SENATE.] Mr. Foot's Resolution, [JAN. 18, 1830. The but solely because the petitioners were unwilling to tres- distance. In Missouri they are the refuse of forty years pass on the reluctance which the honorable Senators from picking under the Spanish Government, and twenty more South Carolina naturally felt, or might be supposed to under the Government of the United States. The characfeel, to presenting petitions for aid from the Government ter and value of this refuse had been shown, officially, in of the United States. in cases in which their known opin- the reports of the Registers and Receivers, made in obediions, as to the constitutional powers of Congress, would ence to a call from the Senate. Other gentlemen would oblige them to oppose the prayer of the petitioners. For show what was said of it in their respective States; he his own part, [Mr. W. said it was well known, that, dur- would confine himself to his own, to the State of Missouri; ing the whole time in which he had had any connexion and show it to be miserable indeed. The St. Louis Diswith Congress, he had uniformly been in favor of what trict, containing two and a quarter millions of acres, was was called internal improvement, when applied to objects estimated at an average value of fifteen cents per acre; of sufficient magnitude and importance to be properly the Cape Girardeau District, containing four and a half called national. And, while he admitted the necessity of millions of acres, was estimated at twelve and a half cents great caution and wisdom in the exercise of the power, per acre; the Western District, containing one million and he must still say that every day convinced him, more and three quarters of acres, was estimated at sixty-two and a more, of the necessity of such exercise, in suitable cases. [half cents; from the other two districts there was no intelHe would take occasion to add, that he was a thorough ligent or pertinent return; but assuming them to be equal convert to the practicability and efficacy of rail roads. to the Western District, and the average value of the He believed that the great results which the power of lands they contain would be only one-half the amount of steam had accomplished, in regard to transportation by the present minimum price. This being the state of the water, were not superior to those which it would yet ac- lands in Missouri which would be subject to sale under the complish, in regard to transportation by land. The only operation of this resolution, no emigrants would be atdoubt was, as to the amount of cost; and that was a point tracted to them. Persons who remove to new countries which experience would shortly solve, he hoped satisfac- want new lands, first choices; and if they cannot get torily. He would only add, that, while he felt pleasure in these, they have no sufficient inducement to move. presenting this petition, he looked forward, with equal Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Foor] had read a part of pleasure, to the time, he hoped not distant, when it would Mr. Graham's, the Commissioner's report, to show that be his duty, in conjunction with his colleague, to ask a the lands had sold rapidly in the Steubenville District, the subscription, by Congress, to the Massachusetts Rail Road, oldest in the Union; he had shown the sales there for 1828, a contemplated work, which, if executed, would facilitate to be about thirty-five thousand dollars; but if he had intercourse between several States, and be felt, in its be- wished to have shown the other side of the question--how neficial effects, all the way from the bay of Massachusetts much faster they sell in new districts-what a fine oppor to the mouth of the Ohio. When the proper time should tunity he would have found in the Crawfordsville District, come, he doubted not the Senate, and the other branch of in Indiana: the sales there, in the same year, being no the Legislature also, would give to that enterprise such less than one hundred and ninety thousand dollars. aid and assistance as it should be entitled to by the consi- The second ill effect to result from this resolution, supderation of its magnitude, and its obvious public utility and posing it to ripen into the measures which it implies to be importance. necessary, would be in limiting the settlements in the new States and Territories. This limitation of settlement would be the inevitable effect of confining the sales to the lands now in market. These lands in Missouri, only amount to one-third of the State. By consequence, only remain without inhabitants; the resolution says, for "a one-third could be settled. Two-thirds of the State would certain period," and the gentlemen, in their speeches, expound this certain period to be seventy-two years. They say seventy-two millions of acres are now in market; that we sell but one million a year; therefore, we have enough to supply the demand for seventy-two years. It does not enter their heads to consider that, if the price was adapted to the value, all this seventy-two millions that is fit for cultivation would be sold immediately. They must go on at a million a year for seventy-two years, the Scripture teim of the life of man--a long period in the age of a nation; the exact period of the Babylonish captivity--a long and sorrowful period in the history of the Jews; and not less long nor less sorrowful in the history of the West, if this resolution should take effect. Mr. W. then presented the petition, and it was referred to o the Committee on Roads and Canals. MR. FOOT'S RESOLUTION. The consideration of the resolution submitted by Mr. FOOT, and which was before the Senate on Wednesday at the hour of adjournment, was resumed: Mr. BENTON commenced a speech with an analysis of the resolution, which, he said, presented three distinct propositions, viz: 1. To stop the surveying of the public land. 2. To limit the sales of the land now in market. 