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latter character, that I am at a loss for words to make it clearer. To deny it, would be to deny that there is any truth in language.

"But strong as this is, it is not all. The deed proceeds and says, that all the lands so ceded shall be considered a common fund for the use and benefit of such of the United States as have become, or shall become, members of the confederation or federal alliance of said states, Virginia inclusive, and concludes by saying, and shall be faithfully and bona fide disposed of for that purpose, and for no other use or purpose whatever.' If it were possible to raise a doubt before, those full, clear, and explicit terms would dispel it. It is impossible for language to be clearer. To be considered a common fund' is an expression directly in contradistinction to separate or individual, and is, by necessary implication, as clear a negative of the latter as if it had been positively expressed. This common fund to be for the use and benefit of such of the United States as have become, or shall become, members of the confederation or federal alliance.' That is as clear as language can express it, for their common use in their united federal character, Virginia being included as the grantor, out of abundant caution."

"The Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Clay), and, as I now understand, the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster), agree, that the revenue from taxes can be applied only to the objects specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Thus repudiating the general welfare principle, as applied to the money power, so far as the revenue may be derived from that source. To this extent they profess to be good State Rights Jeffersonian Republicans. Now, sir, I would be happy to be informed by either of the able senators, by what political alchemy the revenue from taxes, by being vested in land, or other property, can, when again turned into revenue by sales, be entirely freed from all the constitutional restrictions to which they were liable before the investment, according to their own confessions. A satisfactory explanation of so curious and apparently in comprehensible a process would be a treat. "When I look, Mr. President, to what induced the states, and especially Virginia, to make this magnificent cession to the Union, and the high and patriotic motives urged by the old Congress to induce them to do it, and turn to what is now proposed, I am struck with the contrast and the great mutation to which human affairs are subject. The great and patriotic men of former times regarded it as essential to the consummation of the Union and the preservation of the public faith that the lands should be ceded as a common fund; but now, men distinguished for their

ability and influence are striving with all their might to undo their holy work. Yes, sir; distribution and cession are the very reverse, in character and effect; the tendency of one is to union, and the other to disunion. The wisest of modern statesmen, and who had the keenest and deepest glance into futurity (Edmund Burke), truly said that the revenue is the state; to which I add, that to distribute the revenue, in a confederated community, amongst its members, is to dissolve the communitythat is, with us, the Union-as time will prove, if ever this fatal measure should be adopted."

Speech of Hon. Robt. Y. Hayne
Senator from South Carolina, delivered in the Senate Chamber
January 21, 1830, on Mr. Foot's resolution relating
to the sales of the public lands.

Mr. Hayne said, when he took occasion, two days ago, to throw out some ideas with respect to the policy of the government, in relation to the public lands, nothing certainly could have been further from his thoughts, than that he should have been compelled again to throw himself upon the indulgence of the Senate. Little did I expect, said Mr. H., to be called upon to meet such an argument as was yesterday urged by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster.) Sir, I questioned no man's opinions; I impeached no man's motives; I charged no party, or state, or section of country with hostility to any other, but ventured, as I thought, in a becoming spirit to put forth my own sentiments in relation to a great national question of public policy. Such was my course. The gentleman from Missouri, (Mr. Benton,) it is true, had charged upon the Eastern States an early and continued hostility towards the west, and referred to a number of historical facts and documents in support of that charge. Now, sir, how have these different arguments been met? The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, after deliberating a whole night upon his course, comes into this chamber to vindicate New England; and instead of making up his issue with the gentleman from Missouri, on the charges which he had preferred, chooses to consider me as the author of those charges, and losing sight entirely of that gentleman, selects me as his adversary, and pours out all the vials of his mighty wrath upon my devoted head. Nor is he willing to stop there. He goes on to assail the institutions and policy of the south, and calls in question the principles and conduct of the state which I have the honor to represent. When I find a gentleman of mature age and experience, of acknowledged talents and profound sagacity, pursuing a course like this, declining the contest offered from the west, and making

