Page:Webster and Hayne's Celebrated Speeches.djvu/53

Rh is, that as much is to be made of the land, as fairly and reasonably may be, selling it all the while at such rates as to give the fullest effect to settlement. This is not giving it all away to the states, as the gentleman would propose; nor is it hugging the fund closely and tenaciously, as a favorite treasure; but it is, in my judgment, a just and wise policy, perfectly according with all the various duties which rest on government. So much for my contradiction. And what is it? Where is the ground of the gentleman’s triumph? What inconsistency, in word or doctrine, has he been able to detect? Sir, if this be a sample of that discomfiture with which the honorable gentleman threatened me, commend me to the word discomfiture for the rest of my life.

But, after all, this is not the point of the debate; and I must bring the gentleman back to that which is the point.

The real question between me and him is, Where has the doctrine been advanced, at the south or the east, that the population of the west should be retarded, or, at least, need not be hastened, on account of its effect to drain off the people from the Atlantic States? Is this doctrine, as has been alleged, of eastern origin? That is the question. Has the gentleman found any thing by which he can make good his accusation? I submit to the Senate, that he has entirely failed; and as far as this debate has shown, the only person who has advanced such sentiments is a gentleman from South Carolina, and a friend to the honorable member himself. The honorable gentleman has given no answer to this; there is none which can be given. This simple fact, while it requires no comment to enforce it, defies all argument to refute it. I could refer to the speeches of another southern gentleman, in years before, of the same general character, and to the same effect, as that which has been quoted; but I will not consume the time of the Senate by the reading of them.

So then, sir, New England is guiltless of the policy of retarding western population, and of all envy and jealousy of the growth of the new states. Whatever there be of that policy in the country, no part of it is hers. If it has a local habitation, the honorable member has probably seen, by this time, where he is to look for it; and if it now has received a name, he himself has christened it.

We approach, at length, sir, to a more important part of the honorable gentleman’s observations. Since it does not accord with my views of justice and policy to vote away the public lands altogether, as mere matter of gratuity, I am asked, by the honorable gentleman, on what ground it is that I consent to give them away in particular instances. How, he inquires, do I reconcile with these professed sentiments my support of measures appropriating portions of the lands to particular roads, particular canals, particular rivers, and particular institutions of education in the west? This leads, sir, to the real and wide difference in political opinions between the honorable gentleman and myself. On my part, I look upon all these objects as connected with the common good, fairly embraced in its objects and its terms; he, on the contrary, deems them all, if good at all, only local good. This is our difference. The interrogatory which he proceeded to put at once explains this difference. “What interest,” asks he, “has South Carolina in a canal in Ohio?” Sir, this very question is full of significance. It develops the gentleman’s whole political system; and its answer expounds mine. Here we differ toto cœlo. I look upon a road over, the Alleghany, a canal round the falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway from the Atlantic