3. To abolish all the offices of the Surveyors General. These were the propositions. The effect of them would be: 1. To check emigration to the new States and Territories. 2. To limit their settlement. 3. To deliver up large portions of them to the dominion of wild beasts. The third point of objection is, that it would deliver up 4. To remove all the land records from the new States. large portions of new States and Territories to the doMr. B. disclaimed all intention of having any thing to minion of wild beasts. In Missouri, this surrender would do with the motives of the mover of the resolution: he be equal to two-thirds of the State, comprising about forty took it according to its effect and operation, and conceiv-thousand square miles, covering the whole valley of the ing this to be eminently injurious to the rights and interests Osage river, besides many other parts, and approaching of the new States and Territories, he should justify the within a dozen miles of the centre and capital of the State. view which he had taken, and the vote he intended to give, by an exposition of facts and reasons which would show the disastrous nature of the practical effects of this resolution. On the first branch of these effects-checking emigration to the West-it is clear, that, if the sales are limited to the lands now in market, emigration will cease to flow; for these lands are not of a character to attract people at a All this would be delivered up to wild beasts: for the Indian title is extinguished, and the Indians gone; the white people would be excluded from it; beasts alone would take it; and all this in violation of the Divine command to replenish the earth, to increase and multiply upon it, and to have dominion over the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, the fish in the waters, and the creeping things of the earth. [SENATE. The fourth point of objection is, in the removal of the an inquiry would become nugatory and idle. Why send land records-the natural effect of abolishing all the offi-a resolution of inquiry to be returned non est inventus? ces of the Surveyors General. These offices are five in Why send your bucket to the bottom of a dry well? Why number. It is proposed to abolish them all, and the reason this perseverance for three weeks to get the inquiry beassigned in debate is, that they are sinecures; that is to fore a committee who are to reject it? Surely for some say, offices which have revenues and no employment. purpose; and that purpose may be to gain a foot hold, This is the description of a sinecure. We have one of to get jurisdiction, to get the subject agoing, and then these offices in Missouri, and I know something of it. The refer it to another committee that would report favorably, Surveyor General, Colonel McRee, in point of fidelity to under the plea that the first committee was composed of his trust, belongs to the school of Nathaniel Macon; in interested members from the new States. point of science and intelligence, he belongs to the first notice of the terrifying argument which was used to get He then took order of men that Europe or America contains. He and the resolution through. It was said it would excite sus None can He next ad If not, his clerks carry labor and drudgery to the ultimate point of picion and prejudice against us, if we did not agree to it. human exertion, and still fall short of the task before Suspicion of what? Prejudice in what? Explain these terms. them; and this is an office which it is proposed to abolish Name the thing, foul or hidden, which the new States under the notion of a sinecure, as an office with revenue, have to avoid in this inquiry. There is none. and without employment. The abolition of these offices be named. It is an attempt to terrify little children and would involve the necessity of removing all their records, aged women. and thus depriving the country of all the evidences of the and to command respect, is to show a knowledge of your Prejudice indeed! The way to avoid it, foundations of all the land titles. This would be sweeping rights, and a determination to defend them. work; but the gentleman's plan would be incomplete with-verted to a class of arguments which undertook to smugout including the General Land Office in this city, the gle this resolution through-to convey it along unobserprincipal business of which is to superintend the five Sur- vedly, as one of the harmless or beneficial inquiries which veyor General's offices, and for which there could be daily passed as a matter of course. but little use after they were abolished. This was putting the These are the practical effects of the resolution. Emi- cover, and show the character of the cargo. He animadenemy into a covered wagon; but he would pull off the gration to the new States checked; their settlement limit-verted upon the suggestion, that a rejection of the resolued; a large portion of their surface delivered up to the do- tion was a suppression of inquiry. He thought the attempt minion of beasts; the land records removed. Such are the to send it off to a committee-room was more like supinjuries to be inflicted upon the new States, and we, the pressing debate. But he had no notion of letting it escape Senators from those States, are called upon to vote in favor under a flash and a smoke. He would wait till the atmosof the resolution which proposes to inquire into the expe-phere cleared up, and then call