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find hundreds executed for the very crime which has called forth the sentence of condemnation upon this woman, and drawn down the arm of vengeance upon her. What have our brothers done more than the rulers of your people have done? And what crime has this man committed by executing in a summary way, the laws of his country and the injunctions of his God?"

Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, has been appropriated by congress, wherever the Indian title has been extinguished, and provisions made for further appropriations, according to the same ratio, wherever the Indian title may hereafter be extin guished, for the support of common schools; and other large appropriations have been made for the support of seminaries of a higher grade. Your committee are of opinion, that the states, for whose benefit no such appropriations have been made, are entitled to ask them of congress, not as a matfully appear, especially as the right of those states to an equal participation with the states, formed out of the public lands, in all the benefits derived from them, has been doubted, your committee have deemed it proper to take a cursory view of the manner in which they have been acquired.

Evidence was adduced to shew what were the usages of the Indians in such cases, and it appeared that the woman had been tried and executed after their manner. "Red Jacket, the orator, and princi.ter of favour, but of justice. That this may more pal of the pagan party, presented himself to take the oath; and upon being questioned whether he believed in a Supreme Being, and in the doctrine of rewards and punishments hereafter, fixed the "lurking devil of his eye" upon the questioner, and replied "Yes! much more than the white men, if we are to judge by their actions."

Appropriations of Public Land.

Report relative to appropriations of public land for the purposes of education-made to the senate of Maryland Jan. 30, 1821.

The committee, to whom was referred so much of the governor's message, as relates to education and public instruction, beg leave to report

That they concur with his excellency in believing education, and a general diffusion of knowledge, in a government constituted like ours, to be of great importance, and that, "in proportion as the structure of a government gives weight to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened." Your committee consider our government as emphatically a government of opin ion. A general diffusion of knowledge, which is essential to its right administration, cannot be effected, unless the people are educated. No high degree of civilization, of moral power and dignity, or of intellectual excellence; no superiority in sci. ence, in literature, or in liberal and useful arts, which constitutes the noblest national supremacy, can be attained without the aid of seminaries of learning. The establishment of literary institutions, then, of all grades, from the common school up to the university, becomes the first duty of the Jegislature of a free people.

Your committee are well aware of the difficulty, in the present embarrassed state of our pecuniary concerns, of providing the means of making educa tion general. They are fully sensible that, at this time, large appropriations out of the public treasury for this purpose, all important as it is, cannot be expected. They deem it therefore, their duty to recall to your notice a report and certain resolu tions, presented to the senate at the last session by a committee, of a like nature with the present, which has been referred to your committee, as a part of the unfinished business. The object of those resolutions was to call the attention of congress and the legislatures of the several states, to the public lands, as a fund, from which appropria. tions for the purposes of education may with jus tice be claimed, not only by Maryland, but all the original states, and three of the new ones.

One thirty-sixth part of all the states and territories, (except Kentucky,) whose waters fall into the

*«There is not, perhaps, in nature, a more expressive eye than that of Red Jacket; when fired by indignation or revenge, it is terrible; and when he chooses to display his unrivalled talent for irony, his keen sarcastic glance is irresistible."

Before the war of the revolution, and indeed for some years after it, several of the states posessed within their nominal limits, extensive tracts of waste and unsettled lands. These states were all at that epoch, regul and not proprietary provinces, and the crown, either directly or through the medium of officers, whose authority had been prescribed or assented to by the crown, was in the habit of granting those lands. The right of disposing of them was claimed and exercised by the crown in some form or other. They might, therefore, with strict proprie. ty, be called the property of the crown.

A question arose soon after the declaration of independence, whether those lands should belong to the United States, or to the individual states, within whose nominal limits they were situated.

However that question might be decided, no doubt could be entertained, that the property and jurisdiction of the soil were acquired by the common sword, purse, and blood of all the states, united in a common effort. Justice, therefore, demanded that, considered in the light of property, the vacant lands should be sold to defray the expences incurred in the contest by which they were obtained; and the future harmony of the states required, that the extent and ultimate population of the several states should not be so disproportionate as they would be if their nominal limits should be retained.

