on them, have been the leading objects in our policy, and have led to expenditures, both of blood and treasure, not inconsiderable; not indeed exceeding the importance of the object, and not yielded grudgingly or reluctantly certainly; but yet not inconsiderable, though necessary sacrifices, made for proper ends. The Indian title has been extinguished at the expense of many millions. Is that nothing? There is still a much more material consideration. Theses colonists, if we are to call the so; in passing the Alleghany, did not pass beyond the care and protection of their own government. Wherever the went, the public arm was still stretched over them. A parental government at home was still ever mindful of their condition, and their wants; and nothing was spared, which a just sense of their necessities required. Is it forgotten, that it was one of the most arguous duties of the government, in its earliest years, to defent the frontiers against the north-western Indians? Are the sufferings and misfortunes under Harmar and St. Clair, not worthy to be remembered. Do the occurrences connected with these efforts shew and unfeeling neglect of western interests? ANd here, sir, what becomes of the gengleman's analogy? What English armies accompanied our ancestors to clear the forests of a barbarous foe? What treasures of the exchequer were expended in buying up the original title to the soil? What government arm held it aegis over our fathers' heads, as they pioneered their way in the wilderness? Sir, it was not til general Wayne's victory, in 1794, that it could be said, we had conquered the savages. It was not til that period, that the government could have considered itself as having established an entire ability to protect those who should undertake the conquest of the wilderness. And here, sir, at the epoch of 1794, let us pause, and survey the scene. It is now thirty-five years since that scene actually existed. Let us, sir, look back, and behold it. Over all that is now Ohio, there then stretched one vast wilderness, unbroken, except by two small spots of civilized culture, the one at Marietta, and the other at Cincinnati. At these little openings, hardly each a pin's point upon the map, the arm of the frontiersman had leveled the forest, and let in the sun. These little patches of earth, and themselves almost shadowed by the hanging boughs of that wilderness, which had stood and perpetuated itself, from century to century, ever since the creation, were all that had then been rendered verdant by the hand of man. In an extend of hundreds, and thousands of square miles, no other surface of smiling green attested the presence of civilization. The hunter's path crossed mighty rivers, flowing in solitary grandeur, whose sources lay in remote and unknown regions of the wilderness. It struck upon the north, on a vast inland sea, over which the tempests raged as on the ocean; all over was bare creation. It was fresh, untouched, unbounded, magnificent wilderness. And, sir, what is it now? Is it imagination only, or can it possibly be fact, that presents such a change as surprises and astonishes us, when we turn our eyes to what Ohio now is? Is is reality, or a dream, that in so short a period even as thirty-five years, there has sprung up, on the same surface, and independent state, with a million of people? A million of inhabitants! an amount of pupulation greater than that of all the cantons of Switzerland; equal to one-third of all the people of the United States, when they undertook to accomplish their independence. This new member of the republic has already left far behind her a majority of the old states. She is now by the side of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and, in point of numbers, will shortly admit no equal but New York herself. If, sir, we may judge of measures by their results, what lessons do these facts read us, upon the policy of the government? What inferenced do they authorize, upon the general questin of kindness, or unkindness? What convictions do they enforce, as to the wisdom and ability, on the one hand, or the folly and incapacity, on the other, of our general administration of western affairs? Sir, does it not require some portion of self-respect in us, to imagine, that if our light had shone on the path of government, if our wisdom could have been consulted in its measures, a more rapid advance ot strength and prosperity would have been experienced? For my own part, while I am struck with wonder at the success, I also look with admiration at the wisdom and foresight which originally arranged and prescribed the system for the settlement of the western country to the full extent of our utmost means.
But, sir, to return to the remarks of the honorable member from South Carolina. He says that congress has sold these lands, and put the money into the treasure, while other government, acting in a more liberal spirit, gave away their lands, and that we ought, also, to have given ours away. I shall not stop to state an account between our revenues derived from land, and our expenditures in Indian treaties and Indian wars. But, I must refer the honorable gentleman to the origin of our own title to the soil of these territories, and remind him that we received them on conditions, and under trusts, which would have been violated by giving the soil away. For compliance with those conditions, and the just execution of those trusts, the public faith was solumnly pledged. The public lands of the United States have been derived from four principal sources. First, cessions made to the United States by individual states, on the recommendation or request of the old congress. Second. The compact with Georgia, in 1802. Third. The purchase of Lousiana in 1803. Fourth. The purchase of Florida, in 1819. Of the first class, the most important was the cession of Virginia, of all her right and title, as well as soil as jurisdiction, to all the territory within the limits of her charter, lying to the northwest of the river Ohio. It may not be ill-timed to recur to the causes and occasions of this and other similar grants.
When the war of the revolution broke out, a great difference existed in different states, in the proportion between people and territory. The northern and eastern states, with very small surfaces, contained comparatively a thick population, and there was generally within their limits, no great quantity of waste lands belonging to the government, or the crown of England. On the contrary, there were in the southern states, in Virginia and in Georgia for example, extensive public domains, wholly unsettled, and belonging to the crown. As these possessions would necessarily fall from the crown, in the event of the prosperous issue of the war, it was insisted that they ought to devolve on the United States, for the good of the whole. The war, it was argued, was undertaken and carried on at the common expense of all the colonies; its benefits, if successful, ought also to be common; and the property of the common enemy, when vanquished, ought to be regarded as the general acquisition of all. While yet the war was raging, it was contended that congress ought to have the power to dispose of vacant and unpatented lands, commonly called crown lands, for defraying the expenses of the war, and for other public and general purposes. "Reason and justice," said the assembly of New Jersey in 1778, "must decide, that the property which existed in the crown of Great Britain, previous to the present revolution, ought now to belong to the congress, in trust for the use and benefit of the United States. They have fought and bled for it, in proportion to their respective abilities, and therefore the reward ought to be predilectionally distributed. Shall such states as are shut out, by situation, from availing themselves of the least advantage from this quarter, be left to sink under an enormous debt, while others are enabled, in a short period, to replace all their expenditures from the hard earnings of the whole confederacy."
Moved by these considerations, and these addresses made it, congress took up the subject, and in September, 1780, recommended to the several states in the union, having claims to western territory, to make liberal cessions of a portion thereof to the United States; and on the 10th of October, 1780, congress resolved, that any lands so ceded in pursuance of their preceding recommendation, should be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States; should be settled and formed into distinct republican states, to become members of the federal union, with the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence as the other states; and that the lands should be granted, or settled, at such times, and under such regulations, as should be agreed on by congress. Again, in
