Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/291

Rh more the result of favorable soil and climate than of natural advantag-e, and facility in the navigation of Cumberland River. That noble stream has but few impediments to a safe passage for steamboats far above Nashville. The nature of these impediments is now so well understood that there would be but little danger of injudicious application of any means that might be appropriated to their removal. The time has now gone by when the successful navigation of the Cumberland is considered by any portion of our citizens as being exclusively beneficial to Nashville. The history and experience of the last seven years have given ample testimony of the direct benefit resulting to every county west of the Cumberland mountain. The deep richness of soil in all the counties watered by Elk, Duck, and Cumberland Rivers is very unfriendly to the construction of public roads upon the ordinaiy plan; the population residing in the neighborhood of great and leading market-roads can not, with the labor and time justly devoted to that duty, continue such repairs as our present laws contemplate for all public highways. The existing laws, it is believed, are not unreasonable in their general provisions, and although more than one attempt has been already made to encourage private investment in turnpike stock, the terms of incorporation have in none been sufficiently approved.

The western district of the State is peculiarly blessed with streams intersecting the country, of gentle deep current, and susceptible of great improvement at comparatively small expense. The wealth and population of the country has already, and without any adventitious aids from public funds or public institutions, progressed more rapidly and more steadily than had been hoped for, even by the most sanguine anticipations. The claims of warrant-holders are now all, or nearly all, satisfied, and the scattered remnants of land that remain vacant or unappropriated, though belonging to the General Government by the terms of the cession and compact, will never be of sufficient value to defray half the expense of bringing them into market. All reasonable calculation at present justifies the belief that the memorials heretofore sent by the Legislature will at the next, or some early session of Congress, be disposed of in a way to meet the wishes of Tennessee.

A relinquishment of their title, and a privilege vested in our State authorities to perfect grants, would enable us to open offices convenient to the enterers, on a plan similar to that now pursued north and east of the reservation line; and whatever may have heretofore been deemed our truest policy in disposing of our vacant lands, to me it seems evident that at whatever period we may open offices in the different counties of the western district, the system of forcing prices to the highest possible amount ought to be abandoned. The first care of all governments should be to provide that each individual should have a permanent home and residence. The difference between the highest and lowest product resulting to the State from the disposal of these lands can be of little public consideration, whilst to indigent individuals already in possession, or wishing to become purchasers, it may be matter of the greatest importance; and as the two principal divisions of the State have already received a patrimony for public uses in some of its most valuable lands, it may not be unreasonable in our fellow-citizens residing west of the reservation line to expect that any revenue hereafter derived from the lands in that section of country should be chiefly expended amongst themselves for the purposes of general education and internal improvement.