Foreign Emigrants-Treasury Circular, &c.

Mr. TIPTON then moved an amendment, introducing the principle of graduation, and providing that land remaining unsold for ten years should be sold for one dollar an acre; and if remaining for fifteen years, at seventy-ly magniloquent. When the bill arrives at such stage five cents the acre, with a proviso that not more than 160 acres be sold to any one man; on which he asked the yeas and nays, and they were ordered by the Senate.

Yet that modicum, insignificant as it may be, I am prepared to dispose of. I therefore say, once for all, that I am wholly free from the offence of having ever purchased public land or any thing else from the General Government. And I have no sympathy, save that of general good-will to all mankind, with any who I know have so purchased. I never entered an acre of public land in my life, and do not know that I ever shall; nor do I know that any friend, or even acquaintance of mine, is engaged in these purchases. My neighbors, it is true, in whose welfare I take great interest, do sometimes raise a little spare money and go to the West and purchase a quarter or a half section of land, to settle a son who is about to arrive at the years of manhood, for which they pay the cash into the Treasury of the United States; and until gentlemen satisfy me, more fully than they have yet done, of the impropriety of the thing, I shall esteem them none the less for it, nor shall I the less assiduously advocate their interests and their rights.

[SENATE.

vented my hearing the Senator's principal speech on this subject, and that a pressure of business since my return has not allowed me time to read his report accompany. ing this bill. My remarks, so far as the Senator from Mississippi is concerned, applied to several short speeches of his on incidental questions touching the bill, which have arisen within a few days past. But I cannot concur with him in the distinction which he draws between those who purchase occupied and unoccupied lands of the United States. When all are offered in open market fairly for sale; when all who desire to bid are invited by law to become bidders, I cannot recognise the right of any individual to press forward upon a choice piece of the public land, before the sale, against law. Nor can I admit that, by so doing, he makes the lawful purchaser amenable to censure, any where, for purchasing according to law. The proposition is monstrous in itself, and it must be a diseased state of public morals that can hold it for a moment either reasonable or just. My guide on this subject is the law-those who purchase according to its letter and its spirit, and who neither break through nor evade its provisions, no matter how much or how little they may buy, and no matter who may have intruded upon the land before the purchase, I hold them in that matter blameless; and, as far as my information goes, in nearly all the cases in which occupied land is purchased the squatter is paid many times over the value of his improvements; and often permitted to remain and enjoy them.

The sales of land in large quantities to large capital

tions, though it produces good as well as evil consequences. The evil is sufficiently obvious, and being a very happy subject for popular declamation, it has been reiterated, I know not how often, already in this debate. That which occurs to me as substantial, and which we can obviate by legislation, without producing other and worse mischief, are, the entries, by an individual or com

But, in declaring my utter exemption from all participation, direct or indirect, in that kind of investment which is here condemned in such unmeasured terms, I do not at all admit the truth or justice of the judgment which condemns it. It is a use of money that is supposed to be unpopular, and it is no new artifice to exclaim against it, as if it were a crime, until, by force of voice and repetition, it may come to be esteemed so; and what is more to the purpose, those who are most deeply engaged in it, by being loud and vociferous in its condemnation, throw off all suspicion from themselves, and stand the pure advocates of the people's rights, and theists, as a matter of public policy, is liable to some objecvery antagonist principle of all speculation and monopoly. But, sir, I see no objection to this mode of investing money when you have it to spare, and can make no better use of it. If it be fairly done, it is a fair, and just, and honest mode of acquiring property. The United States, by a public law, and a public proclamation, of fers its land for sale at a stipulated price; an individual, who is desirous of possessing the land, goes and purcha-pany, of many small tracts, as of forty or eighty acres, ses, and pays his money. Now, why, I ask, does any one here apply to this act, or the man who does it, opprobrious epithets? Why accuse him? Why denounce him? If he had bought fifty hogsheads of sugar, or a hundred bales of cotton, he would be just as criminal, and deserve just the same opprobrium and reproach from the members of our National Legislature. Gentlemen are mistaken; these purchases and speculations, in which they and their friends are so deeply engaged, are not criminal, nor even improper in themselves. They are liable, indeed, and especially liable, to be contaminated, by fraud or force, or combinations among purchasers, and collusion with public officers; but from these they and all honorable men, as a matter of course, are free. They therefore pronounce a harsh and unjust judgment on their own acts, and I am prepared to defend them against themselves before the Senate and

the nation.

[Mr. WALKER here rose to explain. If the gentle man's allusion was to any thing he had said, so far from criminating purchasers of this description, he had, in the report accompanying this bill, expressed many of the same sentiments just uttered by the Senator from Ohio. He had denounced, and ever should denounce, in the strongest terms, those speculators who attended public sales after having taken down the numbers of lots im proved by actual settlers, and bid them off over their head, thus depriving them of their homes and the fruit of all their toil.]

