Page:Messages and Letters of William Henry Harrison Vol. 1.djvu/130

92 the Indiana Territory, also a memorial and petition from the said convention, together with the report of a former committee on the "same subject at the last session of Congress made the following report:

That taking into their consideration the facts stated in the said memorial and petition, they are induced to believe that a qualified suspension, for a limited time, of the sixth article of compact between the original States and the people and States west of the river Ohio, might be productive of benefit and advantage to the said Territory.

They do not conceive it would be proper to break in upon the system adopted for surveying and locating public lands, which experience has proved so well calculated to promote the general interest. If a preference be given to particular individuals in the present instance, an example will be set, by which future claimants will obtain the same privilege. The committee are, nevertheless, of opinion, that after those lands shall have been surveyed, a certain number of townships should be designated, out of which the claims stated in the memorial ought to be satisfied, and that, for the encouragement of actual settlers, the right of pre-emption should be secured to them.

They consider the existing regulations contained in the ordinance for the government of the Territory of the United States, which requires a freehold of fifty acres as a qualification for an elector of the General Assembly, as limiting too much the elective franchise. They conceive the vital principle of a free Government is, that taxation and representation should go together after a residence of sufficient length to manifest the intention of becoming a permanent inhabitant, and to evince, by conduct orderly and upright, that a person is entitled to the rights of an elector. This probationary period should not extend beyond two years.

It must be the true policy of the United States, with the millions of acres of habitable country which she possesses, to cherish those principles which gave birth to her independence, and created her a nation, by affording an asylum to the oppressed of all countries.

One important object desired in the memorial, the extinguishment of the Indian title to certain lands, has been happily accomplished; whilst the salt spring below the mouth of