MAY 16, 1826.] Public Lands. [SENATE. Federal Government? and with all these facts staring them in the face, am astonished at the inconsistency of those who urge the objection. THIRD OBJECTION-The creation of Monopolies. supplied with wood and water. But even the day for this is now gone by. Speculating in wild land is at an end. Sell as low as you will, and no man will buy to sell again; because, by crossing a line into Canada, Texas, or Mexico, he can get as much as he wants for nothing; and, for the further reason, that land cannot be an object of speculation for a century or two to come. There is too much now in market, and coming into market to permit it to rise. Within the present age, the gates of the world have been thrown open, and immeasurable regions are spread before us, and inviting us to come and occupy them. There can be no rise until the two Americas, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn, are covered over with people; and no reasonable man will vest his money upon the contingency of waiting for that event. Besides, bad land is no cheaper at a low price, than good land is at a high one. Twenty-five cents per acre is just as dear for a tract which is four-fifths good for nothing, as one dollar and twenty-five cents is for a tract which is all good. But let us grant the objection. Let us admit for the sake of the argument, that speculators will buy up the land by the one hundred thousand acres, as soon as it falls to twenty-five or fifty cents. Will that be an injury to the State, the Federal Government, or the People? I maintain that it will not. The State will get her taxes; the Federal Government will get so much money into the Treasury; and the People will get the land cheaper from the speculator than they could get it from the Government. Here is the proof, one out of thousands which might being in extent those of William the Conqueror to his Lords produced. [Mr. B. then read the following advertisement:] Bounty Lands. "The subscriber having about 700 Quarter Sections of Military Bounty Lands, in the State of Illinois, between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, will dispose of any part thereof, at a low price for cash, horses, beef cattle, cows, and calves, or country produce-or he will exchange for improved property either in this State or Missouri. “Belleville, (Ill. ) December 17.” The repeaters of this objection, Mr. President, are fifty years in arrear of the intelligence of the age. They are ignorant of the fact, (or at least, of its consequences,) that, since the era of our Independence, the law of entails and of primogeniture, has been abolished. The abolition of these laws has deprived monopolies of land of their odious feature-the capacity of being perpetuated. A great landed estate can no longer descend, from generation to generation, in the right line of heirs male. It is to no purpose that the ancestor may possess himself of some hundred thousand acres. Land is no longer protected from execution. It goes with as little ceremony as a chattel-interest upon a writ of fieri facias. If it escapes the debts of the ancestor, it has the improvidence of the heir, and the statute of distributions to encounter. Creditors, brothers and sisters, all come in for their portions. In the second or third generation it is gone-scattered, as a pyramid of sand is blown away by the wind of the desert. Look at the facts, look at Virgina, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and all those States which once were colonies of the British Crown. What were they in the beginning, but royal grants to the favorites of the Kings and Queens of England? grants as far surpass and Barons, as this continent surpasses in magnitude the island of Great Britain. And, what are they now? Dukedoms and Earldoms? The inheritance of ancient families? with innumerable tenants, and enormous rents? No, Mr. President: These principalities are all broken up and subdivided, covered by independent planters and of the first proprietor lost and gone, his name forgotten; farmers, instead of a lord and his tenants; and the heir and such will be the end of all monopolies, where the law of entails is not in force to protect them against creditors, and the law of primogeniture in force to prevent their division among brothers and sisters. So well is this understood, that an estate, or patrimony, in wild land, is now considered a burthen and plague to the possessor. It lue, consumes his ready money in taxes and law suits, ha rasses him with the infidelity of agents, and, after all, is sold to pay his own debts or those of his heir. Land is only valuable now for cultivation, and none but cultivators will buy it. A prudent man will only buy a farm for himself, and another for each of his children, and an impru dent one, that buys much more, will soon repent of his folly, and speedily divest himself, or become divested, of But I must be permitted to look at this objection under his unprofitable speculation. And so ends the objection another aspect-an aspect which will shew the absurd to monopolies; a formidable thing, I admit, when capacontradiction into which