which naturally divide themselves into those, which have arisen from a misconception of it;-from an impression that it is unjust; and from an apprehension, that the difficulty of its execution is insurmountable.

The MARYLAND PROPOSITION is contained in the following resolutions, viz;

"Resolved, by the General Assembly of Maryland, That each of the United States has an equal right to participate in the benefit of the Public Lands, the common property of the union.

"Resolved, That the states, in whose favour Congress have not made appropriations of land for the purposes of education, are entitled to such appropriations as will correspond, in a just proportion, with those heretofore made in favour of the other states." To the first resolution, no objection, it is believed, has been, or can be made.

In discussing the merits of the second resolution, it is not deemed necessary to trace, with the committee of the Maryland Senate, the title of the union to the public lands. They are admitted, on all hands, to be the common property of the people of the United States. It is necessary, however, to understand the course, which Congress have pursued in disposing of this common property, which is subjected to their entire control by the third section of the fourth article of the Federal Constitution.

The Maryland Committee state, that, "By the laws relating to the survey and sale of the public lands, one thirty-sixth part of them has been reserved and appropriated in perpetuity for the support of common schools. The public lands are laid off into townships, six miles square, by lines running with the cardinal points; these townships are then divided into thirty-six sections, each a mile square, and containing 640 acres, which are designated by numbers. Section, No. 16, which is always a central section, has invariably been appropriated, (and provision has been made by law for the like appropriations in future surveys,) for the support of common schools in each township.

"In Tennessee, in addition to the appropriation of a section in each township for common schools, 200,000 acres have been assigned for the endowment of colleges and academies. Large appropriations have also been made in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, and the

North Western Territory, for the erection and maintenance of seminaries of learning of a higher rank than common schools."

Without pretending to precision in their calculations, the Maryland Committee estimate the donations of land to seminaries of learning of a higher class to be equal to one fifth part of the appropriations for common schools. As the General Government are bound to continue this system of appropriations for common schools by a compact between the United States and each of the states formed out of the public lands, (which will be hereafter noticed) the Committee proceed to shew, that the number of acres appropriated, and to be appropriated for the purposes of education in the new states and territories on the east of the Mississippi will be 7,909,903. They shew also that the aggregate number of acres to be applied to the same object on the west of that river will be 6,666,666 2-3; which number, added to the former, makes, 14,576,569 2-3 acres.

The object of the Maryland Committee in making these calculations, manifestly is, to excite the public attention, by its importance, to a system of appropriations of national property for the purposes of education, to the use of a part only of the states, which seemed to have attracted but little notice; for immediately after it they say;

"Such is the vast amount of property, destined for the support and encouragement of learning in the states and territories, carved out of the public lands. These large appropriations of land, the common property of the union, will enure to the exclusive benefit of those states and territories. They are appropriations for STATE and not for NATIONAL purposes; they are of such a nature, that they might have been extended to all the states; they therefore ought to have been thus extended."

When this system first began, upon the admission of Ohio into the union, with a population of a few thousands only, before a proper estimate was put upon the value of the public lands, as property and a source of revenue, it was calculated to excite but little attention. It was natural, that, on the admission of other states, Congress should, to save the trouble of repetition, refer back to the act giving admission to Ohio, and grant the same terms; and we presume, that few people in the United States ever reflected upon the extent and amount of the bounty of Congress

for literary purposes to the new states in the west, Kentucky excepted, until their attention was drawn to it by the Maryland Report. To rouse that attention, and to claim for the states, which had been neglected, a participation in that bounty upon principles of equity, was clearly the leading motive of the Maryland Committee.