war upon the unoffending south, I must | most extravagant praise, he breaks forth in believe, I am bound to believe, he has some admiration of the greatness of Nathan object in view which he has not ventured Dane-and great indeed he must be, if it to disclose. Mr. President, why is this? be true, as stated by the senator from MasHas the gentleman discovered in former sachusetts, that he was greater than controversies with the gentleman from Solon and Lycurgus, Minos, Numa PomMissouri, that he is overmatched by that pilius, and all the legislators and philososenator? And does he hope for an easy vic-phers of the world," ancient and modern. tory over a more feeble adversary? Has the gentleman's distempered fancy been disturbed by gloomy forebodings of "new alliances to be formed," at which he hinted? Has the ghost of the murdered COALITION come back, like the ghost of Banquo, to "sear the eyeballs of the gentleman," and will it not down at his bidding? Are dark visions of broken hopes, and honors lost forever, still floating before his heated imagination? Sir, if it be his object to thrust me between the gentleman from Missouri and himself, in order to rescue the east from the contest it has provoked with the west, he shall not be gratified. Sir, I will not be dragged into the defence of my friend from Missouri. The south shall not be forced into a conflict not its own. The gentleman from Missouri is able to fight his own battles. The gallant west needs no aid from the south to repel any attack which may be made on them from any quarter. Let the gentleman from Massachusetts controvert the facts and arguments of the gentleman from Missouri, if he can-and is he win the victory, let him wear the honors; I shall not deprive him of his laurels.

Sir, to such high authority it is certainly my duty, in a becoming spirit of humility, to submit. And yet, the gentleman will pardon me, when I say, that it is a little unfortunate for the fame of this great legislator, that the gentleman from Missouri should have proved that he was not the author of the ordinance of '87, on which the senator from Massachusetts has reared so glorious a monument to his name. Sir, I doubt not the senator will feel some compassion for our ignorance, when I tell him, that so little are we acquainted with the modern great men of New England, that until he informed us yesterday that we possessed a Solon and a Lycurgus in the person of Nathan Dane, he was only known to the south as a member of a celebrated assembly, called and known by the name of the "Hartford Convention." In the proceedings of that assembly, which I hold in my hand, (at p. 19,) will be found in a few lines, the history of Nathan Dane; and a little farther on, there is conclusive evidence of that ardent devotion to the interest of the new states, which, it seems, has given him a just claim to the title of "Father of the West." By the 2d resolution of the "Hartford Convention," it is declared, "that it is expedient to attempt to make provision for restraining Congress in the exercise of an unlimited power to make new states, and admitting them into the Union." So much for Nathan Dane, of Beverly, Massachusetts.

The gentleman from Massachusetts, in reply to my remarks on the injurious operations of our land system on the prosperity of the west, pronounced an extravagant eulogium on the paternal care which the government had extended towards the west, to which he attributed all that was great and excellent in the present condi- In commenting upon my views in rela tion of the new states. The language of tion to the public lands, the gentleman inthe gentleman on this topic fell upon my sists, that it being one of the conditions of ears like the almost forgotten tones of the the grants that these lands should be aptory leaders of the British Parliament, at plied to "the common benefit of all the the commencement of the American revo-states, they must always remain a fund for lution. They, too, discovered that the colonies had grown great under the fostering care of the mother country; and I must confess, while listening to the gentleman, I thought the appropriate reply to his argument was to be found in the remark of a celebrated orator, made on that occasion: "They have grown great in spite of your protection."

The gentleman, in commenting on the policy of the government in relation to the new states, has introduced to our notice a certain Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, to whom he attributes the celebrated ordinance of '87, by which he tells us, "slavery was forever excluded from the new states north of the Ohio." After eulogizing the wisdom of this provision in terms of the

revenue; "and adds, "they must be treated as so much treasure." Sir, the gentleman could hardly find language strong enough to convey his disapprobation of the policy which I had ventured to recommend to the favorable consideration of the country. And what, sir, was that policy, and what is the difference between that gentleman and myself on that subject? I threw out the idea that the public lands ought not to be reserved forever, as "a great fund for revenue; "that they ought not to be "treated as a great treasure;" but that the course of our policy should rather be directed toward the creation of new states, and building up great and flourishing communities.