those who make it, unconscious-ble of being perpetuated, but, a phrase without significa ly involve themselves. These objectors oppose a reduction of price, because, they say speculators will buy up the land, keep it in reserve, and extort upon the poor. The falsity of this objection has just been exposed, but its folly is still greater than its falsity for what is the FeFOURTH OBJECTION-Injury to former purchasers. deral Government itself but a hard-hearted speculator The proper consideration of this objection requires the of the first magnitude, and most inexorable temper? It former purchasers to be looked at in two classes; the culbuys land from the Indians at two cents, or less, for the tivators and the speculators. The cultivators are deemacre, and sells it to the People for one hundred and twenty-ed in every Government to be a meritorious class of five cents, to the acre, or more. This is at the rate of more citizens, and worthy of the peculiar care of legislathan a thousand per cent; and the Federal Speculator tion. Speculators have not been so considered. If will be satisfied with no less, while a common speculator the interest of either has to give way, that of the spewould be glad of twenty-five or fifty per cent. The culators should yield for, besides being the least meriFederal Government allows no credit, takes no “trade," torious class, they are also the least numerous; and the receives nothing but gold and silver, and asks just the interest of the minority must yield to the majority for it same for bad land as for good. What is this but is not the many who are to be sacrificed to the few. But speculation-speculation upon the greatest scale-spec- I am of opinion that there will be no conflict of interest ulation upon the most merciless principle-specula- between these classes of purchasers, under any conceivation injurious to the States, to the People, and to the ble operation of this bill. I presume that there are no This, Mr. President, is a fair example of the progress of speculation in wild land. It commences with a dream of principalities, and ends with a prayer for relief. Hawk-yields him no rent, produces no crop, rises nothing in vas ed about―offered for every thing, and any thing; credit, as long as you please; pay in any thing, at any price; and, if not got rid of in that way, the Sheriff, Marshal, or Executor, will find a way by which it shall go. This, sir is the progress of speculation in wild land; and, far from being an injury to the People, it is a great advantage to them, and affords them the easiest means of procuring homes. tion, a sound without sense, an objection without reason, since the era of the abolition of the law of entails and of primogeniture. : speculators left to gain or lose by any law that we can pass. The explosion of the banks, the fall in the price of real estate, and the vast quantities of land come, and coming into market, have put an end to their hopes and fears. The game is up with them, and we may go on to legislate for the cultivators, as if speculators had never existed. I will then confine my remarks to them, and I am free to declare, that I can see no right that they have to complain. If they bought at two dollars per acre, they bought when paper money was more than twice or thrice as plenty as silver is now. They got first choices, and have had the benefit of their purchases for several years. Besides, they will not be excluded from the benefit of the new law which may pass. They may buy more land at reduced prices, and probably will find a great advantage in the opportunity thus afforded them of adding to the size of their farms, and providing homes for their children. The compact settlement of his neighborhood will be another advantage to him, in the aid and facilities it will afford to the opening of roads, erection of bridges, supporting schools, mills, and churches, and bearing the burthens of the county levies. In fact the farmers, whe ther former purchasers or not, are the identical persons to be benefitted by the operation of the proposed law, and the most anxious part of the community for its passage. I have traversed the country far and wide since the first introduction of this bill, and know their voice to be loud and unanimous in its favor. It is not they who make the objection; but others who have their own views to accomplish, and who wish to delude as many as possible into the ranks of opposition. ever. ble; FIFTH OBJECTION-Better to wait for the rise. This, Mr. President, is the argument which dazzled the imaginations of the People, and defeated the policy of Washington, about five-and-thirty years ago. But thirtyfive years has given us some experience. It has shewn that we have twice paid the principal of the public debt, in annual interest, while waiting for this rise, which has not yet taken place, and seems now to be further off than It has shewn that the present system is impracticathat it never can be executed, at least by postdiluvian men of three score and ten. It would require Methusalems to execute it: for, after fifty years of trial, the system has scarcely made an impression on the mass