of these tariffs, instead of by their help. Business had been brought to a stand during the disastrous period which ensued the establish ment of the Bank of the United States. It was a period of stagnation, of settlement, of paying up, of getting clear of loads of debt; and starting afresh. It was the strong man, freed from the burthen under which he had long been pros-heroic exploits by giving an order to his legions trate, and getting on his feet again. In the West I knew that this was the process, and that our revived prosperity was entirely the result of our own resources, independent of, and in spite of federal legislation; and so declared it in my speech. I said: does, and scarcely leaves a vestige of its transit behind! Sir, it goes to the Northeast! to the seat of the American system! there it goes! and thus it goes!" Behold, on the other hand, the flying steamboats; and the fleets of floating arks, loaded with the products of the forest, the farm, and the pasture, following the course of our noble rivers, and bearing their freights to that great city which revives, upon the banks of the Mississippi, the name* of the greatest of the emperors that ever reigned upon the banks of the Tiber, and who eclipsed the glory of his own never to levy a contribution of salt upon a Roman citizen! Behold this double line of exports, and observe the refluent currents of gold and silver which result from them! Large are the supplies-millions are the amount which is annually poured into the West from these double exportations; enough to cover the face of the earth with magnificent improvements, and "The fine effects of the high tariff upon the to cram every industrious pocket with gold and prosperity of the West have been celebrated on silver. But where is this money? for it is not this floor: with how much reason, let facts res-in the country! Where does it go? for go it pond, and the people judge! I do not think we are indebted to the high tariff for our fertile lands and our navigable rivers; and I am certain we are indebted to these blessings for the prosperity we enjoy. In all that comes from the soil, the people of the West are rich. They have an abundant supply of food for man and beast, and a large surplus to send abroad. They have the comfortable living which industry creates for itself in a rich soil; but, beyond this, they are poor. They have none of the splendid works which imply the presence of the moneyed power! No Appian or Flaminian ways; no roads paved or McAdamized; no canals, except what are made upon borrowed means; no aqueducts; no bridges of stone across our innumerable streams; no edifices dedicated to eternity; no schools for the fine arts: not a public library for which an ordinary scholar would not apologize. And why none of those things? Have the people of the West no taste for public improvements, for the useful and the fine arts, and for literature? Certainly they have a very strong taste for them; but they have no money! not enough for private and current uses, not enough to defray our current expenses, and buy necessaries! without thinking of public improvements. We have no money! and that is a tale which has been told too often here-chanted too dolefully in the book of lamentations which was composed for the death of the Maysville road-to be denied or suppressed now. They have no adequate supply of money. And why? Have they no exports? Nothing to send abroad? Certainly they have exports. Behold the marching myriads of living animals annually taking their departure from the heart of the West, defiling through the gorges of the Cumberland, the Alleghany, and the Apalachian mountains, or traversing the plains of the South, diverging as they march, and spreading them selves all over that vast segment of our territorial circle which lies between the debouches of the Mississippi and the estuary of the Potomac! VOL. I.-18 Mr. Clay had commenced his speech with an apology for what might be deemed failing powers on account of advancing age. He said he was getting old, and might not be able to fulfil the expectation, and requite the attention, of the attending crowd; and wished the task could have fallen to younger and abler hands. This apology for age when no diminution of mental or bodily vigor was perceptible, induced several speakers to commence their replies with allusions to it, generally complimentary, but not admitting the fact. Mr. Hayne gracefully said, that he had lamented the advances of age, and mourned the decay of his eloquence, so eloquently as to prove that it was still in full vigor; and that he had made an able and ingenious argument, fully sustaining his high reputation as an accomplished orator. General Smith, of Maryland, said that he could not complain himself of the infirmities of age, though older than the senator from Kentucky, nor could find in his years any apology for the insufficiency of his speech. Mr. Clay thought this was intended to be a slur upon him, and replied in a spirit which gave rise to the following sharp encounter: "Mr. Smith then rose, and said he was sorry to find that he had unintentionally offended the honorable gentleman from Kentucky. In referring to the vigorous age he himself enjoyed, he "Aurelian," whose name was given to the military staIeans." tion (presidium) which was afterwards corrupted into "Or 'Old politicians chew on wisdom past, "Mr. Smith.