Now, resumed Mr. Clay, how did this conspiracy take place? He would tell. In September last, the Indian title had been extinguished to a tract of most valuable land in Indiana, at one dollar per acre, by the United States. What was the consequence? The instant the Indian title was extinguished, there was a rush upon it from all quarters; and if that land should be exposed at public sale, it would be found that these men, who had seized the property of the people of the United States, would combine to intimidate and overawe all competitors, and thereby acquire the land on their own terms. In this way lawless men had often combined, not only without but against the positive authority of law; and here, while vindicating the rights and guarding the property of the whole people, Mr. Clay would not be awed nor deterred from performing his duty by any personal considerations. He would read no more of this document, senators could read it at their leisure; it was the deliberate judgment of an experienced and intelligent man against the whole system of preemption.

But he wished to call the attention of the senate to some official documents, one of which was from a district attorney, he believed of Louisiana.

'Sir: I present, herewith, a number of affidavits in relation to preemptions obtained by Gabriel H. Tutt, to the southeast quarter, Richard Tutt, to the east half of the northeast quarter, and Benjamin Tutt, to the west half of the northeast quarter, of section number three west, in the land district of Dempolis, in the state of Alabama. These affidavits have been taken by some of the most respectable men in the state of Alabama, and have been sent on to me for the purpose of procuring the grant of the above preemptions to be set aside, on the ground that they were obtained by fraud and imposition; and that this is the fact, I entertain no doubt whatever. Shortly before I left Alabama, I was in the immediate vicinity of the above lands, and heard a number of persons speaking of the manner in which they had been paid out; and the opinion was general, without exception, that a most shameful and scandalous imposition had been practiced upon the government. There is no doubt that all the lands mentioned were paid out at the instance and for the benefit of James B. Tutt, a man, to my knowledge, of notoriously bad character. Gabriel H. Tutt, as the affidavit shows, is a citizen of Greene county, (the county in which I reside myself, and I know him well,) and that he never did reside on the quarter section paid out in its name, or near it, his residence in Greene county being at least fifteen or twenty miles from the land paid out in his name. Richard Tutt and Benjamin Tutt are, I believe, both public paupers, and have been so for years; I am confident as to one, and am satisfied in my own mind as to the other. I have known them for several years; they have lived in Greene county, and have been supported at the charge and expense of the county. Neither of them, as the affidavits show, have resided on the lands since they were paid out, and Richard Tutt was not on the land paid out in his name until January, 1534, and had no improvements whatever in 1823.'

If reckless and unprincipled men can succeed in cheating and defrauding government, by appropriating and securing to their own use public lands at the minimum price, under acts of bounty and benevolence, passed for the benefit of honest, enterprising, and industrious settlers, corruption and venality must and will become the order of the day, wherever there is a quarter section of public land left worth contending for; and it is greatly to be feared that this has become too much the case already. May I ask to be informed of any steps taken by the department in this matter, as early as convenient?'

And here are some comments of the receiver of the land office at Mount Salus, who tells us he has been in the public service since 1806.

It is much to be regretted that the surveys are not made, and the lands offered for sale, before the country is settled. Preemption in parts of the country where there are no private claims to adjust, seem to hold out rewards to those who, in the first instance, violate the laws with a view of greatly benefiting themselves, by securing the choice parts at the lowest price, while others, more conscientious, wait for the public sales. It has a very demoralizing effect; the temptation is so great to get land worth five or ten dollars an acre, in many instances, at the government price for the poorest land, that witnesses will be found to prove up the occupancy of the land. It occasions severe disputes between the settlers, and much troublesome unthankful service for the officers, all of which would be avoided by hastening the surveys, and immediately offering the land for sale. The witnesses are sometimes probably deceived by not knowing where the subdivisional lines would run if extended through the tracts.'

The same officer, in illustrating the subject in another place, says,

The preemption system is not a practicable system to dispose of the public lands; and if the president could see the outrageous uproar and confusion in the register's office for one day, I am well convinced he would never sign another preemption law. The preemption rights heretofore were confined to small districts, interspersed with private claims, and the right was given only to actual settlers who resided on the very tract claimed by them, and then only to heads of families, and persons over twenty-one years of age. There were no floating rights. Even that system created great confusion and fraud in Louisiana, and was generally believed to do more harm than good. I know one considerable battle royal fought on the occasion, and was told by the deputy surveyors that many of the tracts they surveyed, perhaps in the very year the preemption right was obtained, were in a wild state, where they did not see the trace of a human being, and were proved to be in a state of cultivation. At present it is customary for the leader of a party of speculators to agree with a number of dealers, with their witnesses, men, women, and children, to meet on a certain day at the register's office. They come like the locusts of Egypt, and darken the office with clouds of smoke and dust, and an uproar occasioned by whisky and avarice, that a register, at least, can never forget.