of the public lands, and is now torpid and stagnant under its increasing incapacity to get along. I have drawn up a table to show how much has been sold, how much has been surveyed and unsold, and what is the total number of acres in each State and Territory. The rule of three, with a due allowance for increasing slowness, arising out of the increasing worthlessness of the refuse lands, will then give a tolerable idea, calculated by ages and centuries, of the final conclusion of the sales under the operation of the present system. States and Territories. Ohio Missouri Florida Quan. surveyed and sold. 7,488,359 Quan. surveyed and unsold. Whole quantity State or Terri tory. 7,734,769 26,000,000 [MAY 16, 1826. Ohio, the most convenient to the sources of emigration. has only got rid of seven millions of acres in a period of fifty years. Fifty years to get rid of seven millions, comprising all that is good: now, how long will it take her to get rid of the remaining seven, consisting exclusively of inferior and refuse land? Surely one hundred and fifty years will not be too short a calculation. What, then, will be the fate of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi? Only one, two, and three millions, have been sold in each of these States, and from twenty to thirty odd millions remain to be sold in them. In the mean time, the sales diminish; we sell less and less every year; a feeling of stagnation pervades the whole landed system, and announces the approach of a total paralysis. Still the opponents of this bill, deaf to the voice of time, blind to the evidence of facts, dead to the feeling of experience, repeat to us the old exploded calculations of the funding-system men, of the year '90. They repeat to us the old story of billions and trillions to be gained by sticking to the minimum, and waiting for the rise. I would ask, Mr. President, if these calculators know the present value of improved land in the old and in the new States? I have put myself to some trouble to learn it; and the results shows me, that the average in Virginia, according to the assessment of 1817, was only $4 83, and in Ohio, according to the assessment of 1825, was only $2 49; and this including, in both cases, all the buildings and improvements. This being the fact, what should be the average value, after the public sales are over, of the wild land in the new States? I presume that no man, acquainted with the subject, would make it as high now as Gene ral Hamilton did in the year '90. I am certain that I would not; and I am equally certain that there are large districts in Virginia, with all the improvements upon them, assessed, some below, and some not much above, the estimate of General Hamilton. I have taken the trouble to make a table of some of these districts, for the better in formation of the Senate. It will not do, Mr. President, for gentlemen who come from the great cities, to estimate the wild lands of the West, according to the standard of their own fields and gardens. They must listen to those who come from the West, and have a personal knowledge of what they say. If they do not, they will make this Union a curse to those whose interests are legislated upon by members of Congress from far distant States, ignorant of facts themselves, on account of that distance, and deaf to the voice of those 3,227,093 10,453,456 21,760,000 who can state the truth. They must listen to those who 146,320 MAY 16, 1826. Public Lands. [SENATE. to the public revenue; injurious to the public property tion; and prove it by referring to that equality of soin the new States; injurious to the old States, and de-vereign rights which the Constitution guarantees among structive of the sovereignty and independence of the new all the States, and which is not enjoyed in the new States, ones. These, sir, are not a string of phrases, repeated on account of the Federal dominion over their soil, and without consideration, but each a text, upon which a com- which the continuance of this policy will increase and mentary of facts, reasons, and consequences, might be protract. delivered, each as long as the speech which I am now addressing to you. But I will not attempt this commentary. Time forbids it. I will merely indicate the facts which sustain my positions. I say then that the policy of holding up the lands at an arbitrary minimum, and waiting for a rise in the price, is a policy intrinsically false; and I prove it by a reference to the elementary principles of political economy; those principles which forbid a Government to make merchandise of its soil; which forbid it to turn landlord; hold tenants; reserve large tracts of ground in the wilderness state; enact a code of forest law, and maintain a body of officers in pay and authority, to protect its timber, grass, and soil. I say it is a policy fraught with injustice to the new States; and I prove it by referring to the table of unsold land in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi; covering from onethird to nineteen-twentieths of their soil, paying no tax, helping to open no roads, build no bridges, dig no canals, support no schools, locked up from