"Among the pretences to cultivation, there have been disclosures as follows, viz: where the cutting and burning a small patch of cane; where an enclosure, not entitled to be called a fence, around a space only large enough for a small garden, and the planting a few culinary vegetables; and where scattering an undefined quantity of turnip seeds or grass seeds, and, in one case, planting a few turnips or onions, have been claimed as cultivation to meet this condition." Again: "If the propriety were conceded of making the preemption policy a part of our land system, there would be still no evident fitness in extending the concession to a full quarter section of land. An allowance of half that quantity of the very best land is surely munificent, and, if presumed poverty be one of the considerations for the grant, it may be observed that many a good farm in the West contains no more than an eighth of a section." Again: "The temptation to abuse the charity of the Legislature is so radically intermixed and so inextricably interwoven with the operation of the pre-emption laws, that I should despair of laying before you altogether effect ual means for the prevention of fraud on the part of claimants. It seems to me a hopeless task to project any modification of existing enactments that shall silence perjury, and defeat the devices of sagacious speculators, 80 long as their ingenuity shall be sharpened and stimulated by the prospect of immense gain attending their success." Such are the extraordinary and disgusting develop. ments made by the officer who was last year at the head of the General Land Office, and whose means of intelligence cannot be questioned; and such is the effect of legislating the public domain into the hands of individuals. It offers such temptation to an easy acquisition of wealth, that it superinduces every species of fraud. I will now ask attention to some parts of a statement made by the attorney of the United States for the west ern district of Louisiana in regard to these floats and pre-emption rights: [SENATE. are the owners of these floats? Principally one, and not And It Such has been the result of the experiment of the law of 1830, made for the benefit of a few poor settlers. has swept away more than three millions of dollars from the public chest, and introduced a system which corrupts and demoralizes the citizens, to an extent surpassing belief. It comes to us fraught with all the evils prophesied of it, and has already invited hordes to seize upon the public property, indulging the hope that new laws of this description will be passed. Indeed, they come boldly to our doors and demand them. This city is now filled with greedy claimants; not your poor and helpless individuals, who have raised a log cabin over their heads in some nook of public property, but men who enter the fashionable walks of life and boast of their for tunes. "I will here mention a construction of the law which was adopted by the officers at Opelousas, and most of the pre-emption floats have been admitted under that construction: Two persons living on a quarter section, or And yet this law of 1830 was guarded and protected who pretend that they do, on lands not worth a cent an by oaths and required proofs. The settlement and the acre; men who can neither read nor write; men who cultivation must he proved under oath, and to have ochave never seen a survey made, and know nothing about curred before 1829, to entitle the claimant to the benc sections or quarter sections of land; and who, in point fit of the act. But, sir, what is cultivation? Any act of fact, live five, ten, and, in many instances, twenty upon the soil; raising a handful of vegetables of a few miles apart, go before a justice of the peace as ignorant weeks' growth; sowing a little grass seed, which is up as themselves, and swear to all the facts required by in a few days. What is occupancy? Feeding a horse law to make their entry; this, too, in a section of coun- upon the soil has been claimed as such. And such mistry never surveyed by the authority of the Government, crable frauds, aided by the perjury of hired and interestnor any competent officer thereof. Would it be believed witnesses, have been employed, with the connivance ed that any officer of the Government would admit an of public officers, under a benevolent act, to steal the entry under circumstances like these, upon the oaths most valuable parts of the public land. Such has been alone of the parties interested in making them, and our sad and appalling experience under the law of 1830. upon lands not surveyed, approved, and returned, by Now, sir, what is the character of the bill on your ta higher authority? Can it be possible that an entry of ble? A thousand-fold worse than the act of 1830. that kind can either be in conformity with law, justice, a pre-emption, for the exclusive benefit of the States in or right? which the public lands lie. A monopoly in their hands; an appropriation of the public lands to their use, to the exclusion of all others; a gift of this vast treasure to the citizens of those States. And can I vote for such a prof. ligate disposition of public property? How can I meet my constituents and justify such an act? You have hardly the modesty to disguise this bill, by holding it up as a measure for the benefit of the