Now, sir, will it be believed, by those

Now, Mr. President, it will be seen that the very doctrines which the gentleman so indignantly abandons were urged by him in 1825; and if I had actually borrowed my sentiments from those which he then avowed, I could not have followed more closely in his footsteps. Sir, it is only since the gentleman quoted this book, yesterday, that my attention has been turned to the sentiments he expressed in 1825; and if I had remembered them, I might possibly have been deterred from uttering sentiments here, which, it might well be supposed, I had borrowed from that gentleman.

who now hear me,-and who listened to the gentleman's denunciation of my doctrines yesterday,-that a book then lay open before him-nay, that he held it in his hand, and read from it certain passages of his own speech, delivered to the House of Representatives in 1825, in which speech he himself contended for the very doctrine I had advocated, and almost in the same terms? Here is the speech of the Hon. Daniel Webster, contained in the first volume of Gales and Seaton's Register of Debates, (p. 251,) delivered in the House of Representatives on the 18th of January, 1825, in a debate on the Cumberland road-the very debate from which the senator read yesterday. I shall read from the celebrated speech two passages, from which it will appear that both as to the past and the future policy of the government in relation to the public lands, the gentleman from Massachusetts maintained, in 1825, substantially the same opinions which I have advanced, but which he now so strongly reprobates. I said, sir, that the system of credit sales by which the west had been kept constantly in debt to the United States, and by which their wealth was drained off to be expended elsewhere, had operated injuriously on their prosperity. On this point the gentleman from Massachusetts, in January, 1825, expressed himself thus: "There could be no doubt, if gentlemen looked at the money received into the treasury from the sale of the public lands to the west, and then looked to the whole amount expended by government, (even including the whole amount of what was laid out for the army,) the latter must be allowed to be very inconsiderable, and there must be a constant drain of money from the west to pay for the public lands." It might indeed be said that this was no more than the refluence of capital which had previously gone over the mountains. Be it so. Still its practical effect was to produce inconvenience, if not distress, by absorbing the money of the people. I contended that the public lands ought not to be treated merely as a fund for revenue;" that they ought not to be hoarded as a great treasure.' On this point the senator expressed himself thus: "Government, he believed, had received eighteen or twenty millions of dollars from the public lands, and it was with the greatest satisfaction he adverted to the change which had been introduced in the mode of paying for them; yet he could never think the national domain was to be regarded as any great source of revenue. The great object as so much treasure," and must be apof the government, in respect of these plied to the "common benefit of all the lands, was not so much the money derived states." Now, if this be so, whence does from their sale, as it was the getting them he derive the right to appropriate them for settled. What he meant to say was, he did partial and local objects? How can the not think they ought to hug that domain AS A gentleman consent to vote away immense GREAT TREASURE, to enrich the Exchequer."bodies of these lands for canals in Indiana

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In 1825, the gentleman told the world that the public lands "ought not to be treated as a treasure." He now tells us that "they must be treated as so much treasure." What the deliberate opinion of the gentleman on this subject may be, belongs not to me to determine; but I do not think he can, with the shadow of justice or propriety, impugn my sentiments, while his own recorded opinions are identical with my own. When the gentleman refers to the conditions of the grants under which the United States have acquired these lands, and insists that, as they are declared to be "for the common benefit of all the states," they can only be treated as so much treasure, I think he has applied a rule of construction too narrow for the case. If in the deeds of cession it has been declared that the grants were intended for "the common benefit of all the states," it is clear, from other provisions, that they were not intended merely as so much property; for it is expressly declared, that the object of the grants is the erection of new states; and the United States, in accepting this trust, bind themselves to tacilitate the foundation of these states, to be admitted into the Union with all the rights and privileges of the original states. This, sir, was the great end to which all parties looked, and it is by the fulfillment of this high trust that "the common benefit of all the states " is to be best promoted. Sir, let me tell the gentleman, that in the part of the country in which I live, we do not measure political benefits by the money standard. We consider as more valuable than gold liberty, principle, and justice. But, sir, if we are bound to act on the narrow principles contended for by the gentleman, I am wholly at a loss to conceive how he can reconcile his principles with his own practice. The lands are, it seems, to be treated