agriculture, and as useless to the People as so many royal parks in the Kingdoms of Europe. I say it is a policy involving a breach of the cession acts, and I prove it by referring to the terms of these cessions. Here they are: The cession act of Virginia. "Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That it shall and may be lawful for the Delegates of this State, to the Congress of the United States, and they are hereby authorized and impowered, to convey, transfer, &c. to the United States, in Congress assembled, for the benefit of said States, all the right, title, claim, &c. which this State has, as well to the jurisdiction, as soil, to the Territory, situate Northwest of the Ohio river, and within the chartered limits of Virginia, upon condition, &c. that the Ter ritory, so ceded, shall be formed into Republican States, not less than three, nor more than five in number, with the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, as the other States; and that all the land within the Territory, so ceded, and not disposed of in bounties, &c. shall be considered as a common fund, for the use and benefit of such of the United States as have become, or shall become members of the Confederation, Virginia inclusive, according to their usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure, and shall be faithfully and bona fide disposed of for that purpose, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever." [The cession act of Georgia, ceding the Southwestern Territory, being in the same words.] Such are the terms of the cessions. The lands "to be disposed of," and not to be held up indefinitely; to be disposed of for the "common benefit” of all the States, and not reserved for the use of the Federal Government. Yet they have already been held up fifty years; and, under the present mode of selling, must be held up for cen turies to come. I say it is a policy injurious to the public revenue; and prove it by referring to 136,000,000 of dollars paid in interest upon the public debt, while waiting for that rise in the price of land which this policy anticipates, and which has not yet began. Once in every 16 years the principal of the public debt is sunk in interest: it stands to reason, then, that the land will go just as far in the payment of that debt if sold for twenty-five cents now, as it will do if sold for fifty cents at the end of sixteen years; or at one. dollar in thirty-two years; or two dollars in sixty-four years; or four dollars in one hundred and twenty-eight; and so on, as far as the calculation may be carried. I say it is injurious to the public property in the new States; and prove it by pointing to the continued destruction of the public timber, and which all the penal laws, and troops of the Federal Government, and all its tribe of forest officers, are unable to prevent. and prove I say it is a policy injurious to the old States; it by pointing to the enormous taxes which they are now paying, through the Custom-houses, to raise money to meet the interest and a fraction of the principal of the public debt, after having given land enough for that object to pay the debt, if faithfully and judiciously applied to that purpose. I say it is a policy destructive to the sovereignty and independence of the new States; and prove it by recurring to the fact that they are not "equal to the old States; that they have not the attributes of sovereignty, the right of taxation, of eminent domain, and of primary disposition of the soil; that the Federal Government exercises jurisdiction over the soil and persons of their citizens: denouncing fine, imprisonment, and military chastisement, against those who may cut a stick, or dig a hole, or lift a stone, from Federal ground; and, to sum all up in one degrading word, by showing that the new States are the tenants of the Federal Government. Connected with this policy of holding up the lands for the rise, is the system of reserving from sale the land that is supposed to contain lead ore, salt water, and iron ore. These the Federal Government has reserved to itself, and has proposed to derive a great revenue from the rents! Officers are actually engaged in this business of renting and leasing, and, according to reports, have organized a body of about two thousand tenants in the State of Missouri! Mr. President, I must be permitted to borrow the language of Edmund Burke, to do justice to the folly of such a system. It was the fate of Burke to attack, and to explode, that system in England; and I trust that his sound political wisdom will not be less availing in the American Senate, than it was in the British House of Commons. He brought in a bill to alienate the Crown Lands, and supported it in a speech replete with patriotism, and wise maxims of political economy. Listen to what he says. "A landed estate is certainly the very worst which the Crown can possess. *** All minute and dispersed possessions-possessions that are often of indeterminate value, and which require a continued personal attendance- are I say that this policy involves a breach of the articles of of a nature more proper for private management than