that of the expediency of ceding the public lands to the could obtain from individual purchasers under the present several States in which they are situated, on reasonable system, there would be no motive for it, unless the new terms. The inquiry comprehends, in its consequences, a States are more competent to dispose of the public lands cession of the whole public domain of the United States, than the common Government. They are now sold under whether lying within or beyond the limits of the present one uniform plan, regulated and controlled by a single States and Territories. For although, in the terms of legislative authority, and the practical operation is perthe inquiry, it is limited to the new States, cessions to them fectly understood. If they were transferred to the new would certainly be followed by similar cessions to other States, the subsequent disposition would be according to new States, as they may, from time to time, be admitted into the Union. Three of the present Territories have nearly attained the requisite population entitling them to be received as members of the confederacy, and they shortly will be admitted. Congress could not consistently avoid ceding to them the public lands within their limits, after having made such cessions to the other States. The compact with the State of Ohio formed the model of compacts with all the other new States as they were successively admitted. laws emanating from various legislative sources. Competition would probably arise between the new States in the terms which they would offer to purchasers. Each State would be desirous of inviting the greatest number of emigrants, not only for the laudable purpose of populating rapidly its own territories, but with the view to the acqui sition of funds to enable it to fulfil its engagements to the General Government. Collisions between the States would probably arise, and their injurious consequences may be imagined. A spirit of hazardous speculation would be engendered. Various schemes in the new States would be put afloat to sell or divide the public lands. Companies and combinations would be formed in this country, if not in foreign countries, presenting gigantic and tempting, but delusive projects; and the history of legislation, in some of the States of the Union, admonishes us that a too ready ear is sometimes given by a majority, in a legislative Whether the question of a transfer of the public lands be considered in the limited or more extensive view of it which has been stated, it is one of the highest importance, and demanding the most deliberate consideration. From the statements, founded on official reports, made in the preceding part of this report, it has been seen that the quantity of unsold and unappropriated lands lying within the limits of the new States and Territories is 340,871,753 assembly, to such projects. acres, and the quantity beyond those limits is 750,000,000, A decisive objection to such a transfer for a fair equiva presenting an aggregate of 1,090,871,753 acres. It is lent, is, that it would establish a new and dangerous redifficult to conceive a question of greater magnitude than lation between the General Government and the new that of relinquishing this immense amount of national pro-States. In abolishing the credit which had been allowed perty. Estimating its value according to the minimum to purchasers of the public lands prior to the year 1820, price, it presents the enormous sum of $1,363,589,691. Congress was principally governed by the consideration If it be said that a large portion of it will never com- of the inexpediency and hazard of accumulating a large mand that price, it is to be observed, on the other hand, amount of debt in the new States, all bordering on each that, as fresh lands are brought into market and exposed other. Such an accumulation was deemed unwise and to sale at public auction, many of them sell at prices ex-unsafe. It presented a new bond of interest, of sympathy, ceeding one dollar and a quarter per acre. Supposing and of union, partially operating to the possible prejudice the public lands to be worth, on the average, one-half of of the common bond of the whole Union. But that debt the minimum price, they would still present the immense was a debt due from individuals, and it was attended with sum of $681,794,845. The least favorable view which this encouraging security, that purchasers, as they succes can be taken of them is, that of considering them a capital sively completed the payments for their lands, would na yielding, at present, an income of three millions of dollars turally be disposed to aid the Government in enforcing annually. Assuming the ordinary rate of six per cent. in- payment from delinquents. The project which the com terest per annum as the standard to ascertain the amount mittee are now considering is, to sell to the States, in their of that capital, it would be fifty millions of dollars. But sovereign character, and, consequently, to render them this income has been progressively increasing. The ave-public debtors to the General Government to an immense rage increase during the six last years has been at the rate amount. This would inevitably create between the debtor of twenty-three per cent. per annum. Supposing it to