From several statements, which have appeared, and particularly a report upon the subject to the Legislature of Massachusetts, by a joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives, this object of the Maryland Committee seems to have been misunderstood. The Massachusetts Committee suppose, that a statement of the amount of the public lands, and the amount of appropriations for schools, which will ultimately be assigned to the states and territories, formed out of the public lands, was made for the purpose of augmenting the amount, to which the states, that have had no grants for the purposes of education, would be entitled. Hence you find that committee saying; "they cannot avoid remarking upon the extraordinary nature and amount of these estimates and deductions. The boundless and trackless regions of Louisiana, for instance, which are yet not only unexplored, but over the greater part of which, even the eye of an American citizen has never wandered, is [are] taken to be a present valuable and available fund, out of which, in their whole extent, reservations may be made; and, therefore, that the old states have a right to claim a quantity of land, proportionate to these reservations, to be set off to them, within the settled states and territories." Then, after describing those regions as of little value, they proceed to say. "If these lands can be taken into the amount for the purpose of swelling the quantity upon which our proportion is to be calculated, all being taken, as it is to be, of equal value, we cannot perceive, why it would not be equitable to satisfy our claim out of the same lands." They then add in a manner, very much resembling a sneer, which we regret to perceive, in those representing so grave and respectable a body as the "General Court" of Massachusetts, while speaking of a proceeding of a sister state, entitled in every way to respect; "But the grant of a few hundred or even a few millions of acres, upon the upper branches of the Yellow Stone River, along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, or even upon the vallies of the

Columbia River, would hardly be regarded as a favour by Maryland or Massachusetts, especially if they were under obligation to survey them for a century to come." In another part of the Masssachusetts Report, we find the Committee speaking "of that part of the claim of the old states founded upon a computation of the 400,000,000 acres, not yet sold, surveyed, or explored."

Now it appears to us, that the Massachusetts Committee have not examined the Maryland Report and Resolutions, upon which they are commenting for the instruction of the Legislature, with the degree of attention necessary to accuracy in their statements. We have read over the Maryland Report and Resolutions with great care, and cannot discover that, in any part of them, "the boundless and trackless regions of Louisiana are taken to be a present valuable and available fund, out of which in their whole extent reservations may be made." Nor that the Maryland Committee contend, that "the old states have a right to claim a quantity of land proportionate to these reservations, to be set off to them within the settled states and territories."-Nor do we find, that "these lands," meaning "the boundless and trackless regions of Louisiana," "are taken into the amount for the purpose of swelling the quantity upon which our proportion is to be calculated."

The Massachusetts Committee seem from the above quotations, as well as other passages in their Report, to have fallen into the strange mistake of supposing that Maryland claims for herself and other states an appropriation of public lands for the purposes of education, bearing some sort of proportion to, (what proportion is not stated) and in some way or other depending upon, the amcunt of public lands, owned by the United States. If the reader will take the trouble of referring back to the Resolutions of the Legislature of Maryland, set forth in the beginning of these remarks, he will perceive, that the object of those Resolutions clearly is, to obtain of Congress, for the states which have received none, grants of school lands, bearing a just proportion to those which have already been made to others. The claim set up would be equally valid, and the same in amount, if appropriations of land for the purposes of education had heretofore been made in favour of one state only, instead of all the states and territories

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formed out of the public lands. It has no relation to, or dependence upon, the quantity of those lands. It would have been precisely the same which it is now, if Louisiana had never been purchased of France. It holds this language to Congress; "You are bound to treat all the states with impartiality. You have made grants of land for the promotion of education, to some of the states; now make grants to the others, for the same purpose and in just proportion." The Maryland Legislature does not undertake to determine, what that proportion is, under what restrictions, or in what form, or on what conditions, or in what place, whether in the settled or the unsettled states and territories, the grants ought to be made; but leaves all these matters to the wisdom and justice of Congress, the only competent power to

decide.

The above train of argument will serve to shew, that, as the extension of the present system of reservations of school lots to all the "boundless and trackless regions of Louisiana" will not affect, either the amount or the validity of the claim set up by Maryland, so neither has the speedy sale of "every acre" of the public lands any bearing upon the subject. Although it may be well to mention, as another instance of the liability of the Massachusetts Committee to misapprehension, that they represent the sale of "every acre" of the public lands as "an event, of the certain and speedy accomplishment of which the Legislature of Maryland seem to entertain no doubt." From what source the Committee received an impression, which justified them in attributing to the Maryland Legislature so extravagant and preposterous an expectation we know not. Of one thing we are certain, they could not have derived it from the Maryland Report.

Again, the Massachusetts Committee have mistaken the valuation of the school sections at two dollars per acre, in the Maryland Report, as an estimate of their present instead of their future value, (which last from the use of the future tense was manifestly intended) and thereby have thrown an air of exaggeration over the whole calculation of the Maryland Committee.

*Indeed, the amount to be claimed would be greater, for, in the case supposed, all the states except the favoured one, would have a right to join in the claim for a proportional share.