-The last allusion is unworthy of the gentleman. Totter, sir, I totter? Though some twenty years older than the gentleman, I can yet stand firm, and am yet able to correct his errors. I could take a view of the gentleman's course, which would show how inconsistent he has been. [Mr. Clay exclaimed: 'Take it, sir, take it-I dare you.' [Cries of "order."] No, sír, said Mr. S., I will not take it. I will not so far disregard what is due to the, dignity of the Senate." Mr. Hayne concluded one of his speeches with a declaration of the seriousness of the Southern had not supposed he should give offence to others who complained of the infirmities of age. The gentleman from Kentucky was the last who should take the remark as disparaging to his vigor and personal appearance; for, when that gentleman spoke to us of his age, he heard a young lady near him exclaim-"Old, why I think he is mighty pretty." The honorable gentleman, on Friday last, made a similitude where none existed. I, said Mr. S., had suggest ed the necessity of mutual forbearance in settling the tariff, and, thereupon, the gentleman vociferated loudly and angrily about removals from office. He said I was a leader in the system. I deny the fact. I never exercised the least influence in effecting a removal, and on the contrary, I interfered, successfully, to prevent the removal of two gentlemen in office. I am charg-resistance to the tariff, and with a feeling appeal ed with making a committee on roads and canals, adverse to internal improvement. If this be so, it is by mistake. I certainly supposed every gentleman named on that committee but one to be friendly to internal improvement. To the committee on manufactures I assigned four out of five who were known to be friendly to the protective system. The rights of the minority, he had endeavored, also, in arranging the committee, to secure. The appointment of the committees he had found one of the most difficult and onerous tasks he had ever undertaken. Onethird of the house were lawyers, all of whom wanted to be put upon some important committee. The oath which the senator had tendered, he hoped he would not take. In the year 1795, Mr. S. said, he had sustained a protective duty against the opposition of a member from Pittsburg. Previous to the year 1822, he had always given incidental support to manufactures, in fixing the tariff. He was a warm friend to the tariff of 1816, which he still regarded as a wise and beneficial law. He hoped, then, the gentleman would not take his oath. "Mr. Clay placed, he said, a high value on the compliment of which the honorable senator was the channel of communication; and he the more valued it, inasmuch as he did not recollect more than once before, in his life, to have received a similar compliment. He was happy to find that the honorable gentleman disclaimed the system of proscription; and he should, with his approbation, hereafter cite his authority in opposition to it. The Committee on Roads and Canals, whatever were the gentleman's intentions in constructing it, had a majority of members whose votes and speeches against internal improvements were matter of notoriety. The gentleman's appeal to his acts in '95, is perfectly safe; for, old as I am, my knowledge of his course does not extend back that far. He would take the period which the gentleman named, since 1822. It comes, then, to this: The honorable gentleman was in favor of protecting manufactures; but he had turned-I need not use the word he has abandoned manufactures. Thus: to senators on all sides of the house to meet their Southern brethren in the spirit of conciliation, and restore harmony to a divided people by removing from among them the never-failing source of contention. He said: "Let not gentlemen so far deceive themselves as to suppose that the opposition of the South to the protecting system is not based on high and lofty principles. It has nothing to do with party politics, or the mere elevation of men. It rises far above all such considerations. Nor is it influenced chiefly by calculations of interest, but is founded in much nobler impulses. The instinct of self-interest might have taught us an easier way of relieving ourselves from this oppression. It wanted but the will, to have supplied ourselves with every article embraced in the protective system, free of duty, without any other participation on our part than a simple consent to receive them. But, sir, we have scorned, in a contest for our rights, to resort to any but open and fair means to maintain them. The spirit with which we have entered into this business, is akin to that which was kindled in the bosom of our fathers when they were made the victims of oppression; and if it has not displayed itself in the same way, it is because we have ever cherished the strongest feelings of confraternity towards our brethren, and the warmest and most devoted attachment to the Union. If we have been, in any degree, divided among ourselves in this matter, the source of that division, let gentlemen be assured, has not arisen so much from any difference of opinion as to the true character of the oppression, as from the different degrees