gentlemen back to the diency of committing all these enormities! I, for one, will character of the resolution, and urge them to meet him on not do it. I will vote for no such inquiry. I would as the perniciousness of that character. soon vote for inquiries into the expediency of conflagrating between resolutions for good and for evil; the former He discriminated cities, of devastating provinces, and of submerging fruitful passed, of course; the latter should be resisted. lands under the waves of the ocean. the whole country may be alarmed, agitated, and enI take my stand upon a great moral principle: that it is raged, with mischievous inquiries: the South about its never right to inquire into the expediency of doing wrong. slaves and Indians; the West about its lands; the NorthThe proposed inquiry is to do wrong; to inflict unmix-east on the subject of its fisheries, its navagation, its light ed, unmitigated evil upon the new States and Territories. houses, and its manufactories. What would be the conSuch inquiries are not to be tolerated. Courts of law will dition of the Union, what the chance for the preservation not sustain actions which have immoral foundations; legis- of harmony, if each part struck at the other in a system of lative bodies should not sustain inquiries which have ini- pernicious and alarming inquiries? And yet, unless the quitous conclusions. Courts of law make it an object to give discrimination is made which I propose, all this may be public satisfaction in the administration of justice; legisla-done. The argument used by the Senator from Alabama, tive bodies should consult the public tranquillity in the [Mr. McKINLEY] the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. prosecution of their measures. They should not alarm Foor] and others, would carry through every species of and agitate the country; yet, this inquiry, if it goes on, inquiry, even the most fatal to the interest, the most inwill give the greatest dissatisfaction to the new States in sulting to the pride, and most destructive to the harmony the West and South. It will alarm and agitate them, and of the States. ought to do it. It will connect itself with other inquiries But this resolution is not only unjust to the new States, going on to make the new States a source of revenue to but it is partial and unequal in its operation among them. the old ones, to deliver them up to a new set of masters, It bears hard upon some, and not at all upon others. It to throw them as grapes into the wine press, to be trod would lock up twenty-five milliors of acres from sale and and squeezed as long as one drop of juice could be pressed settlement in the State of Louisiana, and not one acre in from their hulls. These measures will go together; and Ohio; it would desolate Florida, and do comparatively but if that resolution passes, and this one passes, the transition little mischief in Michigan. It is not sufficient to reject will be easy and natural, from dividing the money after the such a resolution-the sentiments in which it originated, lands are sold, to divide the lands before they are sold, must be eradicated. We must convince gentlemen that it and then to renting the land and drawing an annual in-is wrong to entertain such sentiments--that it will be come, instead of selling it for a price in hand. The signs wrong to act upon them in the progress of any of our land are portentous; the crisis is alarming; it is time for the bills. This whole idea of checking emigration to the new States to wake up to their danger, and to prepare West, must be shown to be erroneous. It is an old idea, for a struggle which carries ruin and disgrace to them, if and lately brought forward with great openness of manner, the issue is against them. and distinctness of purpose. Mr. Rush's Treasury Re Mr. B. alluded to the coaxing argument of some gen-port of 1827 placed it before Congress and the people. tlemen, who endeavored to carry this resolution through, Since then, there has been no ambiguity about it. The by promising the Senate that the Committee on Public doctrine has taken a decided turn. The present resoluLands, to whom it was to be referred, would report tion is, in effect, a part of the same system, and a most against it. He ridiculed this species of argument. Such efficient part. The public mind has laid hold of this doc In the House of Representatives. trine, and subjected it to the ordeal of reason and discussion. Professor Dew, in the college of William and SENATE.] case. * Mr. Foot's Resolution. One thing is certain, that the prevention of emigration to the Western country is injurious to the West." [JAN. 18, 1830 The con Mary, in his able lectures, has spoken my sentiments on Mr. B. said that he felt himself compelled, by these this point, and I will avail myself of his language, to con-persevering measure, to stop emigration to the West, vey them to the Senate. to recur to the early history of the confederation, to show Mr. B. then read as follows, Mr. Dew's lectures, page 43: the origin and policy of these measures, and to do justice "In the second place, these tariff measures injure the to the patriots by whom they were then defeated. The South and West, by preventing that emigration which first of these measures that he would bring to the notice would otherwise take place. Now, this is an injustice of the Senate, was the famous attempt, about the year committed upon those States, towards which the tide of 1786, to surrender the navigation of the Mississippi to the emigration sets. If there was a bounty King of Spain, for a period of twenty-five or thirty years. upon emigration, then those States would have no right to