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and Illinois, to the Louisville and Portland | endeavoring to cast upon the south. In Canal, to Kenyon College in Ohio, to relation to the other point, the friendship Schools for the Deaf and Dumb, and other manifested by New England towards the objects of a similar description? If grants west, in their support of the system of inof this character can fairly be considered ternal improvement, the gentleman will as made "for the common benefit of all the pardon me for saying, that I think he is states," it can only be, because all the equally unfortunate in having introduced states are interested in the welfare of each that topic. As that gentleman has forced -a principle which, carried to the full it upon us, however, I cannot suffer it to extent, destroys all distinction between pass unnoticed. When the gentleman local and national objects, and is certainly tells us that the appropriations for internal broad enough to embrace the principles for improvement in the west would, in almost which I have ventured to contend. Sir, every instance, have failed but for New the true difference between us I take to be England votes, he has forgotten to tell us this: the gentleman wishes to treat the the when, the how, and the wherefore this public lands as a great treasure, just as so new-born zeal for the west sprung up in much money in the treasury, to be applied the bosom of New England. If we look to all objects, constitutional and unconsti- back only a few years, we will find in tutional, to which the public money is both houses of Congress a uniform and constantly applied. I consider it as a steady opposition on the part of the memsacred trust which we ought to fulfil, on bers from the Eastern States, generally, to the principles for which I have con-all appropriations of this character. At tended.

The senator from Massachusetts has thought proper to present, in strong contrast, the friendly feelings of the east towards the west, with sentiments of an opposite character displayed by the south in relation to appropriations for internal improvements. Now, sir, let it be recollected that the south have made no professions; I have certainly made none in their behalf, of regard for the west. It has been reserved for the gentleman from Massachusetts, while he vaunts over his own personal devotion to western interests, to claim for the entire section of country to which he belongs an ardent friendship for the west, as manifested by their support of the system of internal improvement, while he casts in our teeth the reproach that the south has manifested hostility to western interests in opposing appropriations for such objects. That gentleman, at the same time, acknowledged that the south entertains constitutional scruples on this subject. Are we then, sir, to understand that the gentleman considers it a just subject of reproach that we respect our oaths, by which we are bound "to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the U. States?" Would the gentleman have us manifest our love to the west by trampling under foot our constitutional scruples? Does he not perceive, if the south is to be reproached with unkindness to the west, in voting against appropriations which the gentleman admits they could not vote for without doing violence to their constitutional opinions, that he exposes himself to the question, whether, if he was in our situation, he could vote for these appropriations, regardless of his scruples? No, sir, I will not do the gentleman so great injustice. He has fallen into this error from not having duly weighed the force and effect of the reproach which he was

the time I became a member of this house, and for some time afterwards, a decided majority of the New England senators were opposed to the very measures which the senator from Massachusetts tells us they now cordially support. Sir, the Journals are before me, and an examination of them will satisfy every gentleman of that fact.

It must be well known to every one whose experience dates back as far as 1825, that up to a certain period, New England was generally opposed to appropriations for internal improvements in the west. The gentleman from Massachusetts may be himself an exception, but if he went for the system before 1825, it is certain that his colleagues did not go with him.

In the session of 1824 and '25, however, (a memorable era in the history of this country,) a wonderful change took place in New England, in relation to western interests. Sir, an extraordinary union of sympathies and of interests was then effected, which brought the east and the west into close alliance. The book from which I have before read contains the first public annunciation of that happy reconciliation of conflicting interests, personal and political, which brought the east and west together and locked in a fraternal embrace the two great orators of the east and the west. Sir, it was on the 18th of January, 1825, while the result of the presidential election, in the House of Representatives, was still doubtful, while the whole country was looking with intense anxiety to that legislative hall where the mighty drama was so soon to be acted, that we saw the leaders of two great parties in the house and in the nation, “taking sweet counsel together," and in a celebrated debate on the Cumberland road, fighting side by side for western interests.