This state, as early as the 30th October, 1776, expressed its decided opinion, in relation to the va cant lands, by an unanimous resolution of the convention, which framed our constitution and form of government, in the following words, viz: “Resolved, unanimously, That it is the opinion of this convention, that the very extensive claim of the state of Virginia to the back lands, hath no foundation in justice, and that if the same, or any like claim is admitted, the freedom of the smaller states and the liberties of America may be thereby greatly endangered; this convention being firmly persuaded that, if the dominion over those lands should be established by the blood and treasure of the United States, such lands ought to be considered as a common stock, to be parceled out, at proper times, into convenient, free and independent governments."

In the years 1777 and 1778, the general assembly, by resolves and instructions to their delegates in congress, expressed their sentiments in support of their claim to a participation in these lands, in a still stronger language, and declined acceding to the confederation, on account of the refusal of the states claiming them exclusively to ceed them to the United States. They continued to decline on the same grounds, until 1781, when, to prevent the injurious impression, that dissention existed among

the states, occasioned by the refusal of Maryland, | largest cession, “as a common fund, for the use and to join the confederation, they authorized their delegates in congress to subscribe the articles; protesting, however, at the same, time against the inferrence, (which might otherwise have been drawn,)| that Maryland had relinquished its claim to a participation in the western lands.

Most of the other states contended, on similar grounds with those taken by Maryland, for a participation in those lands.

benefit of such of the states as have become, or shall become, members of the confederation or federal aleance of said states, according to their usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure, and shall faithfully and bona fide be disposed of for that purpose, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever."

In whatever point of view, therefore, the public lands are considered, whether as acquired by By the treaty of peace in 1783, Great Britain re-purchase, conquest, or cession, they are emphatilinquished "to the United States, all claim to the government, property and territorial rights, of the same, and every part thereof."

cally the common property of the union. They ought to enure, therefore, to the common use and benefit of all the states, in just proportions, and cannot The justice and sound policy of ceding the un. be appropriated to the use and benefit of any parsettled lands, urged with great earnestness and ticular state or states, to the exclusion of the others, force by those states, which had united in conquer-without an infringement of the principles, upon ing them from Great Britain, strengthened by the which cessions from states are expressly made, and surrender on the part of Great Britain, of her rights a violation of the spirit of our national compact, as of property and jurisdiction to the United States well as the principles of justice and sound policy. collectively, and aided, moreover, by the elevated So far as these lands have been sold, and the proand patriotic spirit of disinterestedness and concilia ceeds been received into the national treasury, all tion, which then animated the whole confederation, the states have derived a justly proportionate beneat length made the requsite impression upon the fit from them: So far as they have been appropriastates which had exclusively claimed those lands: ted for purposes of defence, there is no ground for and each of them, with the exception of Georgia, complaint; for the defence of every part of the inade cessions of their respective claims within a country is a common concern: So far, in a word, as few years after the peace. Those states were Mas- the proceeds have been applied to national, and sachusetts, Connecticut, New-York, Virginia, North- not to state purposes, although the expenditure Carolina, and South Carolina, the charters of which, may have been local, the course of the general govwith the exception of New York, extended west-ernment has been consonant to the principles and wardly to the South Sea or Pacific Ocean. This spirit of the federal constitution. But, so far as ap circumstance gave to Massachusetts and Connecti-propriations have been made, in favor of any state cut a joint claim with Virginia, to such parts of or states, to the exclusion of the rest, where the what was then called the north western territory, appropriations would have been beneficial, and as came within the breadth of their respective might have been extended to all alike, your comcharters. The rest of that territory lay within the mittee conceive there has been a departure from limits of the charter of Virginia. New York, in-that line of policy, which impartial justice, so esdeed, had an indefinite claim to a part of it. Cessential to the peace, harmony, and stability, of the sions, however, from all these states, at length com- union, imperiously prescribes. pleted the title of the United States, and placed it beyond all controversy.

The state of North Carolina ceded its claim to the territory which now constitutes the state of Tennessee.

Your committee, then, proceed to enquire, whe ther the acts of congress, in relation to appropriations of public lands, have been conformable to the dictates of impartial justice.