of hope of redress. All parties have for years past been looking forward to this crisis for the fulfilment of their hopes, or the confirmation of their fears. And God grant that the result may be auspicious. "Sir, I call upon gentlemen on all sides of the House to meet us in the true spirit of conciliation and concession. Remove, I earnestly beseech you, from among us, this never-failing source of contention. Dry up at its source this fountain of the waters of bitterness. Restore that har-complishment of these great reforms in the mony which has been disturbed-that mutual land system when the session of 1831-'32 openaffection and confidence which has been impaired, and with it the authentic annunciation of ed. And it is in your power to do it this day; but there is but one means under heaven by the extinction of the public debt within two which it can-by doing equal justice to all. And years-which event would remove the objection. be assured that he to whom the country shall be of many to interfering with the subject, the indebted for this blessing, will be considered as lands being pledged to that object. This sesthe second founder of the republic. He will be regarded, in all aftertimes, as the ministering sion, preceding the presidential election, and angel visiting the troubled waters of our politi- gathering up so many subjects to go into the cal dissensions, and restoring to the element its canvass, fell upon the lands for that purpose, healing virtues." and in the way in which magazines of grain in republican Rome, and money in the treasury in democratic Athens, were accustomed to be dealt with by candidates for office in the periods of election; that is to say, were proposed for distribution. A plan for dividing out among the States for a given period the money arising from the sale of the lands, was reported from the Committee on Manufactures by Mr. Clay, a member of that committee—and which properly could have nothing to do with the sale and disposition of the lands. That report, after a general history, and view of the public lands, came to these conclusions: I take pleasure in quoting these words of Mr. Hayne. They are words of moderation and of justice of sorrow more than anger-of expostulation more than menace-of loyalty to the Union -of supplication for forbearance ;-and a moving appeal to the high tariff party to avert a national catastrophe by ceasing to be unjust. His moderation, his expostulation, his supplication, his appeal-had no effect on the majority. The protective system continued to be an exasperating theme throughout the session, which ended without any sensible amelioration of the system, though with a reduction of duty on some articles of comfort and convenience: as recommended by President Jackson. CHAPTER LXX. PUBLIC LANDS.-DISTRIBUTION TO THE STATES. THE efforts which had been making for years to ameliorate the public land system in the feature of their sale and disposition, had begun to have their effect the effect which always attends perseverance in a just cause. A bill had ripened to a third reading in the Senate reducing the price of lands which had been long in market less than one half-to fifty cents per acre-and the pre-emption principle had been firmly established, securing the settler in his home at a fixed price. Two other principles, those of donations to actual settlers, and of the cession to the States in which they lie of all land not sold within a reasonable and limited period, were all that was wanting to complete the ameliorated system which the graduation bills proposed; and these bills were making a progress which promised them an eventual success. All the indications were favorable for the speedy ac "Upon full and thorough consideration, the committee have come to the conclusion that it is inexpedient either to reduce the price of the public lands, or to cede them to the new States. They believe, on the contrary, that sound policy coincides with the duty which has devolved on the general government to the whole of the States, and the whole of the people of the Union, and enjoins the preservation of the existing system as having been tried and approved after long and triumphant experience. But, in consequence of the extraordinary financial prosperity which the United States enjoy, the question merits examination, whether, whilst the general government steadily 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, The however flattering or great it may be. 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 freedom from debt. But we must be forgetful of all history and experience, if we indulge the delusive hope that we shall always be exempt from calamity and reverses. Seasons of national adversity, of suffering, and of war, will assuredly come. A wise government "In conformity with the views and principles which the committee have now submitted, they beg leave to report a bill, entitled 'An act to appropriate, for a limited time, the proceeds of the sales of the public lands of the United States."" should expect, and provide for them. Instead of wasting or squandering its resources in a period of general prosperity, it should husband and cherish them for those times of trial and difficulty, which, in the dispensations of Providence, may be certainly