Page:Reflections, on the Cession of Louisiana to the United States.pdf/19

 ten times the present quantity of improved lands,) that are capable of it; and consequently there is land enough, even according to the present unprofitable mode of cultivation, for ten times the present number of inhabitants within the United States. Now, the value of land may be computed to encrease in a ratio at least equal to the population of a country; of course, it may be reasonably supposed, that whenever the United States arrive at their due state of population, the value of lands therein will be full ten times as great as at present. And if agriculture in the United States should ever be brought to as great perfection as in many parts of Europe, we may venture to affirm that both our population, and the price of our lands, would be advanced much higher than this estimate. But, if an equal quantity of lands as what the United States contain be brought into the market, those which we now possess must inevitably depreciate, instead of advancing daily in price, (as must happen in proportion as our population encreases) if no addition to the quantity at market be made; it will therefore be far more advantageous to the landholder to pay his quota of the annual interest upon the purchase of Louisiana, which he will probably never feel, than suffer the value of his lands to be depreciated, by opening a land-office in that immense territory, the consequences of which both he, and his posterity will be sure to feel. Upon this ground, then, it would be highly impolitic to dispose of the lands in Louisiana, at present.

But if it be still insisted upon, that the people of the United States ought not to be taxed to raise the money to pay for this acquisition, yet this will not prove the expediency of opening a land-office there.

For the United States have now probably fifty millions of acres of land to dispose of; and they are daily disposing of them at the price of two dollars per acre, for the lowest: seven millions and a half