for compact between the new States and the Federal Go- public administration. They are fitter for the care of a vernment; and I prove it by referring to the article by frugal land steward, than of an office in the State. *** which those States agree not to exercise the right of tax-If it be objected that these lands, at present, will sell at ation over the public lands until they are sold which a low market; this is answered, by shewing that money elearly implies that they are to be sold, and absolves the is at a high price. The one balances the other. Lands States from the observance of the article, if its terms or sell at the current rate, and nothing can sell for more. spirit is not complied with. But be the price what it may, a great object is always an I say that this policy involves a breach of the Constitu-swered, whenever any property is transferred from lands VOL. II-48 which are not fit for that property, to those that are. The [MAY 16, 1826. of extracting "revenue" from these operations, is confided, not to the Treasury, but to the War Department. Salines and salt springs are subjected to the same system-reserved from sale, and leased for the purpose of raising revenue. But I flatter myself that I see the end of this branch of the system. The debate which took place a few weeks ago on the bill to repeal the existing duty upon salt, is every word of it applicable to the bill which I have introduced for the sale of the reserved salt springs. I claim the benefit of it accordingly, and shall expect the support of all the advocates for the repeal of that tax, whenever the bill for the sale of the salines shall be put to the vote. The policy of the Federal Government with respect to lead and salt, is known to the Senate, because they are reserved from sale by law; but I have mentioned iron ore as an article also reserved; and this, I presume, is news to the Senate, for this has not been done by law. It is an act of Federal Executive authority, asserted and enforced by a proclamation which I will read. The Proclamation. "I, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, President of the United public sale will be held at the Land Office, at Jackson, "States, do hereby proclaim and make known, that a in the district of Cape Girardeau, in the State of Mis"souri, on the first Monday in June next, for the disposal of certain sections of land, situate in townships number"ed thirty-five, thirty-six, and thirty-seven, of ranges "numbered five, six, and seven, West of the fifth princi"pal meridian line, to wit: the alternate sections in each township, numbered one, three, five, seven, nine, eletwenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-seven, twenty-nine, "thirty-one, thirty-three, and thirty-five. "The lands above designated, abound in FERRUGINOUS APPEARANCES, and are known to contain MINES OF IRON Such were the sentiments of Mr. Burke, and they produced their effect. The King himself, at the ensuing session, recommended the alienation of the crown lands; and the Parliament acted in conformity to his message." The forests and mines, which had been nothing but a source of patronage to the King, and of vexation to the People, were thrown into the mass of private property; an expensive agency and many oppressive laws were got rid of; the lands and mines became infinitely more pro-ven, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, ductive; and, by increasing the wealth and population of the country, increased, at the same time, the annual receipts into the public Treasury. So far from fixing an ar bitrary minimum, and holding up for the rise; so far from screwing up purchases to the highest bid ; Mr. Burke, the King, and the British Parliament, thought it wise to prevent them from bidding eagerly against one another, and that it was better for the buyers and the kingdom that their money should be reserved for the improvement and cultivation of the land which they might purchase. "ORE." sand acres of land, exhibiting signs of iron ore, are reBy this proclamation, Mr. President, thirty-six thouserved from sale, and from the use of the People in whose country God has placed it for their especial use and benefit. Surely a more odious reservation (that of salt alone I do trust and believe, Mr. President, that the Executive of this free Government will not be second to George metal more valuable to man than any that the bowels of excepted) was never attempted in any country. Iron is a the Third in patriotism, nor an American Congress prove the earth contains. It is the article without which bread itself inferior to a British Parliament in political wisdom. itself cannot be raised. Odious as is the reservation itself, I do trust and believe that this whole system of holding up it is rendered still more so by the mode of effecting it. land for the rise, endeavoring to make revenue out of the It is done by selling and retaining the alternate sections; soil of the country, leasing and renting lead mines, salt springs, and iron banks, with all its train of penal laws and a mile square sold to a citizen, and a mile square retained civil and military agents, will