Seven States voted for the surrender; six, beginning at complain of the adoption of any measure which might Maryland, and going South, voted against it. The articles counteract the effects of the bounty; but this is not the of confederation required the consent of nine States to It is true, the Secretary of the make a treaty, and therefore the surrender was not acTreasury, in his annual report, in December, 1827, thinks complished. The Spanish negotiator, Don Gardoqui, in the low price at which the public lands are sold, operates his communications to his court, said that the object of as a bounty; but I doubt much whether Government price this surrender was to prevent the growth of the West. is too low; were this the case, would not enterprising in- But it is not necessary to have recourse to foreign testidividuals, with large capitals, quickly buy Government mony; we have that of our own countrymenw, ho were out, in order that they might speculate on the lands, and actors in the scene. The seal which covered all these thus raise them to their proper value? doings in the old Congress, has since been broken; their journals are published; and besides the evidence of the journals, we have the testimony of the Virginia delegation, Mr. B agreed with the Virginia pofessor, that the pre-afterwards given in the convention of that State which vention of emigration to the West was an injury to that ratified the constitution of the United States. quarter of the Union. He said farther, it was an injury to vention required them to report what they had witnessed the people of the Northeast, who were to be prevented on this subject, and they did so under all the responsibilities from bettering their condition by removal; and that it was of so great and serious an occasion. an injury to the whole human race to undertake to pre- Mr. B. then read from Mr. Monroe's statement several serve the vast and magnificent valley of the Mississippi for passages, which showed that Spain viewed with jealousy the haunts of beasts and savages, instead of making it the our settlements in the Western country, and wished them abode of liberty and civilization, and the asylum of the checked, and had made communications to the old Conoppressed of all the States and nations. He inveighed gress, in secret session, to that effect; that the surrender against the horrid policy of making paupers by law-of the navigation of the Mississippi to Spain, for twentyagainst the cruel legislation which would confine poor five to thirty years, would have that effect; that this surpeople in the Northeast to work as journeymen in the manu- render was resisted by the Southern States, because it factories, instead of letting them go off to new countries, would depress the growth of the West, and advocated by acquire land, become independent freeholders, and lay the Northeastern States: that the pursuit of this object the foundation of comfort and independence for their was animated, and met with a warm opposition from the children. Manufactories are now realizing what was said southern members; that he believed the Mississippi safer by Dr. Franklin forty-five years ago, that they need great under the articles of confederation, than under the new numbers of poor people to do the work for small wages; constitution; and that, as mankind in general, and States that these poor people are easily got in Europe, where there in particular, were governed by interest, the Northern was no land for them, but that they could not be got in States would not fail of availing themselves of the opporAmerica till the lands were taken up. These are the words tunity given them by the constitution of relinquishing of that wise man, near half a century ago. The experience that river, in order to depress the Western country, and of the present day is verifying them. The manufactories prevent the southern interest from preponderating. Mr. want poor people to do the work for small wages; these B. also read, in support of Mr. Monroe's statement, as to poor people wish to go to the West and get land; to have the jealousy of Spain, the following curious passages flocks and herds--to have their own fields, orchards, from the Secret Journals of Congress for the year 1780, gardens, and meadows-their own cribs, barns, and contained in a communication from the Spanish court: dairies; and to start their children on a theatre where they "It is the idea of the cabinet of Madrid, that the Unitcan contend with equal chances with other people's ed States extend to the westward no farther than settlechildren for the honors and dignities of the country. This ments were permitted by the royal (British) proclamation is what the poor people wish to do. How to prevent it-- of the 6th of October, 1763."t "That how to keep them from straying off in this manner-is the the lands lying on the east side of the Mississippi, question. The late Secretary of the Treasury could discover whereon settlements were prohibited by the aforesaid prono better mode than in the idea of a bounty upon non- clamation, are possessions of the Crown of Great Britain, emigration, in the shape of protection to domestic manu- and proper objects against which the arms of Spain may factures! A most complex scheme of injustice, which be employed for the purpose of making a permanent contaxes the South to injure the West, to pauperize the poor of the North! All this is bad enough, but it is a trifle, a lame, weak, and impotent contrivance, compared to the scheme which is now on the table. This resolution, which we are now considering, is the true measure for supplying the poor people which the manufactories necd. It Having read these extracts, Mr. B. remarked that proposes to take away the inducement to emigration. It here was the germ of that policy, which, thirty years af takes all the fresh lands out of market. It stops the surveys, abolishes the office of the Surveyor General, confines the settlements, limits the sales to the refuse of innumerable pickings; and thus annihilates the very object of attraction-breaks and destroys the magnet which was drawing the people of the Northeast to the blooming regions of the West. quest for the Crown of Spain. That, such conquest may probably be made during the present war. That, therefore, it would be advisable to restrain the Southern States from making any settlements or conquests in those territories."