poor; but gentlemen stand boldly forth, and contend that every man's farm should be made up to at least 1,280 acres out of the public land. Ay, more: that he shall have the right to select from no less than twenty-one sections of 640 acres each, the best parts and portions, to make up his comple "I state, of my own knowledge, that many of these pre-emption floats are precisely in the situation above detailed. I am authorized to name Colonel Robert A. Crane, of Louisiana, who states, positively, he knows many of them to be founded upon the same corrupt perjury--persons swearing that they lived on the same quarter section, when, in truth and in fact, they never had lived so near each other as five miles. It is not believed that there are thirty honest pre-emption floats in the whole district of Louisiana; and yet, since the 1st of January, 1835, up to the 27th of May, they have passed at the land office at Opelousas at least 350. And who It is SENATE.] Public Lands. [FEB. 9, 1837. ment, at a dollar and a quarter the acre. And more: that Territory, which are of superior quality for agricul you do not confine him to lands surveyed, but permittural purposes, and which they might lawfully enter and him to range in regions never yet exposed to sale, and to select the richest gifts of nature. Nor is your bill confined to retrospective action, but whoever will may go and seize the public domain. And what do you require of him? Oaths and proofs of occupancy and cultivation; such, substantially, as were required by the act of 1830; provisions just as easily evaded. And titles were manufactured under that act in vast numbers, by the oaths of perjured witnesses and the certificates of false magistrates. If you were robbed of three millions of dollars under that act, what may you not expect by thus opening the flood gates to the cupidity of the greedy and avaricious? We have, I know, heard much fulsome panegyric lav. ished upon the hardy pioneers, as they are styled; much of their sufferings, and much of their perils and bravery. But, sir, who invites them to these sufferings? Who asks them to seize the public land? For whose benefit is it? The laws of the United States forbid their entry upon it, they restrain by heavy penalties all intrusion, they declare all such persons to be trespassers and liable to indictment. These intruders are, therefore, disturbers of the public peace, and by interfering with the Indians they provoke hostilities, and create the very wars in which they affirm they have suffered, and then claim our compassion. It is my firm belief that if these disturbers were kept within lawful bounds, we should have no hostilities with the Indians. But, sir, if fighting is meritorious, have we no fighting men to be provided for? Are those who achieved our independence forgotten? Do Bunker Hill, and Lexington, and Sarotaga, sink into forgetfulness before the exploits with Black Hawk and Oceola? We have heard much, too, of the poor settler; and that there are some of this class on the public land is doubtless true. If they, and they alone, can be provided for by being quieted in their possessions, they shall have my vote. Show me a bill for them, which will bar frauds and speculation, and it shall have my most hearty support. But what sort of a bill is this for poor men, which proposes to let each person who may choose to take up for himself or to annex to his estate 1,280 acres of the most choice spots of the public land? Cannot something short of an estate equal to that of a nobleman satisfy the poor? The poor, sir, are used as the stalking-horse to disguise the measure; its features are, however, too apparent to mislead any one. But if the poor are to be provided for, then I claim that all are alike entitled. I regret it, but we have many poor, too poor even to be able to make the long journey to your public land. They are meritorious, and they suffer all the privations incident to their unfortunate condition, and I claim for them a share of the public bounty, if the public property is to be distributed. There is a great class of widows and orphans, aged and infirm, whose condition makes a strong appeal to your humanity. Let your bounty reach them, and gladden their sorrowful hearts, instead of adding to the boundless acres of the rich planters. We have been told that great numbers of respectable people have emigrated, and settled upon the public lands, in the expectation that a pre-emption law would pass for their benefit. The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. HUBBARD] says that he knows of a great num ber, and that a large majority of the Territorial Council of Wisconsin are squatters. I doubt not it is true, and that they have left their poor neighbors behind them in New Hampshire. They are doubtless men of comfortable means; and why do they go to Wisconsin to settle upon public lands which have neither been surveyed nor brought into the market, when there are millions on millions of acres which have been surveyed this side of own at a dollar and a quarter? This boundless region does not satisfy the ambition of these poor men who are seeking a home. They pass by all this, as unworthy of their notice, and light upon regions where they may have the first choice, and not wait to get rich by the slow process of ordinary accumulation. These are