By the laws relating to the survey and sale of the Georgia, (whose charter also extended west-public lands, one thirty-sixth part of them has been wardly to the Pacific Ocean,) at length, in 1802, reserved and appropriated in perpetuity for the ceded the territory which now constitutes the support of common schools. The public lands are states of Mississippi and Alabama, except a small laid of into townships, six miles square, by lines runpart on the south side of them, which was acquired ning with the cardinal points: these townships are under the treaty ceding Louisiana. The condi- then divided into thirty-six sections, each a mile tions of that cession were, that the United States square, and containg 640 acres, which are designashould pay one million two hundred thousand dollars ted by numbers. Section No. 16, which is always to Georgia, and extinguish the Indian title within a central section, has invariably been appropriated, the limits which she reserved. (and provision has been made by law for the like appropriations in future surveys,) for the support of common schools in each township.

The United States have, in this manner, acquired an indisputable title to all the public lands east of the Mississippi.

All the territory west of the Mississippi, together with the southern extremity of the states of Mississippi and Alabama, was purchased of France for fifteen millions of dollars. This sum, as well as the sums required for the purchase of the Indian title to the public lands, was paid out of the treasury of the United States.

In Tennessee, in addition to the appropriation of a section in each township for common schools, 200,000 acres have been assigned for the endow. ment of colleges and academies. Large appropria. tions have also been made in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, and the north western territory, for the erec tion and maintenance of seminaries of learning of a higher grade than common schools. Your com.

So far, therefore, as acquisition of public lands has been made by purchase, it has been at the committee have not had an opportunity of ascertaining mon expense; so far as it has been made by war, it has been by the common force; and so far as it has been made by cessions from individual states, it has been upon the ground, expressly stipulated in most of the acts or deeds of cession, that the lands should be "considered," to use the words of the act pagsed for that purpose by the state which made the

the exact amount of those appropriations, but, from such examination as they have been able to make, it is believed, that they bear a smaller proportion to those of common schools, than in Tennessee.— Tennessee, in Seybert's statistical annals, is stated to contain 40,000 square miles, which are equal to 25,600,000 acres. One 36th part of this number of

acres, which is the amount of appropriation for common schools, is 711,111. The appropriation for colleges and academies in that state is, as above stated, 200,000 acres, being something less than two-sevenths, of the common school appropriation. It is believed that the appropriations in the other states and territories, for seminaries of a higher grade, do not amount to more than two-tenths or one fifth of the appropriations for common schools. Your committee think they will not be far from the truth in estimating them at that proportion.

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At two dollars per acre, the amount
in money will be

$29,153,139 1-5

The states and territories east of the Mississippi, which have had appropriations made in their favor Such is the vast amount of property destined for for the support of literary institutions; that is to say, the support and encouragement of learning in the Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Michi-states and territories carved out of the public lands. gan, and the north western territory, are estimated, These large appropriations of land, the common proin Seybert's statistical anuals, to contain of unsold perty of the union, will enure to the exclusive bene lanas,

Of lands sold,

To which add Tennessee,

And the aggregate number of acres
in those states and territories will be
One 36th part of that aggregate num-
ber, being the amount of appropria.
tion for common schools, is
Add one 5th part of the common
school appropriation, as the appro
priation for colleges and academies,

And the aggregate number of acres
appropriated for the purposes of
education in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama,
Michigan, and the north western
territory, will be

At two dollars per acre, which is less, according to Seybert's statistical annals, than the average price of all the public lands, which have heretofore been sold, the amount in money will be

200,000,000 fit of those states and territories. They are appro11,697,125 priations for state and not for national purposes, 25,600,000 they are of such a nature that they might have been

extended to all the states; they therefore ought to have been thus extended. All the other states paid 237,297,125 their full share for the purchase of the region west of the Mississippi, and for the extinguishment of the Indian title, on both sides of that river. Mas6,591,586 sachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, besides paying their proportion of these expenses, ceded all their vacant 1,318,317 territory on the east side of the Mississippi. All these states, therefore, might, with great propriety, complain of partiality and injustice, if their applications to congress for similar appropriations for like purposes should be refused.