-Vol. 4, p. 310. New Jersey was one of the seven, but the Legislature of that State, hearing what their Delegates had done, recalled them, in virtue of the salutary power reserved to the States under the articles of con fiation, and which the best patriots of '89 endeavored to preserve over Senators under the new constitution. This proclamation of George the Third, forbid the settlements of the English Colonies to extend further West, than the heads of the rivers which flowed into the Atlantic Ocean. terwards, ended in dismembering the valley of the Missis- which affords them plenty of nourishment. sippi, amputating two of its noblest rivers, and surrendering two hundred thousand square miles of its finest territory to the Crown of Spain. Mr. B. also read the following passages from Mr. Grayson's statement: "Secrecy was required on this subject. I told Congress that imposing secrecy on such a great occasion was unwarrantable. Seven States were disposed to yield the navigation of the Mississippi. I speak not of any particular characters. I have the charity to suppose that all mankind act on the best motives. Suffice it for me to tell plain and direct facts, and leave the conclusion with this honorable House. [SENATE. Shall the best and largest part of the United States be uncultivated, a nest for savages and beasts of prey? Certainly not. Providence has designed it for some nobler purpose." [Mr. B. has furnished for the press the following extracts from Mr. Madison's statement: "We will not differ as to facts; perhaps we may differ as to principles. From the best information it never was the sense of the people at large, or the prevailing character of the Eastern States, to approve of the measure, (surrender of the Mississippi.) If interest should continue to operate on them, I humbly conceive they will derive more advantage from holding the Mississippi than even the Southern States." Mr. Madison also said that the Southern States had been for giving up the navigation of the Mississippi to Spain. Patrick Henry powerfully replied that that was when they did not possess it-in the gloomiest period of the Revolution, and to purchase the aid of Spain in establishing our independence.] Mr. B. said that he had now given one great instance of the attempts to prevent the growth and settlement of the West. It was a diplomatic instance. He would now give another instance of the same policy from the legislative department of the Government from the Congress of When 1785, which he must be permitted to consider as the ori the act of Congress was passed, respecting the settlement gin and prototype of all succeeding measures for crampof the Western country, and establishing a State there, ing, crippling, and stifling the West. It is in the ordi it passed in a lucky moment. I was told that that Statenance for the sale and disposition of the Western lands; (Massachusetts) was extremely uneasy about it, and in the first one that passed after the States had surrendered order to retain her inhabitants, lands in the province of their claims to that territory for the payment of the public Maine were lowered to one dollar per acre." debt. This ordinance was reported by a committee of • They (the Northern States) looked at the true interests of nations. Their language has been Let us prevent any new States from rising in the Western world, or they will outvote us--we will lose our importance and become as nothing in the scale of nations. If we do not prevent it, our countrymen will remove to those places, instead of going to sea, and we will receive no particular tribute or advantage from them.' This, sir, has been the language and spirit of their policy, and i suppose ever will. Mr. B. here remarked that, since the introduction of his twelve members, eight of them from the north side, four graduation bill in Congress, the price of land in Maine had from the south side of the Potomac. They were: been still further lowered. That he had seen advertise- Messrs. Long, of New Hampshire, King, of Massachuments offering fresh lands, the first time they were offer-setts, Howard, of Rhode Island, Johnson, of Connecticut, ed, at a minimum price of twenty-five cents per acre, and R. R. Livingston, of New York, Stewart, of New Jersey, also at twenty cents per acre; and had been told that Gardiner, of Pennsylvania, Henry, of Maryland, Grayson, these minimums had been as low as ten and five cents an of Virginia, Williamson, of North Carolina, Bull, of South acre, and that fifty cents was above the average of the Carolina, Houston, of Georgia. auction sales. The ordinance reported by the committee, contained to the Lakes. Mr. B. also read the following extracts from a letter the plan of surveying the public lands, which has since contained in the fourth volume of the Secret Journals of been followed. It adopted the scientific principle of ranCongress, written from the Falls of the Ohio, December ges of townships, which has been