the poor men knocking at our doors for pre-emption rights. But this is not all. We have proofs here that they are banded and associated together to resist the laws of the United States, and to maintain their claims against all opposition. They have constitutions, as they term them; and for what? To stand together and maintain their possessions. To set at defiance the title of the United States to their own property. To make war upon all persons who shall dare to bid for these lands at the sales made by the United States, and by such high-banded violence to secure to themselves great tracts of country, the most valuable portions of the public domain, at the paltry sum of a dollar and a quarter the acre, though it is well known that purchasers stand ready in many instances to give a hundred-fold more. Many of these settlers, it is said, are banded with the speculators by an agreement to divide the booty; and when the rights are thus once secured in a place, like birds of prey, they rise up and light upon some other favored region, to convert it to private property by the same process of lawless violence. I was informed by a gentleman, last winter, who lived at the Grand Rapids, in Michigan, among the Ottawa Indians, that the south bank of the rapids was owned by a squatter, who had obtained a section of 640 acres, at a dollar and a quarter the acre, and that it is worth, at this moment, without any important improvements, half a million of dollars. I could not easily credit the word of a man of the strictest veracity, until I saw, by the treaty made with these Indians, and ratified here at the last session, that a section on the other bank was estimated to be worth a much greater sum. This is not an isolated case of the accumulation of vast wealth by the erection of a bark cabin and the planting of a few peppers or tomatoes. The end, aim, and purpose, of the great body of pre-emptioners is to make themselves rich out of the public property. It is, in a word, to defraud the United States in the manner described in the documents from which I have read. I have recently conversed with a distinguished member of the other House, from the West, who passed through Wisconsin during the last summer, and he informs me that the path leading through the public lands was, for a large portion of the way, skirted by a furrow or two of the plough, which turned off at intervals, and entered the prairies or the openings. On inquiry, he found that this was the proof of occupancy and possession. Those who had done this considered themselves as having established pre-emption rights to all enclosed by the furrows. Some went round a thousand, some more, and some less, acres, and some marked out, in this way, many lots. Almost all the choice land had been thus seized, in anticipation of the passage of this or some pre-emption act. He added, that when one crossed the furrow of another, this was called jumping, and then a fight with deadly weapons ensued. I have seen also a letter, giving an account of a treaty made in Wisconsin the last summer with the Iowas, who lived on the Iowa river, west of the Mississippi. The lands upon this stream are represented to be of extraordinary fertility; and, after the general terms of the treaty were agreed upon, the commissioners proposed that a stipulation for a speedy removal of the Indians and a surrender of the territory should be inserted. When this proposition was interpreted to the Indians, the wri ter, who was present, declares there was among them a general laugh, which was viewed as a singular comment upon a grave proposition, and an explanation was requested. They instantly replied that the proposition for such an article was absurd, and wholly unnecessary, as they had no possession. They affirmed, what was ascertained to be true, that before they assembled to make the treaty, the pre-emptioners had begun to run their ploughs round the land; and no sooner had their agreement to negotiate been made public, than the whites began to take possession of their cabins, and they did not doubt they were now occupying every one of them. The author of this letter is a gentleman, well known as a respectable citizen of the United States. [SENATE. mended the rejection of the bill to renew the deposite with the States,) why should it not follow the surplus of last year? Is not this better than to cast it into the sea? But there is still a wiser and a better measure-one that at all times has strongly recommended itself to the consideration of the country: I mean the bill which has repeatedly passed both Houses by a large majority, and has met with an insurmountable obstacle in the veto of the Executive-the land bill. This act provided for the distribution of the avails of the sales of the public lands among the States, upon just and equitable principles, to aid them in their great cause of education and internal improvements. It was in conformity with the terms of the cession of those lands; for they were given to the States, and not to the United States. Such was the general design of this beneficent act; and while I lament that any causes should have arrested its progress, I do not despair of yet seeing a returning sense and more just regard to public rights in this matter. I have now said enough to show what is the general character of pre-emption