be condemned and abolish by the Federal Government; and so throughout three ed. I trust that the President himself will give the subject scheme is to get the reserved sections increased in value townships, comprising 72,000 acres. The intention of the a place in his next message, and lend the aid of his recommendation to the success of so great an object. The min-by the cultivation and improvement of those which are ing operations, especially, should fix the attention of the contiguous to them. This, sir, is the quintescence of the speculating principle. It proceeds upon the ground of Congress. They are a reproach to the age in which we live. National mining is condemned by every dictate of appropriating to the Federal Government the fruits of the prudence, by every maxim of political economy, and by that labor. The owners of the sections which are sold, People's labor, without contributing any thing in aid of the voice of experience in every age and country. And yet we are engaged in that business. This splendid Fe-ing roads and bridges; supporting schools, mills, and are to be at all the labor of improving the country; makderal Government, created for great national purposes, churches; and the Federal owner of the reserved sections has gone to work among the lead mines of Upper Louis to have the benefit of all this improvement without exisiana, to give us a second edition, no doubt, of the celebrated "Mississippi Scheme" of JOHN LAW. For that pending a cent, or striking a stroke, and while injuring scheme was nothing more nor less than a project of mak- the neighborhood by keeping its settlements weak, thin, ing money out of the same identical mines. Yes, Mr. Pre- and dispersed, by the intervention of so many uninhabited tracts of land. sident, upon the same identical theatre, among the same holes and pits, dug by John Law's inen in 1720; among the cinders, ashes, broken picks, and mouldering furnaces, of that celebrated projector, is our Federal Government This objection applies only to the donation principle now at work; and, that no circumstance should be want-contained in the bill. It implies that the Federal Going to complete the folly of such an undertaking, the task vernment has no power to make donations of the public SIXTH OBJECTION-Pledged to the payment of the Public Debt. 741 MAY 16, 1826.] Jand, a supposition which is contradicted by the nature of the pledge itself, and by the practice of the Government for fifty years. The pledge here alluded to was not made by the donors of the land. It was intended by them that the ceded lands should be applied to the payment of the public debt; but they made no other stipulation with Congress in reference to their use, but that they "should be disposed of for the common benefit." The pledge in ques-with the two little boys, upon a journey of eight or nine tion was made long after the cession, and made by the inAluence of the same interest in Congress which funded the public debt, doubled the price of land, and established the system of paying annual interest until the land should Still it was not a rise to four and eight dollars per acre. pledge of the lands, but only of the nett proceeds of the sales; and, each succeeding Congress has felt itself at iberty to make gratuitous donations of the land to any extent that it pleased. Look to the statute book; its pages are filled with these donations, from the year 1785 down to the present session. to live at. It was the case of "Granny White." At the age of sixty, she had been left a widow in one of the counties in the tide-water region of North Carolina. Her poverty was so extreme, that when she went to the County Court to get a couple of little orphan grand children bound to her, the Justices refused to let her have them, because she could not give security to keep them off the parish. This compelled her to remove; and she set off hundred miles, to what was then called "the Cumberland Settlement." Arrived in the neighborhood of Nashville, a generous hearted Irishman let her have a corner of his land on her own terms, a nominal price and indefinite credit. It was fifty acres in extent, and comprised the two faces of a pair of confronting hills, whose precipitous declivities lacked a few degrees, and but a few, of mathematical perpendicularity. Mr. B. said he knew it well, for he had seen the old lady's pumpkims propped and supported with stakes, to prevent their ponderous weight from tearing up the vine, and rolling to the bottom of the [Mr. B. here enumerated many of these donations. The hills. There was just room at their base for a road to run bounty lands to the officers and soldiers of the Revolu-between, and not room for a house, to get a level place tion; 100,000 acres in the year '87, to actual settlers in for which, a part of the hill had to be dug away. Yet, Ohio; 24,000 acres to the French of Galliopolis; donations from this hopeless beginning, with the advantage of a litto the Nova Scotia and Canada Refugees; 6,000,000 of tle piece of ground that was her own, this aged widow, acres to the soldiers of the late war; 90,000 to French set- and two little grand children, of