Mr. EWING. I referred to the Senator from Mississippi who has just taken his seat, and also to others who, in both branches of Congress, habitually use the same But I accept the explanation with pleasure, and regret that absence from the Senate pre

-course of remark.

in commanding points, all over the country, or what is
called dotting, thereby compelling purchasers of the
neighboring tracts to pay enormous prices for such choice
spots; but it will be seen that this bill, so far from rem-
edying that evil, makes it infinitely worse.
No man can
now enter more than two forty-acre tracts, and one of
those subject to certain conditions-proximity to his
farm; but if this bill becomes a law in its present shape,
he may enter no less than thirty-two of those small
tracts, and he may select them any where on the public
lands between the northern extremity of Wisconsin and
the southern cape of Florida. The entries of large
tracts by great capitalists, with a view to enhance their
value by great and important improvements, such as
railroads, canals, harbors, cities, have produced, and
are producing, the most important advantages to the
districts of country in which they are situated. Look at
the southern shores of Lake Erie, and the whole coast
of Lake Michigan, and see the towns and cities which
are rising up on their borders, under the fostering care
of capital and intelligence, and you will see at once the
full strength of this position. The scatterred resources
of a thousand individuals, who should have purchased
each his quarter section of land in the neighborhood,
could not have produced such mighty results in half a
century as have been brought about in a few years by
the investment of accumulated capital. It has facilita-
ted migration by the establishment of lines of steam-
boats between the cities on the eastern shore of the
lake and those remote western points which a few years
ago were a wilderness. It has opened harbors, drained
swamps, built wharves, and erected warehouses, trans-
ferring the business and bustle and comfort and intelli-
gence of an old and cultivated community into the very

SENATE.]

Public Lands.

[JAN. 24, 1837.

heart of our remote Western forests. Fortunes, per- Gentlemen, it is true, could not be operated upon by haps, are made or augmented by it, but it is well. The motives of this kind, but it were well to avoid the value of land is enhanced greatly all around these select-appearance of evil; and as this bill will, if it become a ed spots, but this also is well; it is a just reward of enter- law, have the direct effect of driving purchasers from prise and public spirit, and it injures no one, for the the Government to the speculator, and as it is to continbroad praries of the interior are still open to the grazier, de in force about long enough to enable these large and the plains and woodlands to the farmer, at the Gov- companies to make sale of the twenty millions of acres ernment price, and a nearer and more extensive market is which they have now on hand, the public will attribute open to him in the new and flourishing cities which arise to them this, as one of the motives which induced the on these choice selected spots. I am not, therefore, pre- passage of the act. They will be the more inclined to pared to condemn, even as a matter of public policy, think so, as this act is not, and they will see that it is the countenance which our present laws give to this not, what it is pretended to be. It is not a bill to conkind of investment by the capitalist. Much less am I firm the sales of the public lands to actual settlers; and disposed to join in the denunciation of those who, under an amendment which would produce that effect, laid on and pursuant to our laws, adopt this mode of investing the table by myself, (not offered, for I could not sup their surplus capital. Gentlemen even here are perhaps port any proposition which would deny to my fellow. too much in the habit of addressing themselves to the citizens the right of purchasing lands to settle their lowest passions of the lowest portion of society, and, children)-an amendment which would have produced while they themselves are insatiate in their thirst for that effect, met with the universal disapprobation of the riches, speak of poverty as if it were a merit, a good friends of this bill. This bill, therefore, is not, and the thing in itself and wealth, or even competency, as if people will see that it is not, what it purports to be; it were a crime. I, for one, unite in nothing of this and its effect, which is the important matter, will be to feeling or expression; if a young man shows himself raise at once some fifty or a hundred per cent. the price industrious, enterprising, and intelligent, and bils fair of the lands already in the hands of the large specula to rise in the world by these qualities, I am not pre- tors, of whom the lawgivers, who are about to pass this pared, as a statesman, to tell him that the moment bill, form a very respectable part, and whose friends in he has risen he will have lost his claim to the affecthe executive Departments form another portion not tions of his country and the respect and regard of less large and respectable. If this law pass, a member its rulers. And in our country, where industry, so- of one of those companies, whose profits would have briety, and prudence, will in almost all cases raise a man been confined to one hundred thousand dollars, will to competence, I do not think that mere poverty, too pocket his two hundred thousand. For this it will be often the result of indolence and intemperance, is of it- said he may very well break out in terms of patriotic inself sufficient to entitle the individual to our special af- dignation against speculators and capitalists, and he may fections and regard. In my opinion, poverty and wealth overflow with sympathy for the poor man. Bat the are, or ought to be, out of the question. I esteem a churlish and ill-natured will aver that the members of man none the more and none the less for being poor or the legislative and of the executive Departments, who rich; and in legislation I know not how we can discrim- hold the key in their hands, have fed until they were full inate between American citizens according to their prop-gorged with these dainties, and then locked the closet, erty. And I contend, and am prepared to defend the proposition, that the man whom industry, temperance, and intellect, have enabled to acquire a competence, is 89 meritorious as one whom indolence, intemperance, and imprudence, have kept poor.

that no one else might break in until they were ready themselves to return and renew the feast.