rights-that they fill the minds And, sir, if this salutary measure had been adopted, of sharpers with golden dreams, and that the poor are what signal blessings would it have conferred upon the the last class of people who are to be benefited by them. States? Who does not see that it was every where need If this bill passes, the public lands are gone, irreclaim- ed, and that the hearts of the people would have been ably gone; for such will be the rush upon them, and gladdened in all the country, by such a just distribution such the reliance upon future legislation of this charac- of a treasure acquired by the common blood and sacriter, that this Government can never reassert its author-fices of the American people? A more munificent, wise, ity. I have heard that the number of persons waiting and just act, was never devised within these chambers. on the public domain for this law may be estimated at This money would have been applied by the States to 50,000; whether it be more or less is not material, for it lighten the burdens and to increase the happiness of the is known to be great. When we hear that the Govern- people. I know of nothing in which the poor are more ment itself of Wisconsin is of this class, we can have lit- emphatically blessed than in enlarged means of educatle doubt of the character of the population. Now, sir, I tion, or in which the whole people are more clearly benagain ask, what necessity is there for such a partial, un- efited than in the extension of internal improvements, just measure? Why should we in this manner waste the which bring the products of labor by cheap and easy public treasure, and corrupt the morals of the citizens? means to the markets of the country. Why should we do injustice to the whole country, by lowering the value of real estate? Are not the landholders, the farmers of the old States, to be regarded? You cannot change the price of the public lands without its being felt by a correspondent change in the value of real estate from Maine to the farthest West. It seems to be thought here that the farmers of the old States have no right to open their mouths, if you legislate away half the value of their estates, which have been acquired by long, patient, and laborious industry. They may be left to take care of themselves, or to abandon their homes, and scramble for a share of the public property; for they seem to attract little of the sympathy that is so liberally extended to those who grasp at the alluring booty. Are not the rights of the farmers of the older portions of the new States to be regarded? They have bought and paid for their lands to the United States. Can it be just to them to give away adjoining lots? You indirectly acknowledge that it would not; for you bribe such persons, by allowing them to enlarge their farms to very extraordinary dimensions. But why are we urged to pass a law thus full of injustice? The great and leading argument is, that the Treasury is too full of money, and it is better to annihilate a source of vast revenue, than to possess the money. Bet ter to throw away public property than to keep it! Better to give it to a few, than that the great whole should have the benefit of it! Sir, you may talk of the poor; of the necessity of settling the public lands; of the gallantry of the pioneers; of their sufferings, their respectability, and whatever else the human mind may invent in its proneness to fiction; but you can never reconcile the people to such an argument. You can never satisfy them that it is better to waste the public treasure than to apply it to public uses; that it is better and more just to pamper a few with it, than to let the whole feel the blessings which a Government may secure by an administration for the benefit of all. If there should be a surplus of revenue, (which the Secretary of the Treasury denies, and which the committee that report this bill deny, for they have recomVOL. XIII.-49 Can any one for a moment hesitate between the land bill and the act before us? They both relate to the public property: the one proposes to dispose of it for the public and general good; the other to advance the interests of a few clamorous individuals, most of whom are greedy speculators; the one to enlighten the public mind and to promote the public convenience, the other to create an odious monopoly in the hands of a few, while the great public is excluded from all participation in its own property; the one to ease the Treasury of its burdens, by returning to the people what is their own, the other to build up a class of favored individuals at the expense of the people. The one creates a sectional, undisguised monopoly, not of privileges alone, but by taking what belongs to us of the old States, as well as to those of the new, and giving it to others. Can there, ought there to be a moment's hesitation in choosing between these measures? If the Treasury is too full, (which your Secretary in his report and estimates denies,) shall the people have their own, or shall a favored few be pampered with it? Have we reached a crisis which demands the absolute sacrifice of the public lands? What would be thought of an individual so profligate as to commit his property to destruction? It would be deemed a sin so gross as to provoke the displeasure of Heaven. And we need not be surprised if we