$15,819,806

But of this refusal, they need have no apprehension, if they are true to their own interests, and are 7,909,903 united in asserting them; for if, contrary to all reaSonable expectation, the states which have already received the benefit of literary appropriations, should be opposed to the extension of them to their sister states, the latter are more than two-thirds in number of all the United States, and have a still larger proportion of representatives in congress.These states are, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, NewYork, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky; and together have one hundred and sixty-nine representatives in congress. The favored states, on the contrary, have only seventeen representatives. The excluded states have therefore an overwhelming majority in congress, and have it completely in their power to make appropriations for the benefit of their literary institutions, upon the improbable suposition, that the representatives of the favored states would op. pose them in congress; a supposition too discredi table to their character for justice to be admitted.

acres 200,000,000

Seybert estimates the lands purchased
of France by the United States in
1803, at
By the laws relating to the survey and
and sales of lands in Louisiana,
Missouri, and Arkansaw, appro-
priations of land for the purposes
of education have been made after
the same ratio, as in the new states
and territories on the east of the
Mississippi, and it is presumed the
same policy will be adhered to in
relation to the whole of the public
lands on the west of that river.
On that supposition the appro
priations for common schools, that
is, one 36th part of 200,000,000
acres, will be

Add for colleges and academies one
5th part of the appropriation for
common schools

The magnitude of the appropriations that would be required to place the states, which have not yet enjoyed any for the purposes of education, upon an 5,555,555 equal footing with those in whose favor they have already been made, can afford no just ground of objection. For, superior as the population of those 1,111,111 states is, yet, if the ratio of appropriation be observed with regard to them, which has been adopted in relation to others, i. e. one 36th part of the 6,666,666 2-3 number of acres in the territory of each for common schools, and one 5th part of that one 36th, for $13,333,333 1-3 colleges and academies, the number of acres re

And the aggregate number of acres will be

At two dollars per acre, the amount in money will be

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quired will be much less than has already been given to the favored states and territories; it will indeed amount to but a very small portion of the public lands. For, according to Seybert's Statistical Annals, those lands, in 1813, amounted to

168,728 acres

33,745

400,000,000 acres. The amount required for all
the excluded states would be less than two and a
half per centum of that quantity. To show which
more clearly, your committee beg leave to submit
the following statement, founded upon calculations
made upon the extent of territory in each of those
states, as laid down in Seybert's Statistical Annals:
New Hampshire contains 6,074,240 acres.
One 36th part of that extent, be-
ing the number of acres of pub-
lic land to which that state is
entitled for the support of com.
mon schools, is
One 5th part of that 36th, to
which New Hampshire is enti-
tled for the support of colleges
and academies, is

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83,093

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99,711

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Total amount of literary appropriation
necessary to do justice to the states
which have not yet had any,

The senate will perceive, from the foregoing calculations, that, if the ratio of appropriation for the purposes of education, which has hitherto been observed, be adopted with respect to the sixteen states, which as yet have received no appropriations of that nature, a much smaller number of acres will be required than has already been assigned to the 960,000 western region of our country: it would be an inconsiderale portion of the aggregate of public lands; a much less quantity, indeed, than now re Imains unsold in any of the states which have been formed out of them, with the exception perhaps, of Ohio and Tennessee. The magnitude of the appropriations, then, which equal justice now re. 173,494 quires, cannot be considered as a reasonable ob. jection to them; and, as the literary appropriations that have heretofore been made, have been granted for STATE, and not for NATIONAL purposes, according to the just principle set forth in the beginning of this report, similar appropriations ought to be extended to all the states.