States a common feeling, and a common interest, distinct continue in the same ratio, at the end of a little more than from the rest of the Union. These States are all in the four years the income would be doubled, and make the ca- Western and Southwestern quarter of the Union, remotest pital one hundred millions of dollars. Whilst the population from the centre of federal power. The debt would be of the United States increases only three per cent. per an- felt as a load from which they would constantly be desirous num, the increase of the demand for the public lands is at to relieve themselves; and it would operate as a strong the rate of twenty-three per cent., furnishing another evi- temptation, weakening, if not dangerous to the existing dence that the progress of emigration, and the activity of confederacy. The committee have the most animating sales, have not been checked by the price demanded by hopes, and the greatest confidence in the strength and power and durability of our happy Union; and the attachIn whatever light, therefore, this great subject is view-ment and warm affection of every member of the confe ed, the transfer of the public lands from the whole peo- deracy cannot be doubted; but we have authority higher ple of the United States, for whose benefit they are now than human, for the instruction, that it is wise to avoid all held, to the people inhabiting the new States, must be re- temptation. Government. garded as the most momentous measure ever presented to In the State of Illinois, with a population, at the last the consideration of Congress. If such a measure could census, of 157,445, there are 31,395,969 acres of public find any justification, it must arise out of some radical and land, including that part on which the Indian title remains incurable defect in the construction of the General Go-to be extinguished. If we suppose it to be worth only vernment properly to administer the public domain. But half the minimum price, it would amount to $19,622,480. the existence of any such defect is contradicted by the How would that State be able to pay such an enormous most successful experience. No branch of the public debt? How could it pay even the annual interest upon it? service has evinced more system, uniformity, and wisdom, Supposing the debtor States to fail to comply with their or given more general satisfaction, than that of the admin-engagements, in what mode could they be enforced by istration of the public lands. the General Government? In treaties between indepen. If the proposed cession to the new States were to be dent nations, the ultimate remedy is well known. The male at a fair price, such as the General Government apprehension of an appeal to that remedy, seconding the Report on the Public Lands. Delinquency on the part of the debtor States would be inevitable, and there would be no effectual remedy for the delinquency. They would come, again and again, to Congress, soliciting time and indulgence; until, finding the weight of the debt intolerable, Congress, wearied by reiterated applications for relief, would finally resolve to spunge the debt; or, if Congress attempted to enforce its payment, another and a worse alternative would be embraced. [22d CONG. 1st SESS. sense of justice, and the regard for character which pre- freedom from debt. But we must be forgetful of all vail among christian and civilized nations, constitutes, history and experience, if we indulge the delusive hope generally, adequate security for the performance of na- that we shall always be exempt from calamity and reverses. tional compacts. But this last remedy would be totally Seasons of national adversity, of suffering, and of war, inadmissible in case of delinquency on the part of the will assuredly come. A wise Government should expect, debtor States. The relations between the General Go- and provide for them. Instead of wasting or squandering vernment and the members of the confederacy are hap- its resources in a period of general prosperity, it should pily those of peace, friendship, and fraternity, and ex-husband and cherish them for those times of trial and clude all idea of force and war. Could the judiciary difficulty, which, in the dispensations of Providence, may coerce the debtor States? On what could their process be certainly anticipated. Entertaining these views, and operate? Could the property of innocent citizens, residing as the proceeds of the sales of the public lands are not within the limits of those States, be justly seized by the wanted for ordinary revenue, which will be abundantly General Government, and held responsible for debts con- supplied from the impósts, the committee respectfully retracted by the States themselves in their sovereign charac- commend that an appropriation of them be made to some ter? If a mortgage upon the lands ceded were retained, other purpose, for a limited time, subject to be resumed that mortgage would prevent or retard subsequent sales in the contingency of war. Should such an event unforby the States; and if individuals bought, subject to the tunately occur, the fund may be withdrawn from its peaceencumbrance, a parental Government could never resort ful destination, and applied in aid of other means, to the to the painful measure of disturbing