soon reach a period when the people will look back with incredulity upon this era, in which we are puzzling ourselves to devise ways to get rid of the revenue. They will be amazed that so little wisdom existed here as not to apply any surplus that possibly can exist to great and useful purposes; but, above all, they will credit no man with sincerity who argues that it is necessary to sacrifice the public property; for you can. not persuade men that their condition is above amendment; that they need nothing more; that public money cannot yet be expended so as to promote their happiness. But if, from political prejudice or any other cause, the land bill is objectionable, still we may easily reduce t he revenue without throwing the public property over. board. Why not limit or stop the sales of the public lands? Why not offer a limited portion of those which have been surveyed, instead of exciting the cupidity of the greedy, by offering a choice of the whole domain? There surely can be no difficulty in reducing the reve nue from public land, if it is necessary. Small financial talent can bring that about, and leave the public property to meet future emergencies. The Treasury can never be so plethoric as to require blood-letting. But another matter has been pressed with extraordinary zeal, and, I fear, more for effect than any other purpose. This chamber has literally resounded, ever since the opening of the session, with denunciations of speculators in lands. The pre-emption law of 1830, I have shown, disguised and gave effect to the most disgusting, injurious frauds among speculators that have ever been perpetrated, and this bill opens a passage a thousand times wider and safer for the workers of iniquity. I have, therefore, been greatly surprised that those who denounce speculators should be found among the advocates of this measure. Let those who have defrauded the poor Indians, and through them plundered the United States, answer for their gross misconduct. No denunciations for them can be too heavy, no punishment too severe. [FEB. 9, 1837. their own affairs are judiciously conducted. They need no regulation themselves; indeed, they are willing to submit to none; for that is a matter that belongs exclusively to their private judgment; but their neighbors may with propriety be regulated. The Executive may put his hand upon them, because they buy or sell a little too much. It is a kind of indefinable public injury, which may be corrected by the interference of executive power; and there is no harm in applying a regulator to the judgment of others. To ourselves it is not necessary, as our opinions are as good as the King's. But I said speculation did not find its origin in the public lands, but in the removal of the deposites. That extraordinary measure gave the death-blow to the Bank of the United States, and established the belief that such a bank hereafter was to be dispensed with. What a host of banks have risen upon its ruins! What a sea of paper has inundated the country, under pretence of suppressing bank notes! In 1830, the bank capital in the United States was estimated at $145,192,268; and it is now believed to be little, if any, short of $400,000,000. Banks have been every where created, with an amount of capital that would have startled the public mind before this war began. Where is the boasted hard-money currency? Who sees it? Who feels it? It jingles in the press, and nowhere else. But what has been the effect of this remarkable creation of banks? It has every where greatly added to the amount of circulation. The very evil complained of exists in a vastly more efficient and all-pervading character. Wherever new banks have been created, there hopes have been excited that money could be reached, and there these hopes have begot the spirit of speculatien. A new batch of bills was to be thrown out, and those who would add to their mass of wealth, and those who would mend broken fortunes, or amass riches by sudden acquisitions, seized these opportunities to lay hold of the means. The success of one has stimulated another, until the contagion has spread, with the spread of banks, over the land. This system, I fear, has grown to be an alarming evil; and whenever distress and suffering shall overtake us, as it bids fair to do speedily, then will the eyes of the public be turned to this place for relief, and the just power of the States, instead of being respected, will be trampled under foot. Pynnsylvania, democratic Pennsylvania, has already appealed to this power But what have those persons done who, for the most part, have purchased the public lands, and paid this troublesome revenue into the Treasury? Just what the United States have invited them to do. We have a law of long standing, which requires, after the public lands have been surveyed, that they shall first be offered at public auction, and those which will sell at more than a dollar and a quarter shall be thus disposed of. It further provides that, whatever remains of the quantity thus offered, any person may enter in any quantity not less than one eighth of a section, and become the owner by paying the price into the land office of the district where the land lies. All persons are alike invited, both to attend the sales and to make entries of what remains. The great body of the public