anticipated. Entertaining these views, and as the proceeds of the sales of the public lands are not wanted for or- The impropriety of originating such a bill in dinary revenue, which will be abundantly sup- the committee on manufactures was so clear that plied from the imposts, the committee respect-acquiescence in it was impossible. The chairfully recommend that an appropriation of them of war. be made to some other purpose, for a limited man of the committee on public lands immeditime, subject to be resumed in the contingency ately moved its reference to that committee; Should such an event unfortunately and although there was a majority for it in the occur, the fund may be withdrawn from its Senate, and for the bill as it came from the compeaceful destination, and applied in aid of other means, to the vigorous prosecution of the war, mittee on manufactures, yet the reference was and, afterwards to the payment of any debt immediately voted; and Mr. Clay's report and which may be contracted in consequence of its bill sent to that committee, invested with genexistence. And when peace shall be again re-eral authority over the whole subject. That stored, and the debt of the new war shall have been extinguished, the fund may be again apcommittee, through its chairman, Mr. King of propriated to some fit object other than that of Alabama, made a counter report, from which the ordinary expenses of government. Thus some extracts are here given: 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. lands; and, from this fundamental mistake, and radical misconception, have resulted the great errors which pervade the whole structure of their report and bill. sively, valuable under the aspect of population and cultivation, and the eventual extraction of revenue from the people in its customary modes of taxes and imposts. "The committee ventures to suggest that the view which the committee on manufactures has taken of the federal domain, is fundamentally "The inquiry remains, what ought to be the erroneous; that it has misconceived the true specific application of the fund under the restric-principles of national policy with respect to wild tion stated? After deducting the ten per cent. proposed to be set apart for the new States, a portion of the committee would have preferred that the residue should be applied to the objects of internal improvement, and colonization "The committee on manufactures seem to of the free blacks, under the direction of the contemplate the federal domain merely as an general government. But a majority of the object of revenue, and to look for that revenue committee believes it better, as an alternative solely from the receivers of the land offices ; for the scheme of cession to the new States, when the science of political economy has ascerand as being most likely to give general satis-tained such a fund to be chiefly, if not exclufaction, that the residue be divided among the twenty-four States, according to their federal representative population, to be applied to education, internal improvement, or colonization, or to the redemption of any existing debt contracted for internal improvements, as each State, judging for itself, shall deem most conformable with its own interests and policy. Assuming the annual product of the sales of the public lands to be three millions of dollars, the table hereto annexed, marked C, shows what each State would be entitled to receive, according to the principle of division which has been stated. In order that the propriety of the proposed appropriation should again, at a day not very far distant, be brought under the review of Congress, the committee would recommend that it be limited to a period of five years, subject to the condition of war not breaking out in the mean time. By an appropriation so restricted as to time, each State will be enabled to estimate the probable extent of its proportion, and to adapt its measures of education, improvement, colonization, or extinction of existing debt, accordingly. "The celebrated Edmund Burke is supposed to have expressed the sum total of political wisdom on this subject, in his well-known propositions to convert the forest lands of the British crown into private property; and this committee, to spare themselves further argument, and to extinguish at once a political fallacy which ought not to have been broached in the nineteenth century, will make a brief quotation from the speech of that eminent man. The revenue to be derived from the sale of the forest lands will not be so considerable as many have imagined; and I conceive it would. be unwise to screw it up to the utmost, or even to suffer bidders to enhance, according to their eagerness, the purchase of objects wherein the expense of that purchase may weaken the capital to be employed in their cultivation. * * The principal revenue which I propose to draw from these uncultivated wastes, is to spring from the improvement and cultivation of the kingdom; * events infinitely more advantageous to the reve-machinery of the land office department. Such nues of the Crown, than the rents of the best has been the difference between the revenue relanded estates which it can hold. * * * *ceived from the sales and from the cultivation It is thus that I would dispose