them in their pos- vigorous prosecution of the war, and, afterwards, to the sessions. payment of any debt which may be contracted in consequence of its existence. And when peace shall be again restored, and the debt of the new war shall have been extinguished, the fund may be again appropriated to some fit object other than that of the ordinary expenses of Government. Thus may this great resource be preserved and rendered subservient, in peace and in war, to the common benefit of all the States composing the Union. The inquiry remains, what ought to be the specific application of the fund under the restriction stated? After If the proposed cession be made for a price merely deducting the ten per cent. proposed to be set apart for nominal, it would be contrary to the express conditions of the new States, a portion of the committee would have the original cessions from primitive States to Congress, preferred that the residue should be applied to the objects and contrary to the obligations which the General Govern- of internal improvement, and colonization of the free ment stands under to the whole people of the United blacks, under the direction of the General Government. States, arising out of the fact that the acquisitions of But a majority of the committee believes it better, as an Louisiana and Florida, and from Georgia, were obtained alternative for the scheme of cession to the new States, at a great expense, borne from the common treasure, and and as being most likely to give general satisfaction, that incurred for the common benefit. Such a gratuitous the residue be divided among the twenty-four States, cession could not be made without a positive violation of a according to their federal representative population, to be solemn trust, and without manifest injustice to the old applied to education, internal improvement, or colonizaStates. And its inequality among the new States would tion, or to the redemption of any existing debt contracted be as marked as its injustice to the old would be indefensi- for internal improvements, as each State, judging for ble. Thus, Missouri, with a population of 140,455, would itself, shall deem most conformable with its own interests acquire 38,291,152 acres; and the State of Ohio, with a and policy. Assuming the annual product of the sales of population of 935,884, would obtain only 5,586,834 acres. the public lands to be three millions of dollars, the table Supposing a division of the land among the citizens of hereto annexed, marked C, shows what each State would those two States respectively, the citizen of Ohio would be entitled to receive, according to the principle of diviobtain less than six acres for his share, and the citizen of sion which has been stated. In order that the propriety Missouri upwards of two hundred and seventy-two acres of the proposed appropriation should again, at a day not as his proportion. very far distant, be brought under the review of Congress, Upon full and thorough consideration, the committee the committee would recommend that it be limited to a have come to the conclusion that it is inexpedient either period of five years, subject to the condition of war not to reduce the price of the public lands, or to cede them breaking out in the mean time. By an appropriation so to the new States. They believe, on the contrary, that restricted as to time, each State will be enabled to estimate sound policy coincides with the duty which has devolved the probable extent of its proportion, and to adapt its on the General Government to the whole of the States, measures of education, improvement, colonization, or exand the whole of the people of the Union, and enjoins the tinction of existing debt, accordingly. preservation of the existing system as having been tried In conformity with the views and principles which the and approved after long and triumphant experience. But, committee have now submitted, they beg leave to report in consequence of the extraordinary financial prosperity a bill, entitled "An act to appropriate, for a limited time, which the United States enjoy, the question merits examin- the proceeds of the sales of the public lands of the United ation, whether, whilst the General Government steadily States." retains the control of this great national resource in its own hands, after the payment of the public debt, the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, no longer needed to meet the ordinary expenses of Government, may not be beneficially appropriated to some other objects for a limited time. Governments, no more than individuals, should be seduced or intoxicated by prosperity, however flattering or great it may be. The country now happily enjoys it in a most unexampled degree. We have abundant reason to be grateful for the blessings of peace and plenty, and| C. Statement showing the dividend of each State, according to its federal population, in the proceeds of the public lands, after deducting therefrom fifteen per cent. as an additional dividend for the States in which the public land is situated. Estimated proceeds of lands, $3,000,000; deduct fifteen per cent., $450,000, and $2,550,000 remains to be divided among all the States, according to their popu lation. 