Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/825

 price of the public lands in favor only of settlers and cultivators, so often urged by me in the senate and in the treasury department, and finally adopted by congress, should also be secured in our ordinance. Having witnessed In new

states the deep injury inflicted upon them by large bodies of their most fertile land being monopolized by speculators, I suggest, in accordance with the public policy ever advocated by me, that our entire land tax, tinder the constitution; for the next twenty years should be confined exclusively to unoccupied land—whether owned by residents or non-residents—as one of the best means of guarding against a monopoly of our choice lands by speculators. I desire, in fact, to see our convention exercise the whole constitutional power of a state, to guard our rights and interests, and especially to protect the settlers and cultivators against the monopoly of our public domain by speculators.

As regards the school lands of the new states, the following views will be found in my reports of the 8th of December, 1847, and 9th of December, 1848, as secretary of the treasury of the United States:

"The recommendation contained in my last report for the establishment of ports of entry in Oregon, and the extension there of our revenue laws, is again respectfully presented to the consideration of congress, together with donations of farms to settlers and emigrants, and the grant of a school section in the center of every quarter of a township, which would bring the school-house within a point not exceeding a mile and a half in distance from the most remote inhabitants of such quarter township."

And again: "My last report recommended the grant of one section of land for schools in every quarter township in Oregon.*****Congress, to some extent, adopted this recommendation by granting two school sections in each township, instead of one, for education in Oregon; but it is respectfully suggested that even thus extended the grant is still inadequate in amount, whilst the location is inconvenient, and too remote for a school which all can attend. The subject is again presented to the attention of congress, with the recommendation that it shall be extended to California and New Mexico, and also to all the other new states and territories containing the public domain."

Acting upon the first of these recommendations, but not carrying them fully into effect, congress doubled the school section grants—an advance upon the former system. But, in my judgment, the benefits intended will never be fully realized until four school sections, instead of two, are granted in every township, locating the school section in the center of every quarter township; thus, by only doubling the school sections, causing every section of the public domain in the new states to adjoin a school section, which would add immensely to t he value of the public lands, whilst, at the same time, affording an adequate fund not only for the establishment of common schools in every township, but of high schools, normal schools, and free academies, which, together with the five per cent, fund and university grant before referred to, would place Kansas in a few years, in point of science and education, in the front rank of the states of the American Union and of the world. This is a subject always regarded by me