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9,370,760

because they are situated within the jurisdictional six states, in which the public lands, on this side of limits of the states and territories which have been the Mississippi, are chiefly situated, to their excluformed out of them. Such states have no power sive benefit in the maintenance of their schools? to tax them; they cannot interfere with the primary Your committee are aware, that it has been said, disposal of them, or with the regulations of con- that the appropriation of a part of the public lands gress for securing the title to purchasers: it is, in to the purposes of education, for the benefit of the fact, congress alone that can enact laws to, affect states formed out of them, has had the effect of them. The interest which a citizen of an Atlan-raising the value of the residue, by inducing emitic state has in them, as a part of the property grants to settle upon them. Although, in the preof the union, is the same as the interest of a citizen ambles of such of the acts on this subject as have residing in a state formed out of them. But hith-preambles, the promotion of religion, morality, and erto appropriations of them for state purposes have knowledge, as necessary to good government and only been made in favor of such states; and the the happiness of mankind, have been assigned as citizen, on the eastern side of the Alleghany, may the reason for passing them, and no mention has well complain that property, in which he has a been made of the consequent increase in the value common interest with his fellow citizen on the of the lands that would remain, as a motive for the western side, should be appropriated exclusively to appropriation; yet the knowledge that provision the use of the latter. That this is the fact, in re-had been made for the education of children in the gard to that part of the public lands, which have west, though other motives usually influence emibeen assigned for the support of literary institu- grants, might have had its weight in inducing some tions and the promotion of education, cannot be to leave their native homes. If such has been the denied. effect, the value of the residue of the lands kas no Your committee do not censure the enlightened doubt been increased by it. This increase of value, policy which governed congress, in making liberal however, has not been an exclusive benefit to the appropriations of land for the encouragement of Atlantic states, but a benefit common to all the learning in the west, nor do they wish to withdraw states, eastern and western, while the latter still enone acre of them from the purposes to which they joy exclusively the advantage derived from the aphave been devoted; but they think they are fully propriations of land for literary purposes. The justified in saying, that impartial justice required incidental advantage, of the increase in value of the that similar appropriations should have been ex-public lands in consequence of emigration, if it is tended to all the states alike. Suppose congress to be considered in the light of a compensation to should appropriate 200,000 acres of the public the old states, must be shewn to be an advantage tands for the support of colleges and academies in exclusively enjoyed by them. That this, however, New York; and Virginia, who gave up and ceded is not the case, is perfectly obvious; because the a great portion of those lands to the United States, proceeds of the lands thus raised in value by emion the express condition, that "they should be congration, when sold, go into the United States' treasidered as a common fund for the use and benefit sury, and are applied, like other revenues, to the of all of them, according to their usual respective general benefit; in other words, to national and not proportions in the general charge and expendi-to state purposes.

ture," should apply for a similar grant, and her ap It is, moreover, most clear, that this increase of plication should be refused: would she not have a the value of lands, in consequence of emigration, a right to complain of the partiality of such a mea-produces a peculiar benefit to the inhabitants of sure, and to charge the federal government with a breach of good faith, and an infringement of the conditions on which the cession was made? It cannot be denied that she would. Congress have already made a grant of 200,000 acres of land for the support of colleges and academies, not indeed in New York, but in Tennessee. Would not Virginia, if she now made an application for a like grant, and were refused, have the same reason to complain as if New York, instead of Tennessee, had been the favered state?

the new states, in which the inhabitants of the other states, unless owners of land in the new, have no participation. The benefit consists in the increase of the value of their own private property. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true, that emigration is injurious to the Atlantic states, and to them alone. While it has had the effect of raising the price of lands in the west, it has, in an equal ratio at least, and probably in a much greater, prevented the increase of the value of lands in the states which the emigrants have left. It is an indisYour committee beg leave to illustrate, by ano-putable principle in political economy, that the ther example, the equity of the principle which it price of every object of purchase, whether land or is the object of this report to establish. Foreign personal property, depends upon the relation which commerce and the public lands are alike legitimate supply bears to demand. The demand for land sources, from which the United States may and do would have been the same, or very nearly so, for derive revenue. Foreign commerce has fixed its the same number of people as are contained within seat in the Atlantic states. Suppose congress should the present limits of the United States, if they had pass a law appropriating one 36th part of the reve. been confined within the limits of the Atlantic nue collected from foreign commerce, in the ports states. But the supply in that case would have been of Baltimore, New-York, Boston, Norfolk, Charles- most materially different. It must have been so ton, and Savannah, to the support of common schools small, in proportion to the demand, as to occasion a throughout the states in which they are situated: great rise in the value of land in the Atlantic states; the other states, every person will admit, would for it cannot be doubted, that it is the inexhaustible have a right to complain of the partiality and injus-supply of cheap and good land in the west which tice of such an act; and yet, in what respect would has kept down the price of land on the eastern side an act appropriating one 36th part of the revenue, of the Alleghany. If the Atlantic states had been derived from foreign commerce to the use of schools, in the six states in which it should be produced, be more partial or unjust than an act appropriating one 36th part of the public land in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, the

governed by an exclusive, local, and selfish policy, every impediment would have been thrown in the way of emigration, which has constantly and uniformly operated to prevent the growth of their numbers, wealth, and power; for which disadvan

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