22d CONG, 1st SESS.] STATES. Maine, New Hampshire, Federal popula- 399,437 269,326 Massachusetts, 610,408 Vermont, 280,657 Rhode Island, Connecticut, 97,194 297,665 New York, 1,918,553 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, 319,922 1,343,072 75,432 405,843 Counter Report on the Public Lands. Share in proceeds those which have or have not a black population to be The decisive condemnation which this committee has 57,573 71 pronounced upon the bill from the Committee on Manu130,487 59 factures, imposes on it the task of presenting its own views 59,995 93 on the subject of the public lands, and of examining the 20,777 12 views which have been presented by the Committee on 63,631 72 Manufactures; and this task will now be performed. 410,128 29 The public lands of the United States are derived partly 68,389 59 from the munificent benefactions of patriotic States, and 288,176 64 partly from purchasers from foreign Powers; but, in any 15,202 93 view which this committee deem it proper to take of the 86,756 89 subject, they hold it unnecessary to make any distinction 218,793 82 between the lands which were the subject of purchase 136,758 45 and those which were acquired by gratuitous grant. They 97,270 51 are all equally the property of the United States; equally 91,880 52 subject to the disposition of Congress; and equally de56,116 22 serving the same disposition, whatsoever that may be. 23,591 19 The fact of the purchase of any part of the federal do 36,702 95 main would not have been adverted to by this committee, 133,662 21 except for the argument which has been founded upon it 132,928 77 in favor of keeping up the price of the public lands. It 200,063 54 is said that the lands cost money, and that the Federal 73,329 59 Government must be reimbursed that money, with the in33,593 25 terest which has accrued upon it, and all the costs which 27,879 63 have attended the administration of the lands. Under this idea of an account between the federal lands on one side, and the Federal Government on the other, the sum of $48,077,551 and 40 cents is charged upon the lands; the sum of $37,272,713 and 31 cents is credited to them; and the sum of $10,804,838 and nine-tenths of a cent is struck as a balance due from the lands to the Government. Admitting the correctness of this account, both in the ory and in detail, for argument's sake, and still it would The Committee on Public Lands, to which was referred only imply a necessity for such further sales as would the bill reported by the Committee on Manufactures, en-cover the balance struck; and by no means would justify titled "A bill to appropriate, for a limited time, the pro-a levy to the amount of one billion three hundred and ceeds of the sales of the public lands of the United States," sixty-three million five hundred and eighty-nine thousand having had the same under their careful and attentive six hundred and ninety-one dollars, which the Commit consideration, are decidedly of opinion that it is founded tee on Manufactures seem to think is the pecuniary value in error, both in its principles and details. of the federal domain. COUNTER REPORT ON THE PUBLIC LANDS. IN SENATE, May 18, 1832. Mr. KING made the following report: But this committee cannot agree to the correctness of this account, either as stated or as conceived; and they will rapidly point out its leading errors in both particulars. 1. The account as stated. The principle of the bill rests upon the proposition that no reduction ought to be made in the price of the public lands, and that the moneys hereafter to be received from them should be distributed among the States for pur. poses of education, internal improvement, payment of State debts incurred for internal improvement, and the 1. An error of near three-quarters of a million occurs colonization of free negroes upon the western coast of in the credit allowed to the lands for money paid into the Africa. The details of the bill, after assigning ten per treasury. The exact amount to the 31st of December centum out of the proceeds of the sales to the States in last is $38,003,869 and 89 cents, instead of $37,272,713 which they lie, propose to distribute the remainder to all and 31 cents, as stated. 2. Another error, exceeding a the States, in the ratio of their federal representative po- million of dollars, is committed in failing to credit the pulation, to be applied by each State to the objects above mentioned. lands with the amount of certificates of public debt received in payment from 1785 to 1796, amounting to The committee believes the principle of this bill to be $1,201,725 and 68 cents. 3. A third error lies in the erroneous, first, because it refuses to admit the public omission to credit the lands with interest on the money's lands, which are one of the subjects of revenue, into the received for them, while charging interest on the moneys list of articles on which the reduction of the revenue, paid for them. This error makes a difference of nearly consequent upon the extinction of the public debt, is fifteen millions to the prejudice of the lands. 