Page:Niles' Weekly Register, v37.djvu/432

416 countries, vis: a free grant of lands "without money and without price." We all know that the British colonists at their first settlement here, (whether deriving title directly from the crown or the lords proprietors), received grants for considerations merely nominal.

The payment of a "penny," or a "pepper corn," was the stipulated price which our fathers along the whole Atlantic coast, now composed of the old thirteen states, paid for their lands; and even when conditions, seemingly more substantial, were annexed to the grants—such for instance as "settlement and cultivation,"—these were considered as substatially compiled with by the cutting down of a few trees and erecting a log cabin—the work of only a few days. Even these conditions very soon came to be considered as merely nominal, and were never required to be pursued in order to vest in the grantee the fee simple of the soil. Such was the system under which this country was originally settled, and under which the thirteen colonies flourished and grew up to that early and vigorous manhood, whnich enabled them in a few years to achieve their independence; and I beg gentlemen to recollect, and note the fact, that while they paid substantially nothing to the mother country, the whole profits of their industry were suffered to remain in their own hands. Now what, let us inquire, was the reason which has induced all nations to adopt this system in the settlement of the new countries? Can it be any oather than this—that it affords the only certain means of building up in a wilderness great and prosperous comunities? Was not that policy founded on the universal belief that the conquest of a new country, the driving out of "the savage beasts and still more savage men," cutting down and subduing the forest, and encountering all the hardships and privations necessarily incident to the conversion of the wilderness into cultvated fields, was worth the fee simple of the soil? And was it not believed that the mother country found ample remuneration for the value of the land so granted in the additions of her power, and the new sources of commerce and of wealth, furnished by prosperous and populous states? Now, sir, I submit to the candid consideration of gentlemen, whether the policy so diametrically opposite to this, which has been invariably pursued by the United States towards the new states in the west, has been quite so just and liberal, as we have been accustomed to believe. Certain it is, that the British colonies to the north of us, and the Spanish and French to the south and west, have been fostered and reared up under a very different system. Lands, which had been for fifty or a hundred years open to every settler, without any charge beyond the expense of the survey, were, the moment they fell into the hands of the United States, held up for sale at the highest price that a public auction, at the most favorable seasons, and not unfrequently a spirit of the wildest competition, could produce, with a limitation that they should never be sold below a certain minimum price: thus making it, as it would seem, the cardinal point of our policy, not to settle the country, and facilitate the formation of new states, but to fill our coffers by coining our lands into gold.

Let us consider, for a moment, Mr. President, the effect of these two opposite systems on the condition of a new state. I will take the state of Missouri, by way of example. Here is a large and fertile territory coming into the possession of the U. States without any inhabitants but Indians and wild beasts—a territory which it to be converted into a sovereign and independant state.—You commence your operations by surveying and selling out a portion of the lands, on long credits, to actual settlers; and, as the population progresses, you go on, year after year, making additional sales on the same terms; and this operation is to be continued, as gentlemen tell us, for fifty or a hundred years at least, if not for all time to come. The inhabitants of this new state, under such a system, must have commenced their operations under a load of debt, the annual payment of which must necessarily drain their country of the whole profits of their labor just so long as this system shall last. This debt is due, not from some citizens of the state to others of the same state—(in which case the money would remain in the country)—but it is due from the whole population of the state to the United States, by whom it is regularly drawn out, to be expended abroad. Sir, the amount of this debt, has, in every one of the new states, actually constantly exceeded the ability of the people to pay, as is proved by the fact that you have been compelled, from time to time, in your great liberality, to extend the credits, and in some instance even to remit portions of the debt, in order to protect our land debtors from bankruptcy and total ruin. Now, Mr. President, I will submit the question to any candid man, whether under this system, the people of a new state, so situated, could, by any industry or exertion, ever become rich and prosperous. What has been the consequence, sir? Almost universal poverty—no money—hardly a sufficient circulating medium for the ordinary exchanges of society—paper banks, relief laws, and the innumerable other evils, social, political, and moral, on which it is unnecessary for me to dwell. Sir, under a system by which a drain like this is constantly operating upon the wealth of the whole community, the country may be truly said to be afflicted with a curse which it has been well observed is more grievous to be borne "than the barrenness of the soil, and the inclemency of the seasons.

"It is said, sir, that we learn from our own misfortunes how to feel for the sufferings of others; and perhaps the present condition of the southern states has served to impress more deeply on my mind the grievious oppression of a system by which the wealth of a country is drained off to be expended elsewhere. In that devoted region, sir, in which my lot has been cast, it is our misfortune to stand in that relation to the federal government, which subjects us to a taxation, which it requires the utmost efforts of our industry to meet.

Nearly the whole amount of our contributions is expended abroad—we stand towards the United States in the relation of Ireland to England. The fruits of our labors are drawn from us to enrich other and more favored sections of the union, while, with one of the finest climates and the richest products in the world, furnishing, with one-third of the population, two-thirds of the whole exports of the country, we exhibit the extraordinary, the wonderful and painful spectacle of a country, enriched by the bounty of God, but blasted by the cruel policy of man. The rank grass grows in our streets; our very fields are scathed by the hand of injustice and oppression. Such, sir, though probably in a less degree, must have been the effects of a kindred policy on the fortunes of the west. It is not in the nature of things that it should have been otherwise.

Let gentlemen now pause and consider for a moment what would have been the probable effects of an opposite policy. Suppose, sir, a certain portion of the state of Missouri had been originally laid off and sold to actual settlers for the quit rent of "a pepper-corn," or even for a small price to be paid down in cash. Then, sir, all the money that was made in the country, would have remained in the country, and passing from hand to hand, would, like rich and abundant streams, flowing through the land, have adorned and fertilized the whole. Suppose, sir, that all the sales that have been effected had been made by the state, and that the proceeds had gone into the state treasury, to be returned back to the people in some of the various shapes in which a beneficient local government exerts its powers for the improvement of the conditions of the citizens. Who can say how much of wealth and prosperity, how much of improvement in science and arts, how much of individual and social happiness, whould have been diffused throughout the land! I have done, Mr. President, with this topic.

In coming to the consideration of the next great question—what ought to be the future policy of the government in relation to the public lands? we find the most opposite and irreconcileable opinions between the two parties which I have before described. On the one side, it is contended that the public land ought to be received as a permanent fund for revenue and future distribution among the states, while, on the other, it is insisted that the whole of these lands of right relong to, and ought to be relinquished to the states in which they lie. I shall proceed to throw out some ideas in relation to the proposed policy, that the public lands ought to be reserved for these purposes. It may be a question, Mr. President, how far it is possible to convert the public lands into a great source of revenue. Certain it is, that all the efforts heretofore made for this puropse have most signally