter would be entitled to four This would times as much as has been given to the former. require an amount of appropriation for the purposes of education which sound policy, in reference to revenue, would forbid, and

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which, though equal at present, would operate most unjustly on the future population of the west. On the contrary, it cannot be concealed, that the territorial apportionment gives an advantage to the states formed out of the public lands, which it is impracticable to extend to the others. The advantage consists in this; that the school lands in the former, being reserved in perpetuity for the promotion of education, can never be sold, and, therefore, constitute a fund, which will continue to augment in value in proportion to the increase of population; and an acre of land, which, upon the first settlement of a township, would not, if exposed to sale, bring two dollars, may, in process of time, when population becomes dense, be worth fifty or even a hundred dollars.

This is a view of the subject, which, if those heretofore presented be not deemed sufficient, ought surely to silence all objections from the western states on the score of the stipulation made not to tax the lands sold by the United States for five years after their sale; for, after making all the deduction on this account, that can possibly come within the bounds of reason, the advantage, arising from this mode of distribution, and resulting from their local situation, will still lie on the side of those states. It is hoped, however, as there is no certain or even probable rule, by which this relative advantage can be estimated, and as an attempt to value it would involve the subject in endless difficulty, that the states, which have as yet received no grants, will be actuated by a patriotic spirit of conciliation and compromise, and remain satisfied with a territoral apportionment, as between them and their more fortunate sisters of the west.

Should Congress adopt this territorial apportionment, as the rule, by which to ascertain the quantity to which the Atlantic states and Kentucky are entitled, let them then authorize the President by law, to cause to be selected out of such parts of the public domain, as he may deem expedient, and to be laid off in the same manner as military bounty lands have heretofore been laid off, a number of tracts, in different parts of the public lands, which shall in the aggregate make up the quantity required. These lands, being distant from the states, for whose benefit they are intended, and within the jurisdiction of others, cannot, either with advantage or convenience, be distributed amongst them

respectively, either for the purpose of rent or sale. The objections to such a plan are too obvious and striking, to require. any notice of them. Let them then be sold under the authority of Congress, according to the laws regulating the sale of other public lands, at such times, and in such quantities, as to them may appear expedient, and let the proceeds be paid over, by the Secretary of the Treasury, to Commissioners appointed by each of the states entitled to receive a share, in such proportions as may be determined by Congress. Let these Commissioners be obliged to render an annual account of the application of these proceeds to the Secretary of the Treasury in the same manner, as the Commissioners of the three per cent road fund in the new states now do.

According to this plan, no land could be sold below the minimum price of other public lands, and Congress would have it in their power to guard against any inconvenience on the score of revenue, by prohibiting the sale of school lands, whenever from a stagnation of trade or other causes, the receipts into the Treasury from other sources, than the sale of public lands, should be inadequate to the exigences of the government. On the other hand, whenever revenue should be abundant, and be amply sufficient to meet all demands upon the Treasury, without the aid of the proceeds of sales of public lands, Congress might direct a larger portion of the school lands to be brought into the market.

But after the proceeds of the school lands are paid into the Treasury, and Commissioners are appointed by each of the states interested, to receive their respective shares, a point of greater difficulty, than any which we have discussed, presents itself. In what proportions shall the proceeds of the school lands be divided amongst the several states entitled to receive them? Shall they be distributed according to extent of territory, according to population, or according to a ratio compounded of both? These are the three different bases of apportionment, which most obviously present themselves. It is manifest, however, when we take into consideration the various and rapid change of relative population in the several states, that there is no rule by which exact justice can be done, or rather by which it can be ascertained, what would be exact justice. The members of Congress, from the different states interested, must therefore be sensible of