4. Another about to be made; and, secondly, because it changes the error of ten millions results from a failure to credit the character of the relationship (and that most injuriously to lands with eight millions of acres of military bounties be the new States) between those States and the Federal stowed upon the soldiers of the late war, and which, at Government, substituting an individual, pecuniary, State the price assumed by the account as the value of the interest in the soil, instead of a general congressional su-lands, would amount to ten millions. 5. A fifth error, perintendence over its disposition, and leaving the power and the largest of the whole, consists in charging the of legislation over this soil in the hands of those who are whole sum of $29,765,241 and 20 cents, being the pur to divide the money which they can make out of it. chase money and interest paid for Louisiana and Florida, The details of the bill are obviously erroneous, because upon the vacant lands which these provinces contained; they make no distinction in the rate of distribution be- when the fact is incontestable, that these provinces were tween the States which did or did not cede vacant lands purchased, not for their wild lands, but for their soveto the Federal Government; between those which have reignty! That the acquisition of jurisdiction over contior have not received grants of land, or appropriations of guous territory, the acquisitions of ports and harbors in money, for objects of internal improvement; and between the Gulf of Mexico, the acquisition of the mouths of Counter Report on the Public Lands. [22d CoNG. 1st Sess. rivers which flowed from our dominions, and the removal tration. They are fitter for the care of a frugal landof foreign Powers from our immediate borders, were the stewart than of an office in the State. * If it be obreal objects of the purchase, and would have been considered as cheaply acquired, although not an acre of vacant land had been obtained. These errors, without pursuing the investigation further, are entirely sufficient to relieve the lands from the balance which has been struck against them, and are certainly of sufficient magnitude to merit correction in an account which implies minute accuracy down to the ninth part of a cent. 2. As to the theory of this account. jected that these lands, at present, will sell at a low market, This committee denies its correctness. They condemn the whole plan, idea, and conception, of keeping accounts, and striking balances between the Federal Government and the federal domain. They cannot consent to bring down this Government from its lofty station of parental guardianship over the people to the low level of a land speculator. The people are the children of the country. They love and they defend it. When that country is in danger-when the public foe treads or menaces its soil, they rush to its succor; they pour out their blood like water; they open their purses with both hands; they give life and property for the safety of their country; and it is the duty of this Government to credit them with the full value of this generous devotion, and so to execute its guardianship as to increase the number of its people, to amplify their means, and to excite their love of country. The lands ought to be credited with the inhabitants which it maintains; with the products of their industry; with the taxes which they have paid, and can and will pay. In this point of view, the idea of an account between the This committee takes leave to say that the sentiments Federal Government and the federal lands disappears here expressed by Mr. Burke are the inspirations of pofrom the scene; and the people, their property, their pa- litical wisdom; that their truth and justice have been testtriotism, their moral and intellectual worth, stand forwarded in all ages and all countries, and particularly in our as the true price which the Government has received in own age and in our own country. The history of the exchange for the barren title which it held over its lands; public lands of the United States furnishes the most inand the thirty-eight millions which has been paid, in com-structive lessons of the inutility of sales, the value of culparison to such a price, sinks below the power of words to express, or figures to ascertain. What language can paint the insignificance? What imagination can conceive the nothingness of the money which has been paid for the lands, (and so much of it instantly squandered,) compared to the number of the people now living upon these lands, their value in the social and political system, their capacity to bear arms, and to pay taxes for their country, and the innumerable posterity which is to flow from them? tivation, and the fallacy of large calculations. These lands were expected, at the time they were acquired by the United States, to pay off the public debt immediately, to support the Government, and to furnish large surplusses for distribution. Calculations for a thousand millions were made upon them, and a charge of treachery was raised against General Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, for his report in the year 1791, in which the fallacy of all these visionary calculations was exposed, and the real The committee ventures to suggest that the view which value of the lands soberly set down at an average of twenthe Committee on Manufactures has taken of the federal ty cents per acre. Yet, after an experiment of nearly domain, is fundamentally erroneous; that