failed. The harshness, if not injustice of the proceeding, puts those upon whom it is to operate upon the alert to contrive methods of evading and counteracting our policy; and hundreds of schemes, in the shape of appropriations of lands for roads, canals, and schools, grants to actual settlers, &c. are resorted to for the purpose of controlling our operations. But sir, let us take it for granted that we shall be able, hereafter, to resist these applications, and to reserve the whole of our lands, for fifty or a hundred years, or for all time to come, to furnish a great fund for permanent revenue, it is desirable that we should do so? Will it promote the welfare of the United States to have at our disposal a permanent treasury, not drawn from the pockets of the people, but to be derived from a source independent of them? Would it be safe to confide such a treasure to the keeping of our national rulers? to expose them to the temptations inseperable from the direction and control of a fund which might be enlarged or diminished almost at pleasure, without imposing burthens upon the people? Sir, I may be singular, perhaps I stand alone here in the opinion, but it is one I have long entertained, that one of the greatest safeguards of liberty is a jealous watchfulness, on the part of the people, over the collection and expenditure of the public money—a watchfulness that can only be secured where the money is drawn by taxation directly from the pockets of the people. Every scheme or contrivance by which rulers are able to procure the command of money, by means unknown to, unseen, or unfelt by, the people, destroys this security. Even the revenue system of this country, by which the whole of our pecuniary resources are derived from indirect taxation—from duties upon imports—has done much to weaken the responsibility of our federal rulers to the people, and has made them, in some measure, careless of their rights, and regardless of the high trust committed to their care. Can any man believe sir, that if $23,000,000 per annum were now levied by direct taxation, or by an apportionment of the same among the states, instead of being raised by an indirect tax, of the severe effect of which few are aware, that the waste and extravagance, of the unauthorized imposition of duties, and appropriations of money for unconstitutional objects, would have been tolerated for a single year? My life upon it, sir, they would not. I distrust therefore sir, the policy of creating a great permanent national treasury, whether, to be derived from public lands or from any source. If I had, sir, the powers of a magician, and could, by a wave of my hand, convert this capitol into gold for such a purpose, I would not do it. If I could, by a mere act of my will, put at the disposal of the federal government any amount of treasure which I might think proper to name, I should limit the amount to the means necessary for the legitimate purposes of the government. Sir, an immense national treasury would be a fund for corruption. It would enable congress and the executive to exercise a control over states, as well as over great interests in the country—nay, even over corporations and individuals, utterly destructive of the purity, and fatal to the duration of our institutions. It would be equally fatal to the sovereignty and independence of the states.
Sir, I am one of those who believe that the very life of our system is the independence of the states; and that there is no evil more to be deprecated than the consideration of this government. It is only by a strict adherence to the limitations imposed by the constitution on the federal government, that this system works well, and can answer the great ends for which it was instituted. I am opposed, therefore, in any shape, to all unnecessary extension of the powers or the influence of the legislature or executive of the union of the states; and, most of all, I am opposed to those partial distributions of favors whether by legislation or appropriation, which has a direct and powerful tendency to spread corruption through the land—to create an abject spirit of dependence—to sow the seeds of dissolution—to produce jealousy among the different portions of the union, and, finally, to sap the very foundations of the government itself.
But, sir, there is another purpose, to which it has been supposed the public lands can be applied still more objectionable. I mean that suggested in a report from the treasury department, under the late administration, of so regulating the disposition of the public lands as to create and preserve in certain quarters of the union a population suitable for conducting great manufacturing establishments. It is supposed, sir, by the advocates of the American system, that the great obstacle to the progress of manufactures in this country is the want of that low and degraded population which infest the cities and towns of Europe, who having no other means of subsistence, will work for the lowest wages, and be satisfied with the smallest possible share of human enjoyment.—And this difficulty it is proposed to overcome, by so regulating and limiting the sales of the public lands as to prevent the drawing off this portion of the population from the manufacturing states. Sir, it is bad enough that the government should presume to regulate the industry of man—it is sufficiently monstrous that they should attempt, by arbitrary legislation, artificially to adjust and balance the various pursuits of society, and to "organize the whole labor and capital of the country."
But what shall we say of the resort to such means for these purposes! What! create a manufactury of paupers in order to enable the rich proprietors of woollen and cotton factories to amass wealth? From the bottom of my soul do I abhor and detest the idea that the powers of the federal government should ever be prostituted for such purpose. Sir, I hope we shall act on a more just and liberal system of policy. The people of America are, and ought to be, for a century to come, essentially an agricultural people; and I can conceive of no policy that can possibly be pursued in relation to the public lands, none that would be more "for the common benefit of all the states," than to use them as the means of furnishing a secure asylum to that class of our fellow citizens, who, in any portion of the country, may find themselves unable to procure a comfortable subsistence by the means immediately within their reach. I would by a just and liberal system, convert into great and flourishing communities that entire class of persons, who would otherwise be paupers in your streets, and outcasts in society, and by so doing, you will but fulfil the great trust which has been confideded to yhour care.
Sir, there is another scheme in relation to the public lands, which as it addresses itself to the interested and selfish feelings of our nature, will doubtless find many advocates. I mean the distribution of the public lands among the states, according to some ratio hereafter to be settled. Sir, this system of distribution is, in all its shapes, liable to many and powerful objections.—I will not go into them at this time, because the subject has recently undergone a thorough discussion in the other house, and because, from present in the other house, and because, from present indications, we shall shortly have up the subject here. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
I come now to the claims set up by the west to these lands. The first is, that they have a full and perfect legal and constitutional right to all the lands within their respective limits. This claim was set up for the first time only a few years ago, and has been advocated on this floor by the gentlemen from Alabama and Indiana with great zeal and ability. Without having paid much attention to this point, it has appeared to me that this claim is untenable.
I shall not stop to enter into the argument further than to say, that by the very terms of the grants under which the United States have acquired these lands, the absolute property in the soil is vested in them, and must, it would seem, continue so until the lands shall be sold or otherwise disposed of. I can easily conceive that it may be extremely inconvenient, nay highly injurious to a state, to have immense bodies of land within her chartered limits, locked up from sale and settlement, withdrawn from the power of taxation and contributing in no respect to her wealth and prosperity. But tho' this state of things may present strong claims on the federal government for the adoption of a liberal policy towards the new states, it cannot affect the question of legal or constitutional right. Believing that this claim, on the part of the west, will never be recognised by the federal government, I must regret that it has been urged, as I think it will have no other effect than to create a prejudice against the claims of the new states.
But, sir, there has been another much more fruitful source of prejudice. I mean the demands constantly made from the west for partial appropriations of the public lands for local objects. I am astonished that gentle-