continued ever since, 4th, 1786, and addressed to a gentleman in New England, The ranges began on the Pennsylvania line, and proceedand found so beneficial in a variety of ways to the country. and which showed the alarm which was created in the ed west to the Mississippi; and since the acquisition of West at the news of what was going on in Congress. Louisiana, they have proceeded west of that river; the "Politics, which a few months ago were scarcely thought of, are now sounded aloud in this part of the world. The townships began upon the Ohio river, and proceeded north late treaty with Spain shutting up, as it is said, the naviga- of a mile square, six hundred and forty acres each, and The townships were divided into sections tion of the Mississippi for the term of twenty-five years, has the minimum price was fixed at one dollar per acre, and given this Western country a universal shock, and struck not less than a section to be sold together. This is the its inhabitants with amazement. Our foundation is affect-outline of the present plan of sales and surveys, and, with ed; it is therefore necessary that every individual apply the modifications it has received, and may receive, in grahimself to find a remedy. To sell us and make us vassals to the merciless Spaniards, is a grievance not to be borne.duating the price of the land to the quality, the plan is The parliamentary acts which occasioned our revolt from excellent. But a principle was incorporated in the ordinance of the most fatal character. It was, that each townGreat Britain were not so barefaced and intolerable. * ship should be sold out complete before any land could be What benefit can you, offered in the next one! This was tantamount to a law on the Atlantic shores, receive from this act? Though that the lands should not be sold; that the country should this country has been settling but six years, and that in not be settled: for it is certain that every township, or althe midst of an inveterate enemy, and most of the first most every one, would contain land unfit for cultivation, adventurers fallen a prey to the savages; and although and for which no person would give six hundred and forty the emigration to this country is so very rapid that the dollars for six hundred and forty acres. The effect of such internal market is very great, yet the quantities of pro- a provision may be judged by the fact that above one hunduce now on hand are immense. Do you think to pre-dred thousand acres remain to this day unsold in the first vent emigration from a barren country, loaded with taxes, land district; the district of Steubenville, in Ohio, which and impoverished with debts, to the most luxurious and included the first range and first township. If that provifertile soil in the world? Vain is the thought, and pre-sion had remained in the ordinance, the settlements would sumptuous the supposition. You may as well endeavor to prevent the fishes from gathering on a bank in the sea, *Kentucky. VOL. VI. was a wicked and preposterous provision. It required not yet have got out of sight of the Pennsylvania line. It the people to take the country clean before them; buy all as they went; mountains, hills, and swamps; rocks, glens, SENATE.] Mr. Foot's Resolution. [JAN. 18, 1830. and prairies. They were to make clean work, as the gi-ket, in the State of Missouri, by Presidential authority, ant Polyphemus did when he ate up the companions of and in violation of an act of Congress, down to the resolu Ulysses: tion now under consideration, are all measures of the same class, all tending to check the growth, and to injure the prosperity of the West, and all flowing from the same geographical quarter. "Nor entrails, blood, nor solid bone remains." Nothing could be more iniquitous than such a provision. It was like requiring your guest to eat all the bones on his plate before he should have more meat. To say that town- Mr. B. now spoke of the woful improvidence of the ship No. 1 should be sold out complete before township new States in parting with the right to tax the federal lands No. 2 should be offered for sale, was like requiring the when they came into the Union, and obtaining no stipulabones of the first turkey to be eat up before the breast of tion for the sale of the lands in a reasonable time, and for the second one should be touched. Yet such was the pro- a fair price. Such improvidence placed them at the mervision contained in the first ordinance for the sale of the cy of those who are not responsible to them for the votes public lands, reported by a committee of twelve, of they give, who are strangers, who live a thousand miles which eight were from the north and four from the south off, and may labor under the belief that they have an inside of the Potomac. How invincible must have been the terest in checking their growth. This is the weak and determination of some politicians to prevent the settle-dangerous part of our system. This is representation ment of the West, when they would thus counteract the without responsibility. It is taxation without representasales of the lands which had just been obtained after years tion, and that in its direst form; not of a few pence on a of importunity, for the payment of the public debt! pound of tea, or on a quire of stamped paper, but of land; When this ordinance was put upon its passage in Con-power to tax it in the price, to demand double price; gress, two Virginians, whose names, for that act alone, to do worse, to place it above all price, as this resolution would deserve the lasting gratitude of the West, levelled proposes to do, withdraw it from market, and deliver it their blows against the obnoxious