It was on that memorable occasion that | vent the payment of the public debt. He the senator from Massachusetts held out tells us he is desirous of paying the debt, the white flag to the west, and uttered those "because we are under an obligation to liberal sentiments which he yesterday so discharge it." Now, sir, suppose it should indignantly repudiated. Then it was, that happen that the public creditors, with that happy union between the two mem- whom we have contracted the obligation, bers of the celebrated coalition was con- should release us from it, so far as to desummated, whose immediate issue was a clare their willingness to wait for payment president from one quarter of the Union, for fifty years to come, provided only the with the succession (as it was supposed) interest shall be punctually discharged. secured to another. The "American sys- The gentleman from Massachusetts will tem," before a rude, disjointed, and then be released from the obligation which misshapen mass, now assumed form now makes him desirous of paying the and consistency. Then it was that it debt; and, let me tell the gentleman, the became "the settled policy of the govern- holders of the stock will not only release ment," that this system should be so ad- us from this obligation, but they will imministered as to create a reciprocity of in-plore, nay, they will even pay us not to terests and a reciprocal distribution of pay them. But, adds the gentleman, so government favors, east and west, (the far as the debt may have an effect in bindtariff and internal improvements,) while ing the debtors to the country, and thereby the south—yes, sir, the impracticable serving as a link to hold the states tosouth-was to be out of your protec-gether, he would be glad that it should tion." The gentleman may boast as much exist forever. Surely then, sir, on the as he pleases of the friendship of New gentleman's own principles, he must be opEngland for the west, as displayed in their posed to the payment of the debt. support of internal improvement; but when he next introduces that topic, I trust that he will tell us when that friendship commenced, how it was brought about, and why it was established. Before I leave this topic, I must be permitted to say that the true character of the policy now pursued by the gentleman from Massachusetts and his friends, in relation to appropriations of land and money, for the benefit of the west, is in my estimation very similar to that pursued by Jacob of old towards his brother Esau: "it robs them of their birthright for a mess of pottage."

Sir, let me tell that gentleman, that the south repudiates the idea that a pecuniary dependence on the federal government is one of the legitimate means of holding the states together. A moneyed interest in the government is essentially a base interest; and just so far as it operates to bind the feelings of those who are subjected to it to the government,-just so far as it operates in creating sympathies and interests that would not otherwise exist,-is it opposed to all the principles of free government, and at war with virtue and patriotism. Sir, the link which binds the public creditors, as such, to their country, The gentleman from Massachusetts, in binds them equally to all governments, alluding to a remark of mine, that before whether arbitrary or free. In a free govany disposition could be made of the public ernment, this principle of abject dependlands, the national debt, for which they stand ence, if extended through all the ramificapledged, must be first paid, took occasion tions of society, must be fatal to liberty. to intimate" that the extraordinary fervor Already have we made alarming strides in which seems to exist in a certain quarter, that direction. The entire class of manu(meaning the south, sir,) for the payment facturers, the holders of stocks, with their of the debt, arises from a disposition to hundreds of millions of capital, are held to weaken the ties which bind the people to the the government by the strong link of peUnion." While the gentleman deals us cuniary interests; millions of people-enthis blow, he professes an ardent desire to tire sections of country, interested, or besee the debt speedily extinguished. He lieving themselves to be so, in the public must excuse me, however, for feeling some lands, and the public treasure-are bound distrust on that subject until I find this to the government by the expectation of disposition manifested by something pecuniary favors. If this system is carried stronger than professions. I shall look much further, no man can fail to see that for acts, decided and unequivocal acts; every generous motive of attachment to for the performance of which an opportu- the country will be destroyed, and in its nity will very soon (if I am not greatly place will spring up those low, grovelling, mistaken) be afforded. Sir, if I were at base, and selfish feelings which bind men liberty to judge of the course which that to the footstool of a despot by bonds as gentleman would pursue, from the princi- strong and enduring as those which attach ples which he has laid down in relation to them to free institutions. Sir, I would lay this matter, I should be bound to conclude the foundation of this government in the that he will be found acting with those affections of the people-I would teach with whom it is a darling object to pre-them to cling to it by dispensing equal

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