I have said that the amount of land in the hands of speculators is about twenty millions of acres; this, in round numbers, is very near the quantity, In a report I therefore put out of the question all that has been which I had the honor to present last year, from the said about and against capitalists and speculators. I join Committee on Public Lands, I estimated the quantity in the denunciation of no class of our fellow-citizens who wanted for actual occupation at eight millions of acres pursue a business which the law authorizes; and I do yearly. This was then thought too high, but time will not make, nor do I pretend to make, any efforts to put verify its accuracy. Year before last the sales amountthem down. But, on the other hand, I will not consent ed to about thirteen millions of acres. This year they to pass any law which shall operate against the mass of amounted to more than twenty millions; which, taking the community-against the small capitalist, the farmer, my estimate of what is wanted for settlement as correct, the mechanic, the laborer-for the special benefit of any (and every one admits it is high enough,) it will leave class of speculators, however great their power or dem- in the hands of speculators from sixteen to twenty mil ocratic their professions; and I believe it, that many of lions of the purchases of those two years. The whole ag the executive officers, some of the very highest, next to gregate is low enough at twenty millions. This immense the President himself, are deeply concerned in these investment, amounting in cash (if we include all expenland speculations. It is also said, and I believe it, that ses) to thirty millions of dollars, has more than exhaust some in this chamber and in the other House are also ed all the capital that can be turned from the ordinary merabers of these large joint stock companies, which business of the country to this object. Those who hold have purchased to an immense amount. I charge no public stations and command political influence, or whose one in particular, nor do I present it as a matter of friends command it, have become borrowers to an imcharge; but I name it to caution gentlemen who are so mense amount of the public money from the deposite engaged and so interested, that they do not permit their banks; and the deposite bill of the last year cut off the private interest, unawares to themselves, to glide in and sources of their supply, and compels them to pour back mingle with the performance of a public trust. How into the fountain from which it was drawn a portion of can those who are so engaged, and who have so pur- their borrowed treasure. This state of things tends to chased to the full extent of all their available means, make this business, pushed as it has been to an unrea. how can they now, as lawgivers, say to the rest of the senable extent, a precarious if not a losing business, uncommunity, you shall not purchase the public sales less the Legislature come to the relief of these borrow. shall be closed against you-and if you wish to buy, come ers of the public money. Gentlemen may say what they to us; we have land to sell in abundance, and we will please about these persons, if they will only aid them by sell it to all who will pay for it, without discrimination, a law such as this. If they will but encumber the con and we sell it embarrassed by no troublesome conditions?ditions of the sales of public land to honest and fair pur

chasers, so that they cannot buy of Government, but may be compelled to buy of the speculator, those who have gone farthest in proportion to their resources, and are compelled to sell, will thank you for your hard names and good gifts. And they have no reason to complain of unkindness; the Treasury order did much for them, but that cannot endure long; the public exclaim with one voice against it, and it must go down. But this bill, which better effects the same object, is to be first substituted in its stead. I see, however, by indications here, that we shall not touch the bill rescinding the Treasury circular in time for it to be taken up in the other House and passed into a law. It will not do to keep up that order to oppress the country, for the people will not endure it long. It is to be rescinded, but not by an act of Congress. We shall pass such act through this branch near the close of the session; it will be lost in the other House for want of time; and thus it will be reserved until after the 4th of March, that its final recision may be a feather in the cap of the new administration. I infer this from the fact that this bill, for which the people do not call, is pressed in advance of the bill to rescind the Treasury order. And when I moved the other day to take up that bill, I received a most significant intimation, from a gentleman whose word is law here, that I might spare my efforts, for they were useless; and it proved so the party refused to take up the bill.

