within the years aforesaid, respectively; the term of such employment, and the compensation to each. The names of all commissioners, superintendents, and agents, tor the improvement of rivers, bays, harbors, roads, and other public works, employed under the authority of the department ot war-, whose compensation is not fixed by law, the nature of the duties performed by each, and the amount allowed to each, as per diem, commissions, or otherwise, will; in the years aforesaid, designating where such persons are officers of the army, iinid the amount received by each of them, as such. Resolved, That the secretary of the treasury report to this house a list of all the officers employed in the civil department ef the government, who have been allowed any other compensation than the pav or salary fixed by law; the amount ol such salary and allowance, and for what service allowed, and the authority for the allowance, for the years one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, and one thousand eight hundred and tv^enty nine: the names of all persons employed during the years aforesaid whose salary is not regulated by law, but whose compensation depends upon executive regulation, or discretion; the nature of the service, the amount of compensation, and the authority upon which it has been made.
DEBATE IN THE SENATE.
January 19.
Debate on Mr. Foot's resolution, proposing an inquiry into the expediency of abolishing the office of surveyor general of public lands, and for suspending further surveys until those already in market shall have been disposed of.
Mr. Hayne said, that if the gentlemen who had discussed this proposition had confined themselves strictly to the resolution under consideration, he would have spared the senate the trouble of listening to the few remarks he now proposed to offer. It has been said, and correctly said, by more than one gentleman, that resolutions of inquiry were usually suffered to pass without opposition. The parliamentary practice in this respect was certainly founded in good sense, which regarded such resolutions as intended merely to elicit information, and therefore entitled to favor. But, said Mr. H. I cannot give my assent to the proposition so broadly laid down by some geltlemen, that, because nobody stands committed by a vote of inquiry, therefore every resolution concerning an inquiry—no matter on what subject—must pass almost as a matter of course, and that to discuss or oppose such resolutions is unparliamentary. The true distinction seems to be this—where information is desired as the basis of legislation, or where the policy is questionable, it was always proper to send the subject to a committee for investigation; but where all the material facts are already known, and there is a fixed and settled opinion in respect to the policy to be pursued, inquiry was unnecessary, and ought to be refused. No one, he thought, could doubt the correctness of the position assumed by the gentleman from Missouri, that no inquiry ought ever to be instituted as to the expediency of doing a "great and acknowledged wrong." I do not mean, however, to intimate an opinion that such is the character of this resolution. The application of these rules to the case before us will decide my vote; and every senator can apply them for himself to the decision of the question, whether the inquiry now called for should be granted or refused. With that decision, whatever it may be, I shall be content.
I have not risen, however, Mr. President, for the purpose of discussing the propriety of instituting the inquiry recommended by the resolution, but to offer a few remarks on another and much more important question, to which gentlemen have alluded in the course of this debate—I mean the policy which ought to be pursued in relation to the public lands. Every gentleman who has had a seat in congress for the last two years or three years, or even for the last two or three weeks, must be convinced of the great and growing importance of this question. More than half of our time has been taken up with the discussion of propositions connected with the public lands—more than half of our acts embrace provisions growing out of this fruitful source. Day after day the changes are rung on this topic, from the grave inquiry into the right of the new states to the absolute sovereignty and propriety in the soil, down to the grant of a pre-empion of a few quarter sections to actual settlers.
In the language of a great orator in relation to another "vexed question", we may truly say,—"that year after year we have been lashed round the miserable circle of occasional arguments and temporary expedients." No gentleman can fail to perceive that this is a question no longer to be evaded—it must be met—fairly and fearlessly met—a question that is pressed upon us in so many ways—that intrudes in such a variety of shapes; involving so deeply the feelings and interests of a large portion of the union—insinuating itself into almost every question of public policy, and tinging the whole course of our legislation, cannot be put aside, or laid asleep. We cannot long avoid it—we must meet and overcome it, or it will overcome us. Les us, then, Mr. President, be prepared to meet it in a spirit of wisdom and justice, and endeavor to prepare our own minds and the minds of the people for a just and enlightened decision. The object of the remarks I am about to offer, is merely to call public attention to the question, to throw out a few crude and undigested thoughts, as food for reflection, in order to prepare the public mind for the adoption, at no distant day, of some fixed and settled policy in relation to the public lands. I believe that out of the western country there is no subject in the whole range of our legislation less understood, and in relation to which there exist so many errors, and such unhappy prejudices and misconceptions.
There may be said to be two great parties in this country, who entertain very opposite opinions in relation to the character of the policy which the government has heretofore pursued in relation to public lands, as well as to that which outht, hereafter to be pursued. I propose very briefly to examine these opinions, and to throw out for consideration a few ideas in connexion with them. Adverting, first, to the past policy of the government, we find that one party, embracing a very large portion, perhaps at this time a majority, of the people of the United States, in all quarters of the union, entertain the opinion, that, in the settlement of the new states and the disposition of the public lands, congress has pursued not only a highly just and liberal course, but one of extraordinary kindness and indulgence. We are regarded as having acted towards the new states in the spirit of parental weakness—granted to froward children, not only every thing that was reasonable and proper, but actually robbing ourselves of our property to gratify their insatiable desires. While the other party embracing the entire west, insist that we have treated them from the beginning, not like heirs of the estate, but in the spirit of a hard taskmaster, resolved to promote our selfish interests from the fruit of their labor. Now, sir, it is not my present purpose to investigate all the grounds on which these two opinions rest; I shal content myself with noticing one or two particulars, in relation to which it has long appeared to me that the west has some cause for complaint. I notice them now, not for the purpose of aggravating the spirit of discontent in relation to this subject, which is known to exist in that quarter, for I do not know that my voice will ever reach them, but to assist in bringing others to what I believe to be a just sense of the past policy of the government in relation to this matter. In the creation and settlements of the new states, Mr. President, the plan has been invariably pursued, of selling out, from time to time, certain portions of the public land for the highest price that could possibly be obtained for them in the open market, and, until a few years past, on long credits. In this respect, a marked difference is observable between our policy and that of every other nation that has ever attempted to establish colonies or create new states. Without pausing to examine the course pursued in this respect at earlier periods in the history of the world, I will come directly to the measures adopted in the first settlement of the new world, and will confine my ovservations entirely to North America. The English, the French, and the Spaniards, have successively planted their colonies here, and have adopted the same policy, which, from the beginning of the world, had always been found necessary in the settlement of new