lands have been sold under the provisions of this law, and the purchasers have done precisely what we have invited them by law to do, and precisely what all honest purchasers before them have done. You offered your land on your own terms, and they have paid all you demanded. This is the extent of Let not the public lands be charged with exciting this their offence; and does it become us, while that law gambling spirit. The only reason why you sell the pubstands on the statute books, and while the public offices lic lands is, because they are supposed to be cheap; and are kept open under public authority from Congress, to if you think them so, it is easy to ask more. Let the stigmatize those who give us just what we ask-who currency alone; place your surplus money with the deal openly, fairly, and honestly? If you have too many States, instead of piling it up in your pet banks, so that purchasers, if the land is too rapidly taken up, then alter it rises above their capital, and the people will soon learn your law; change your terms, instead of denouncing the how to do business, and you will find little cause to compurchasers. You can make terms that will put a stop to plain of speculation; but so long as you undertake to the sales. It ill becomes us to spend our breath in scold-regulate it, and fit that regulation to suit the fortunes ing about those who have done nothing but comply with our terms, nothing but to conform to the laws made here. It is further urged that the public lands have excited a disposition to speculation and trade which ought to be suppressed, because it is injurious to the country. That an extraordinary spirit of trade and speculation is abread admits of no doubt; and that its ends will not contribute to the general prosperity is perhaps equally certain; but I cannot agree that the public lands have been the exciting cause. Nothing seems to me more unfounded. The origin of this state of things may be found in the attempts of the Executive to regulate the currency of the country. These attempts, all agree now, have been futile and positively injurious; and so will all attempts to regulate speculation prove. Every one thinks he can clearly see proofs of over-trading in others; but there are few, I believe, who do not entertain the opinion that to rid her of her State banks. and wishes of favored capitalists, so long you will hear complaints, and just complaints, of the partial and oppressive action of this Government. But with what force can those who censure speculation advocate this bill? It proposes to legalize the most stupendous speculations that the country has ever witne gsed. If we cannot extricate ourselves from the petty law of 1830, if that has enlisted an army of 50,000 men to band themselves together to insist on pre-emption rights against all law and all color of right, what number do you think this bill will array upon the frontiers? I tell you, sir, that the whole power of the United States will exert itself in vain against the current. Your pub. lic domain will be lost; instead of three millions, your. bill will take from you three hundred millions. The temptation is such as never addressed itself to cupidity and the speculators, those who can run furrows and hire the strongest force to make violence and to resist vio lence, will be the chief participators in the plunder. He who can raise the strongest clan, and flourish the most knives, will acquire the greatest possessions. The bill also invites and protects fraud; for you au thorize a person to enter upon his two sections, to make his cultivation, and to hold the land, but he is to have no title for five years. Whoever, therefore, chooses to defraud his creditors, may salt his money down in these lands, and it will be beyond the reach of the law; for the title will be in the United States, while the actual possession and full enjoyment will be in the pre-emptioner. This will be one of the most convenient modes ever de vised of abstracting property from the reach of creditors. L [SENATE. Mr. T. regretted extremely that a bill with such provisions as this did not limit the sales of the public lands at all. For five years past, the Senate and the country had been much agitated in relation to the public lands. In regard to them, three measures had been presented. The first was Mr. CLAY's land bill, to which, if it were possible to pass it in connexion with the pre-emption principle, he would give his support. The second measure was the one proposed by Mr. CALHOUN, to cede the public lands to the new States on certain conditions, which would relieve those States from an undue subjection to the Federal Government, give them the power to tax the lands, and enable them to advance more rapidly in improvement and prosperity. Mr. T. did not be lieve, with Mr. HUBBARD, that the time had not arrived for this measure. The proper time, he thought, had arrived, and he wished the bill might have a report made upon it by a committce, and go abroad to the country. The third measure was this bill, to which Mr. T. especially objected, because it was limited to three years. He hoped, therefore, that the new States would be put in possession of the public lands. Mr. EWING spoke in decided opposition to it, on constitutional among other considerations. Mr. CLAY said it had been his wish and