The many different propositions made by members of congress to dispose of the public lands, makes it probable that some change in the system will be effected; therefore ask your indulgence to make some general remarks on the subject. I have been engaged in the land business from the year 1806, first as a deputy surveyor, about one year; then about fifteen years as principal deputy for the western district, Louisiana; four years of which, as one of the commissioners for deciding on and adjusting the claims of that district; and have now been more than eight years register for the Choctaw land district. I think it is to be regretted, that there is so much feverish anxiety to make alterations in the land system by members of congress, who have not the practical experience necessary to enable them to avoid confusion and endless difficulties.

The preemption act of the twenty-ninth of May, 1830, is the most unguarded, and in all respects the worst land law that has ever been passed in the United States. In districts where the public land could not be disposed of for many years, on account of private claims, there seemed to be some necessity for allowing preemptions; but where there are no private claims to be adjusted, the exclusive advantage given to those who go on the most choice spots, and that in direct violation of an act of congress, has a very unequal bearing and demoralizing effect. If the whole community, who are equally interested, were authorized by law to make settlements on the public lands, the advantages would seem to be equal; but, if such was the case, I think it likely that it would cause the loss of many lives in the general scramble which would take place. If the preemption right only extended to the forfeited lands, or such as had been improved under the credit system, where the tracts paid for had cost the parties a high price, there would seem to be some reason in it; but that a general sweep should be made of the most valuable lands of the United States by intruders, at as low a price as that which the poorest person in the nation would have to pay for the poorest pine barren, is unreasonable in the extreme.'

| Mr. Walker. What is the name of that officer?]

Gideon Fitz; and this extract is on the forty-ninth page of the document.

Mr. Clay did not intend at present to go so far into the subject as he had done, hoping for another occasion on which he designed, should God spare his life and health, to speak more fully on the subject, and endeavor to expose this system of iniquity.

Two years ago, according to the official report of commissioner Brown, there was a loss of three millions of dollars, which would not have occurred if the land had been put up fairly in the market— a loss occasioned by this system of iniquity, and the combinations which it occasions to keep down the price, and to prevent all competition. When the senate should receive the account which Mr. Clay had called for, (by a resolution,) which he hoped they would receive in time for this bill, they would see what amount was received at the public sales, what was the average price of each acre sold at the public sales, without confounding them with the private sales, and making an average from the whole.

[Mr. Walker, in reply, alluded to a charge made against himself, by an anonymous letter, that he owned half a million of preemption in Mississippi, and to his formal denial, in the senate, that he owned any land whatever in that quarter, or had any interest there, direct or indirect. He proceeded at considerable length to adduce facts and arguments to invalidate the testimony on which Mr. Clay had depended, and made some allusion to the preemption part of Mr. Clay's land bill, and charged the old states with grasping after the public lands.

Mr. Clay, of Alabama, (rising at the same time with Mr. Clay of Kentucky,) said he had a few words for this distinguished commissioner of the public lands. (Mr. Clay, of Kentucky. A bad, a very bad commissioner.)

Mr. Clay, of Alabama, had understood this commissioner to say, that there had been a loss of three millions of dollars, occasioned by preemption laws, which prevented the sale of the public lands. But he wished to call the attention of the senate to some documentary facts, in regard to the assumption that government suffered a loss by allowing preemption, and that the land would sell for more under other circumstances. The requisite documents were on the table, (Mr. Clay said,) by which it would appear, that in 1822, there was an average excess of three cents above the minimum price, in 1823 only of five, and in 1824 no more than of two cents. At that time no general preemption law had been enacted. Afterwards there was a still further falling off, and in 1828 the excess was only one cent; in 1829 the same. These facts would put down the assumption, that government had lost any thing by preemption laws. The document to which Mr. Clay referred had been obtained only within the last ten days, and it appeared from that, that up to the present time, the excess had been little more than two cents per acre.

Mr. Clay argued, that the preemption laws were calculated to put down fraud instead of encouraging it. The only fraud was that of speculators, and the charge of it against the settlers was utterly groundless. To oppose this system, and to continue that of public auction, was to minister to the cupidity of speculators; and the most effectual remedy against fraud was to be found in preemption laws.]

was.

Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, said he knew how unequal this contest A number of senators from the new states were ever ready to spring up and eulogize the preëmption laws; but, unequal as it was, while he had a place here, he would contend for those interests of the whole people, which he was endeavoring to protect. He would repel the inputation of the senator from Mississippi against the old states. It was not the old states, but some of the new, that were grasping at the public domain. If there was such a spirit any where, it was not in the old states, but somewhere else

The subject of the public lands had been forced upon him by the political party of the senator from Mississippi several years ago. The land bill for distributing the proceeds of them was the consequence; but was there any thing of grasping, even in that? It did not propose to touch the land system, to alter or affect the price or the mode of sale. The old, the tried system was admirable. Under the auspices of such men as Jeremiah Morrow, nothing human could have been more perfect or just. But what did that measure propose? To distribute the whole net proceeds of the lands among all the states, old and new, allowing to the new an extra bounty of fifteen per cent. What kind of grasping by the old states was this? And how was the equitable measure received by some of the new states? The senator was mistaken; it was not the old states to whom his imputation would apply; the hand that made the grip was thrust from some other quarter.

He had no part in the charge against the senator in relation to lands in Mississippi; but how had he made out in his vindication of the officers of the government? The commissioner of the land office was not to be believed, because he differed from him; a commissioner appointed by the immortal Jackson, governor of Ohio, and well worthy to be sent on a foreign mission, was not to be believed, because his views did not agree with those of the senator from Mississippi. But could the senator say that the two or three millions of acres taken up by preemptions might not have produced, at public sales, three millions of dollars, which the commissioner had estimated to have been lost? Had not the senator himself stated, at a former session, that many of these lands were worth fifty dollars per acre?

Mr. Clay, after a few remarks on certain frauds in Louisiana, and on the alleged frauds in Mississippi, recurred to the case of the valuable land in Indiana, for which there is a contest between individuals and the legislature. He hoped, if either party should get the land, it would be the whole state. But the legislature was now in session, and what did they seem themselves to think of individual preëmption rights, when not the whole union, but that state alone was concerned? They gave thirty-nine votes against individual preemption rights, and only five votes in favor. He would read a short account of the debate on this point.

[Here Mr. Clay read parts of several speeches in the Indiana legislature, denouncing the preemption system, and showing that attempts were made by speculotors, under the garb of poor settlers, to appropriate the land which had been recently acquired from the Miami Indians.]

Mr. Clay had taxed his recollection in relation to persons in Kentucky, to whom preemption rights had been granted; and he knew of but one man who lived on land granted to him by Virginia as a settler. Mr. Clay was for abiding by, defending, and protecting the land system heretofore existing, against all and every material innovation.

ON THE SUB-TREASURY SCHEME.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, FEBRUARY 19, 1838.

[THE independent or sub-treasury scheme being pressed upon the consideration of congress, by Mr. Van Buren, although public opinion was setting strongly against it, Mr. Clay delivered the following elaborate speech, in which he shows that a deliberate design had existed on the part of general Jackson, and his successor, Mr. Van Buren, to break down the whole banking system of the United States, and to create on their ruins a government treasury bank, under the exclusive control of the executive. This speech was partly in reply to Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, who had become a supporter of the administration.]

I HAVE seen some public service, passed through many troubled times, and often addressed public assemblies, in this capitol and elsewhere; but never before have I risen in a deliberative body, under more oppressed feelings, or with a deeper sense of awful responsibility. Never before have I risen to express my opinions upon any public measure, fraught with such tremendous consequences to the welfare and prosperity of the country, and so perilous to the liberties of the people, as I solemnly believe the bill under consideration will be. If you knew, sir, what sleepless hours reflection upon it has cost me, if you knew with what fervor and sincerity I have implored divine assistance to strengthen and sustain me in my opposition to it, I should have credit with you, at least, for the sincerity of my convictions, if I shall be so unfortunate as not to have your concurrence as to the dangerous character of the measure. And I have thanked my God that he has prolonged my life until the present time, to enable me to exert myself in the service of my country, against a project far transcending in pernicious tendency any that I have ever had occasion to consider. I thank him for the health I am permitted to enjoy; I thank him for the soft and sweet repose which I experienced last night; I thank him for the bright and glorious sun which shines upon us this day. It is not my purpose, at this time, Mr. President, to go at large into a consideration of the causes which have led to the present most disastrous state of public affairs. That duty was performed by others, and myself, at the extra session of congress. It was then clearly shown, that it sprung from the ill-advised and unfor