it has miscon-fifty years, it is found that the sales of the public lands, so ceived the true principles of national policy with respect far from paying the public debt, have barely defrayed the to wild lands; and, from this fundamental mistake, and expenses of managing the lands; while the revenue deradical misconception, have resulted the great errors which rived from cultivation has paid both principal and interest pervade the whole structure of their report and bill. of the debts of two wars, and supported the Federal Go The Committee on Manufactures seem to contemplate vernment in a style of expenditure infinitely beyond the the federal domain merely as an object of revenue, and to conceptions of those who established it. The gross prolook for that revenue solely from the receivers of the ceeds of the sales are but thirty-eight millions of dollars, land offices; when the science of political economy has from which the large expenses of the system are to be deascertained such a fund to be chiefly, if not exclusively, ducted; while the clear receipts from the customs, valuable under the aspect of population and cultivation, after paying all expenses of collection, amount to and the eventual extraction of revenue from the people in $556,443,830. This immense amount of revenue springs its customary modes of taxes and imposts. from the use of soil reduced to private property. For The celebrated Edmund Burke is supposed to have ex-the duties are derived from imported goods; the goods pressed the sum total of political wisdom on this subject, are received in exchange for exports; and the exports, in his well known propositions to convert the forest lands with a small deduction for the products of the sea, are of the British Crown into private property; and this com- the produce of the farm and the forest. This is a striking mittee, to spare themselves further argument, and to ex-view, but it is only one-half of the picture. The other tinguish at once a political fallacy which ought not to have half must be shown, and will display the cultivation of the been broached in the nineteenth century, will make a soil, in its immense exports, as giving birth to commerce brief quotation from the speech of that eminent man. and navigation, and supplying employment to all the trades "A landed estate is certainly the very worst which the and professions connected with these two grand branches Crown can possess. ** Lands are of a nature more of national industry; while the business of selling the proper for private management than for public adminis.land is a meagre and barren operation, auxiliary to no VOL. VIII.--q useful occupation, injurious to the young States, by ex-attempt to raise which must drain, exhaust, and impove hausting them of their currency, and extending the parish these States, and give birth to the feelings which tronage of the Federal Government in the complicated sense of injustice and oppression never fail to excite, and machinery of the Land Office Department. Such bas the excitement of which should be so carefully avoided in been the difference between the revenue received from a confederacy of free States. the sales and from the cultivation of the land; but no These reasons, thus summarily stated, and given to the powers of cultivation can carry out the difference, and Senate without comment, because their obvious truth and show what it will be: for, while the sale of the land is a justice supersede the necessity of illustration or commen single operation, and can be performed but once, the ex-tary, are sufficient to show that the rights and interests of traction of revenue from its cultivation is an annual and the new States require a reduction in the price of the pub perpetual process, increasing in productiveness, through lic lands. But reasons which require this reduction, and all time, with the increase of population, the amelioration the adoption of other measures for the speedy extension of of soils, and scientific improvements in the arts of agriculture. the federal title to the territory within these States, are not confined to them, but extend to the Federal Government itself, and are weighty and cogent in favor of putting an end to the anomalous relation which the present condition of the public lands establishes between the Federal and the State Governments. This committee, thus differing fundamentally from the Committee on Manufactures, on the primary question of policy with respect to the disposition of the federal domain, have naturally arrived at conclusions wholly opposite to those of that committee. Instead of valuing these lands The heads of some of these reasons are-for themselves as an article of merchandise, they value 1st. The nature of the duties which attach to the pri them for their uses as a means of giving wealth and strength mary disposition of the soil, are essentially local, and unfit to the country. Instead of holding them up as a prize for the exercise of the Federal Legislature. Congress canwhich cannot be sold high enough, they deem them of not continue to charge itself with the local concerns of all very little value for all the nett revenue which their sales the new States, in the primary disposition of their soil, will ever bring into the federal coffers. Instead