provision. Mr. Gray-up to wild beasts! son moved to strike it out, and Mr. Monroe seconded Massachusetts acted wisely. She surrendered a barren him; and, after an animated and arduous contest, they suc- sceptre in the West, where she owned nothing, and held ceeded. The whole South supported them; not one re- fast to thirty thousand square miles of vacant territory creant arm from the South; many scattering members from which she did own in the Northeast. She nurtured her the North also voted with the South, and in favor of the in-province of Maine upon this territory, and ripened her infant West; proving then, as now, and as it always has been, to a State. They divided the vacant lands between them, that the West has true supporters of her rights and inter- and are now selling them on easy and parental terms to ests-unhappily not enough of them-in that quarter of the their citizens. Twenty-five cents an acre, twenty cents, Union from which the measures have originated that seve-ten cents, five cents; such are their prices, and for fresh ral times threatened to be fatal to her. lands never before in the market! What a contrast to the Mr. B. here adverted to a statement made by Mr. Gray-price of public land in the new States of the West! One son, in the Virginia convention, and which he had read dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, the lowest price for just before, declaring that the language of some Northern the refuse of innumerable pickings and cullings! What a members had been, that they wanted no States in the contrast, not only in the price of the land, but in the conWest, &c. and ventured the assertion of the belief, that dition of Maine and the other new States! it was in this committee that reported this ordinance, that ture settles all questions of survey, sale, price, donation; Her Legislathat language was used. The occasion was a natural one all this done at home, by a Legislature elected by the peoto produce such language, and there was a gentleman up-ple and responsible to them. For the new States in the on that committee known to entertain that opinion, and West and South, Congress is the tribunal for the decision of a spirit too proud and lofty to dissemble his sentiments. of these matters, and before her they must appear with The occasion was one which involved the direct question, petitions, memorials, entreaties, supplications, and prayers; whether there should be new States in the West? The and hear in return denials, rebukes, and reproaches! provision which required all the land in one township to These humiliations, these injuries, go not to the new State be sold out, before the next was offered, was tantamount of Maine; the wisdom of Massachusetts in holding fast her to saying that the land should not be sold; the country public land, while Virginia was throwing hers upon the should not be settled; that new States should not be form-public altar, has saved Maine from them; they are reserved. The part acted by Mr. Grayson, in the House, in ex-ed for the new States of the West, and copious and bitter punging this obnoxious provision, authorizes the belief have been the draughts which these States have had to that he objected to it in the committee, and took the na- swallow; severe are the trials which they have yet to go tural ground that it would prevent the formation of new through, before the census of 1840 shall enable them to States in the West. The character of Mr. King, of New vindicate their rights, by the tranquil exercise of superior York, who was one of the committee, authorizes the be-power. In the mean time, the surveys may be stopped, lief that he answered frankly, that it was his intention to the sales may be limited, two-thirds of their soil may be prevent the formation of such States. Such an answer reserved from market, plans may be got up to divide the would naturally flow from the lofty spirit which, at a sub-money which the lands sell for, by a rule of proportion sequent period, and upon the floor of this Senate, disdain- which will give all the money to the populous States of ing all disguise, and discarding all hypocrisy, openly pro- the Northeast; then other plans may be invented to run claimed that the Missouri contest was a struggle for politi- up the prices to the highest point, and obtain every possical power, and that he would sooner see Missouri remain ble dollar from the new States, to be distributed among forever a haunt for wild beasts, than come into the Union these new receivers. When this plan is screwed to the on the side of the slave States. highest, it may give way to the natural conception, that it These are two great and signal attempts to prevent the is better to divide the land before the sale, than to divide settlement of the West. Other measures, tending to the the money after it; and when the lands are so divided and same effect, fill up the long period of her history from distributed, the next conclusion will be as natural as irrethat day to this. Refusals to vote money for raising troops sistible, that it is better not to sell the lands at all, but to to defend the early settlers on the Cumberland and Ken-rent them, and derive that "tribute" from the West which tucky; refusals to vote money for holding treaties to ex- Mr. Grayson tells of, and retain a body of tenantry in the tinguish Indian titles; and lately, during the last adminis-new States to govern the elections. Is this fancy, or is it tration, the reservation of iron ore lands, and the with-fact? It is fact, and the incipient steps for the consummadrawal of a thousand square miles of territory from mar-tion of all this are now in full progress. Where is the |