[SENATE.

chairman of the Committee on Public Lands to refer this bill to them for their opinion. Now, my constituents who reside at a distance from the public lands, and who do not understand this mode of becoming actual settlers" and of "clearing and cultivating land," would be unable to purchase of the Government at all, and would be driven to buy second hand of those who understood the matter better, or of the speculators who have already on hand large quantities for sale. Gentlemen who advocate this bill see in it a remedy for many great political and moral evils; among others, it is to destroy or prevent that dreadful scourge, "a surplus and distribution," for which they evince such a holy horror. This surplus was a very good thing so long as it remained in the deposite banks, and was by them lent out to those who wished to purchase public land "in limited quantities"-such, for example, as half a million of acres to a single company; but when you come to distribute, or rather deposite in the State treasuries, then it carries with it all sorts of political iniquity and corruption; it is every thing that is monstrous, no republican can bear it, and this bill is to put an end to the mischief; and this money, which, if distributed, would corrupt the whole nation, can be safely trusted with the gentlemen and their constituents, without any danger of corrupting them. Let us, say they, be the exclusive purchasers of the public land; we will not take much of it, but we want it cheap; but save us from competition! Do not permit the Ohio and Pennsylvania farmers, rough, rude fellows as they are, to come to the sales with their little wallets of cash, and bid against us--us, anti-monopolists--or enter the land that we want, while we are waiting to raise funds to secure

Having considered some matters which touch this bill collaterally, and which, if it pass, will really have more influence on its passage than any intrinsic merit which it possesses, I will now proceed to consider some of the provisions of the bill itself, and show how far forth it is likely to effect its professed objects. It proposes to limit; withdraw all this provoking competition, pass this bill, it the sales of the public lands to actual settlers, and that in small quantities. The requirements of the bill in that respect are, 1st, no man may enter under one of the sections of this bill more than 1,280 acres of land; but in an. other part of the bill he is very generously allowed 640 acres more if he want it, to eke out his farm; so he may purchase 1,920 acres; and this is what is called "small quantities." The settlement provision requires that the purchaser should reside on the land or some part of it one year, or not and--or clear and cultivate one tenth part of it within five years. Now, the clearing, where one tenth part of the tract is open prairie land, is not a matter of much difficulty or hardship, it requires only the burning off the grass in November, and that work is done. Then the cultivation; what is that, and how is it defined? Is it the passing a harrow over the ground, and sowing tame grass seed on it? Is it running a few furrows across a tract of one or two hundred acres, and planting corn rows upon it, with the hills a hundred yards apart? It is not to be cultivated well, but merely cultivated, and the fact of cultivation to be settled by those who make the affidavit before the register and receiver, in order to perfect the title. Those, then, who live upon the spot, and who understand it, would have nothing to do but to put up a log cabin, which would cost five or ten dollars, burn the grass off of 200 acres of prairie, and run a plough or harrow a few times across, and sow or plant a little grass seed or a few hills of corn, and the condition of the law requiring "actual settle ment" is complied with. The affidavit is made, and the patent obtained. This bill leaves the fact of clearing and cultivation to the sound discretion and clear conscience of the affidavit man, who is to swear to it; and if there be any other regulation or restriction, I am not advised of it. We have a Committee on Agriculture, it is true, of which my honorable friend from Kentucky near me is a member, though not of high rank, last I believe. [Mr. CLAY: "last, but not least." A laugh.] This committee, however, has not yet reported what shall amount to cultivation, and I presume it is not the purpose of the

and make it unlawful for any man living in one of the old States to come to the new to purchase Government lands, and we will let the tariff alone, we will adhere to the compromise and hold it sacred, and we will also save you from the inconvenience of a surplus and the perils of distribution. Some of these gentlemen reason with us mildly, others declaim with oratorical vehemence. Why, say they, should you collect money from the people which you do not want, merely to distribute it among them again? And when we answer that it arises out of the sale of the national domain, that we must receive or stop these sales, and when received we must preserve it in such manner as to render the most service to the whole country, they offer to relieve us of all this inconvenience by keeping the public land and the profits on it themselves; thus lightening the public burdens by pos sessing themselves of the public property. You have, say they, a great quantity of excellent land, which is a very great trouble to you; we and our constituents will relieve you of it at once; but do not let the people of the old States have it, or any part or lot in it; they are speculators, and they will fill your Treasury with money, which you know is a very troublesome thing. We who are not speculators, but who know how to make money by dealing in land, will take it without embarrassing you with any thing that will burden your Treasury.

These lands, which gentlemen ask, in behalf of themselves and their constituents, the exclusive privilege of purchasing at the minimum price of $1 25 per acre, are worth, by their own showing, from $5 to $40 per acre. There are yet undisposed of about one thousand millions of acres-not all of such great value, but worth, nevertheless, more than one thousand millions of dollars. Pass this bill, and follow it up, as you are certain to do if you once make the commence. ment, and there will be fortunes made under it, such as no crowned head in Europe can boast; Croesus was a beggar compared with the industrious and unscrupulous speculator under this bill. Gentlemen before whose eyes these golden visions flit hate every thing they ought to