of hug-without neglecting the general concerns of the Union, or ging them to the federal bosom as a treasure which cannot neglecting the interests of the new States, or acting upon be drawn close enough, they consider them rather as an systems and ideas brought from old States, and inapplicable inconvenient burden, which ought to be got rid of without or injurious to the new ones. delay. Instead of looking upon the alienations of the soil 2d. The danger of a multitude of projects-now that as so many diminutions of the federal wealth, they consider the lands are released from their pledge to the public the profit of the exchequer as only beginning after such debt--for the application of their proceeds to different transfers. Instead of viewing the lands as "squandered," objects, or their distribution among the States or the peowhich are gratuitously bestowed, or liberally sold to settlers ple; projects in which the constitution of the Union may and cultivators, they deem such lands as sold for a price be disregarded; the rights of the new States sacrificed; above all valtic--a price which Congress itself cannot the dignity and purity of legislation endangered; and the "squander"-a price which will consist of the heroic and lands set up as a prize to be scrambled or bargained for, as patriotic population which the lands will sustain, and which interest or ambition may suggest, and uncontrollable ma will be ready to contribute in men and money whenever jorities decide. the voice of their country shall call for aid. This committee will now condense, and briefly exhibit, the leading reasons why the price of the public lands should be reduced, the sales of them accelerated, and the federal title speedily extinguished in the new States: 3d. The danger of collisions with the new States. It is well known that strong views of present sovereignty over these lands are now entertained in some of these States, and that a reduction of price, and speedy extinction of the federal title, is demanded in the whole of them. 1st. Because the new States have a clear right to par- By releasing itself from the management of these lands, ticipate in the benefits of a reduction of the revenue to the Congress may avoid all the collisions which may grow out wants of the Government, by getting the reduction ex-of these views of present sovereignty, or demands for ditended to the article of revenue chiefly used by them. minished prices, and accelerated sales. 2d. Because the public debt being now paid, the pub- 4th. The administration of the public lands is an inconlic lands are entirely released from the pledge they were venient agency, an expensive branch, and an unprofit under to that object, and are free to receive a new and able source of revenue; and a cessation of the agency, and liberal destination for the relief of the States in which a release from the expense, would form a respectable item they lie. in that plan of retrenchment which all the friends of economy so much desire. 3d. Because nearly one hundred millions of acres of the land now in market are the refuse of sales and dona-j 5th. The Federal Government has no need for the reve tions, through a long series of years, and are of very little actual value, and only fit to be given to settlers, or abandoned to the States in which they lie. 4th. Because the speedy extinction of the federal title within their limits is necessary to the independence of the new States; to their equality with the other States; to the development of their resources; to the subjection of their soil to taxation, cultivation, and settlement; and to the proper enjoyment of their jurisdiction and sovereignty. nue now derivable from the sales of these lands; but it may have need for more revenue in time to come. Give them, then, the destination which will produce most reve nue when really wanted. Pass them from hands that can not use them, into hands that can; and, in times of peril and danger, when the country calls upon her children, a pa triotic population, an independent yeomanry, and a vast cultivation, will furnish the men and the money which the exigencies of the State may require. 6th. Because the ramified machinery of the Land Office For these reasons, this committee deems it equally deDepartment, and the ownership of so much soil, extends sirable and advantageous to both parties--the Federal Go the patronage and authority of the Federal Government vernment and the new States--to put an end, with all conin'o the heart and corners of the new States, and subjects| venient despatch, to the anomalous relation which the pretheir policy to the danger of a foreign and powerful influence. sent condition of the public lands establishes between 7th. Because the sum of four hundred and twenty-five them-a relation of unprofitable authority on one side, millions of dollars, proposed to be drawn from the new and of injurious dependence on the other. The self-evi States and Territories by the sale of their soil at one dol-dent propriety of such a consummation would vindicate lar and twenty-five cents per acre, is unconscionable and itself, and leave this committee nothing further to say, had impracticable--such as never can be paid--and the bare it not been for an array of objections to any measures which |