intention, in the progress of this bill, to express his sentiments at large upon it; and he would now do so, but he did not wish to inflict on the Senate a long speech. He would say but a few words. But there is another reason more extraordinary than any to which I have hitherto adverted. I commend the frankness of the Senator from Missouri [Mr. BENTON] when he says earnestly, and too emphatically to be misunderstood, it is time the federal title to the public lands was extinguished; the time is coming when we will have them. These are plain declarations-" we will have them." The old States, then, are to have no part or lot in the public lands. The children hold themselves justified in seizing the estate, in robbing the ancestor while alive; and those who propose this complain of all who buy land at the legal price as greedy speculators; as men preying upon the public prosperity, and enriching themselves at the expense of the settlers. This can only mean that what goes into the public Treasury is grudged to it. It is time for the public to rouse up and look to this usurpation, if there is such a determination abroad. It is time for the old States to awake from their repose, and see that their inheritance is not sold for a mess of pottage. These public lands afford a most alluring temp. tation to those who seek for popular favor, and the old He had not purchased, he said, either directly or indiStates may rest assured that they will constitute a politi-rectly one acre of land for twenty years past, with the cal capital to trade upon, and he who will offer them upon the most favorable terms will hope for most popu lar favor in the West. The halls of Congress have long furnished ample proof of this. Sir, I hope the time has not come when the people are to be purchased by largesses; when, in imitation of the corrupt days of Rome, favor is to be gained by a distribution of corn or money. Yet, from the signs here, I have long feared the approach of evil. I hope, sir, the people place a higher value upon public liberty; that they will consent to be the fol lowers of no one who does not, by his conduct as well as sentiments, show his respect and regard for the institutions achieved and established by the Revolution of independence. Men that can be bought and sold by petty hopes of pecuniary advantage are unworthy of the great public blessings they inherit. The Senator from Missouri, I agree, understands the sentiments of his part of the country better than I do, for he has long been a sagacious observer of public opinion. It is enough for me that he declares the purpose exists to assert title to the lands in the new States. It is enough for all who value their property to look to it with vigilance, when one of his standing and influence declares that the federal title shall be extinguished. The new States, I trust, are more wise, just, and patriotic, than the suggestion would imply. I have, sir, (said Mr. D.,) glanced at some of the important matters connected with this measure, and I can. not view it in any aspect in which it presents itself, that is not pregnant with vicious consequences; and, though I fear it will be unavailing, I earnestly hope the bill may be rejected. Mr. TIPTON said he had hoped that the bill would have been brought back from the committee in some shape in which he could cheerfully give his vote in its favor; and although there was now only one feature of exception of a quarter section to complete a grazing farm in Illinois; and in saying this he did not imply a reproach against purchasers of the public lands. If individuals evaded the law, or made use of official power in such purchases, to these he objected, but not to the general purchaser. Mr. C. recollected three different epochs at which speculation bad raged. The first was from 1792 to 1796, when it raged throughout the country. Among these speculators were Morris, and Nicholson, and others, merchants of Virginia. Beautiful maps were made out, dry lands were turned into meadows, barrens into fruitful fields, and streams were found where they were nev er found before. That speculation was disastrous to all concerned. In 1816, after the late war, it had raged again. Land was bought in Alabama at from $40 to $70 per acre. This general speculation was also most disas trous, and many of the speculators had got relief from the Government, by a reduction of 36 per cent. on their purchases. Most of the speculators suffered. Again the spirit arose a year or two ago; and Mr. C. doubted not that the crisis of the disease was already past, and if it were let alone it would remedy itself. Very many purchasers would be great sufferers, as in 1796 and 1818-19. The evil required no physician to arrest its progress, and it was best to leave it where it was. This bill, Mr. C. said, had been founded on two ideas: first to reduce the revenue, and then to suppress speculation. If Mr. C's views were correct, speculation would go down of itself, so low even that it would be necessary to stimulate it, and the revenue would fall to the ordinary wants of the Government. There would not again be a surplus to require legislation. But even if the public lands should nett twenty or twenty-five millions of dollars annually, was this bill the proper remedy? Some gentlemen would say the object would be attained by in |