of the unprofita- of the land; but no powers of cultivation can ble landed estates of the Crown-throw them carry out the difference, and show what it will into the mass of private property-by which be: for, while the sale of the land is a single they will come, through the course of circula- operation, and can be performed but once, the tion, and through the political secretions of the extraction of revenue from its cultivation is an state, into well-regulated revenue. *annual and perpetual process, increasing in proThus would fall an expensive agency, with all ductiveness through all time, with the increase the influence which attends it.' of population, the amelioration of soils, the improvement of the country, and the application of science to the industrial pursuits. * * * "This committee have said that the bill reported by the Committee on Manufactures, to divide the proceeds of the sales of public lands among the several States, for a limited time, is a bill wholly inadmissible in principle, and essentially erroneous in its details. They object to the principle of the bill, because it proposes to change-and that most injuriously and fatally for the new States, the character of their relation to the federal government, on the subject of the public lands. That relation, at present, imposes on the federal government the character of a trustee, with the power and the duty of disposing of the public lands in a liberal and equitable manner. The principle of the bill proposes to substitute an individual State interest in the lands, and would "This committee takes leave to say that the sentiments here expressed by Mr. Burke are the inspirations of political wisdom; that their truth and justice have been tested in all ages and all countries, and particularly in our own age and in our own country. The history of the public lands of the United States furnishes the most instructive lessons of the inutility of sales, the value of cultivation, 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 value of the lands soberly set down at an aver-be perfectly equivalent to a division of the lands age of twenty cents per acre. Yet, after an experiment of nearly fifty years, it is found that the sales of the public lands, so far from paying the public debt, have barely defrayed the expenses of managing the lands; while the revenue derived from cultivation has paid both principal and interest of the debts of two wars, and supported the federal government in a style of expenditure infinitely beyond the conceptions of those who established it. The gross proceeds of the sales are but thirty-eight millions of dollars, from which the large expenses of the system are to be deducted; while the clear receipts from the customs, after paying all expenses of collection, amount to $556,443,830. This immense amount of revenue springs from the use of soil reduced to private property. For the duties are derived from imported goods; the goods are received in exchange for exports; and the exports, with a small deduction for the pro-jects for the extraction of gold from the new ducts of the sea, are the produce of the farm and the forest. This is a striking view, but it is only one half of the picture. The other half must be shown, and will display the cultivation of the soil, in its immense exports, as giving birth to commerce and navigation, and supplying employment to all the trades and professions connected with these two grand branches of national industry; while the business of selling the land is a meagre and barren operation, auxiliary to no useful occupation, injurious to the young States, by exhausting them of their currency, and extending the patronage of the federal government in the complicated among the States; for, the power of legislation being left in their hands, with a direct interest in their sales, the old and populous States would necessarily consider the lands as their own, and govern their legislation accordingly. Sales would be forbid or allowed; surveys stopped or advanced; prices raised or lowered; donations given or denied; old French and Spanish claims confirmed or rejected; settlers ousted; emigrations stopped, precisely as it suited the interest of the old States; and this interest, in every instance, would be precisely opposite to the interest of the new States. In vain would some just men wish to act equitably by these new States; their generous efforts would expose them to attacks at home. A new head of electioneering would be opened; candidates for Congress would rack their imaginations, and exhaust their arithmetic, in the invention and display of rival pro States; and he that would promise best for promoting the emigration of dollars from the new States, and preventing the emigration of people to them, would be considered the best qualified for federal legislation. If this plan of distribution had been in force heretofore, the price of the public lands would not have been reduced, in 1819-20, nor the relief laws passed, which exonerated the new States from a debt of near twenty millions of dollars. If adopted now, these States may bid adieu to their sovereignty and independence! They will become the feudatory vassals of the paramount States! Their subjection and dependence will be without limit |