eight or nine years old, tlers in Alabama; donations to States for seats of Govern- advanced herself to comparative wealth: money, slaves, ment; to counties for county court-houses; to States for horses, cattle, and ner fields extended into the valley beschools and colleges; 24,000 acres to General Lafayette; low, and her orphan grand children raised up to honor 24,000 to the Asylum of the Deaf and Dumb in Connec- and independence, were the fruits of economy and industicut; 24,000, at the present session, to the like Asylum | try, and a noble illustration of the advantage of giving land to the poor. But the Federal Government would have dein Kentucky.] manded sixty-two dollars and fifty cents for that land, cash in hand, and old Granny White and her grand child ren might have lived in misery and sunk into vice, be. fore the opponents of this bill would have taken less.] zens ! Mr. B. continued: These, Mr. President, are only a few instances, by way of example. I think it probable that an accurate examination would show that the United States have given away nearly as much as they have sold; It is to no purpose, Mr. President, said Mr. B. to tell and we all know that we are running down the road of donations at present, with a rapidity which threatens to me that eighty acres of land costs but $100. I answer arrive at the end of the land, by a shorter process than the that there are innumerable families in this Union who neI answer further, that eighty acres of present system of selling would indicate. This is proof ver saw, and never will see the day, when they can pay enough of the fallacy of the objection; a fallacious objec- down that sum. tion, indeed, which would permit the Government to make refuse land is not worth $100. That is the price of a first princely donations to foreigners and refugees, and deny rate tract, and a tract that is only one-half, one third, or it the capacity of making small donations to its own citi-one-fourth part fit for cultivation, is only worth the onehalf, the one-third, or the one-fourth part of that sum. It is to the poor alone that these refuse tracts are desirHere then is The principle, then, of donations which the bill contains, is entirely free from legal objection, and resolves able; a man of property would not waste his time upon itself into a question of mere expediency. Is it, then, ex- them even if he was paid for doing so. pedient that Congress should make the donations which the peculiar injustice of fixing a minimum price of $1 25. the bill contemplates? And, first, what is the amount and It operates upon the poor, not upon the rich. It enables value of these proposed gifts? Eighty acres of refuse the man that has $100, to get a good quarter section; land, Mr. President, land which remains unsold after the but the man that has but $25, cannot buy at all; for he district has been five times picked over, and reduced to cannot pay the $100 for a tract which is all good, and the the price of twenty five cents per acre, and which price Government will not make an equitable graduation of nobody will give! Far from considering such donations as price, and take $25 for a tract which is three parts bad, too great for this Government to make, I feel ashamed of and one part good. It wants a dollar and a quarter all But I discard as contemptible, and unworthy their smallness and insignificance. If I could have follow-round, which would bring the good land to five dollars ed the suggestions of my own judgment, I should have in- per acre. dicated double the quantity, one hundred and sixty acres, of the Government, the policy of gleaning the public to be taken immediately after the public sales; and lands all over; gleaning of every kind is forbid, whether trust that an amendment to that effect will yet succeed. it applies to the "sheaf," "the grape," "the olive," or But even the donations contemplated by the bill, as it the corners of the land." I repudiate it as a policy abnow stands, would be the means of saving many families horred of God and man, condemned by common sense, I contend that the Earth is the gift of from want and vice, and converting many idle citizens into by patriotism, and by the conduct of all People, in all I go for donations; and contend that no useful members of society. Eighty acres, even of indiffer- ages and nations. ent land, would furnish a home to many that are house- God to man. less. If some ten, twenty, or thirty acres, could be found country under the sun was ever paid for in gold and silver upon it, fit for cultivation, it would make a little farm, on before it could be settled and cultivated. Have we not seen which a small family, a widow with her orphan children, these States settled by donations, and sales at nominal Were not Upper and Ohio, settled in the same way or a young man just married, could subsist in comfort and prices? Was not Kentucky, Tennessee, and one-third of independence. [Mr. B. here gave an example of what might be ac-Lower Louisiana and the two Floridas settled by gratui comp plished by industry and economy, and a little home tous donations from the Kings of Spain-donations which |