ter, under the sole and exclusive direction of the federal government, and founded on the credit of the government, would be most proper. This was, in fact, the germ of the sub-treasury system of a later period; which proposes to keep the public monies in the hands or under the control of the executive; and to exclude the citizens from all the benefits they enjoyed by means of the bank of the United States, and would, in a great measure, remove the public funds from the power of Congress. In this institution, as originally designed in 1791, and then still maintained, the merchants often found relief; and if there were ever any defects in the management of the bank, they were not to be named as objections to its continuance, when compared to the benefits resulting to the citizens engaged in trade and commerce; and through them to the whole nation, and to the prosperous state of the finances of the government itself.

This session of the federal legislature continued for six months; and the following laws were the most important which were passed during that period-for the re-appropriation of thirty thousand dollars, for the suppression of the slave trade, which had been appropriated two years before, but was not expended, and which was founded on an act of Congress of 1819-for repealing an act imposing tonnage duties on vessels, of which the officers and two thirds of the seamen were citizens of the United States-for the more effectual collection of impost duties, appointing eight additional appraisers to examine goods imported; but no new regulations to prevent defaults in the officers of the customs-for the appointment of an additional officer to be attached to the treasury department, called the solicitor of the treasury-for reducing the rate of duties on tea and coffee, as recommended by the President in his annual message; also on salt and molasses, and allowing a drawback on spirits exported, distilled from that article, which the existing laws did not permit-for allowing a portion of the claims of Massachusetts for services and expenses of the militia in 1812-1814, in time of war, and for which that State had not been reimbursed; the amount allowed being four hundred and thirty thousand dollars, about half the sum claimed-for the removal of the Indians from lands occupied by them within any State of the Union, to a territory west of the river Mississippi, and without the limits of any State, or organized territory, and belonging to the United States, by purchase or relinquishment of the Indians, by treaty; to divide such western territory into districts, for the reception and permanent settlement of those who should

consent to emigrate from their residence on the east of that river, they relinquishing all claims to lands they then occupied; the tribes to have the solemn assurance of government, that it will forever secure and guaranty to them and their posterity, the tract of country so exchanged with them for the lands they should quit in Georgia, Alabama, and any other States; and should they abandon the territory at a future time, the same to revert to the United States: the Indians to have the amount of their improvements made on the lands they may leave; to be aided in their removal, and supported for one year by the federal government; to be protected against assaults from other tribes in the vicinity of their new residence; and five hundred thousand dollars were granted for these purposes.

The receipts in the public treasury for the year 1829, from customs, sale of lands, &c., amounted to the sum of twenty-four millions eight hundred twenty-seven thousand six hundred twenty-eight dollars, being a little over those for the year 1828; which were twenty-four millions seven hundred sixty-three thousand six hundred thirty dollars; and in 1830, it was about twenty thousand dollars greater than in 1829, and one hundred twenty thousand above the amount in 1828. The public expenditures for the same years amounted, in 1828, to twenty-five millions four hundred and fifty-nine thousand dollars; in 1829, to twentyfive millions and forty-five hundred dollars; in 1830, to twenty-four millions six hundred thousand dollars; in 1831, to thirty millions and thirty-eight thousand dollars; and in 1832, to thirty-four millions three hundred and fifty-seven thousand dollars.*

During this session of Congress, a highly interesting debate took place in the Senate, on a resolution offered by one of the members, relating to the public lands, which were very extensive, and estimated of great value to the nation. The sales were so loosely managed as that little, comparatively, was received in the public treasury: some was sold to speculators; much was nominally purchased, but payment not enforced; and large tracts, belonging to the Union, within the new States, were constantly granted to those States respectively, for internal improvements, and means of education therein. The consequence was, that the original States received little advantage from these lands, though they were originally ceded or acquired for

* And the expenses of the government were gradually increased for several years, even after the public debt was paid.

the benefit of the whole Union. There had been already several systems proposed for regulating the sale and applying the proceeds of them. Some of the new States were so extravagant as to claim all the public lands within their limits. Others proposed to sell them immediately; which would permit a few speculators to purchase the whole.And some were in favor of selling low, and waiting a long period for the payment; with a view to accomplish their more speedy settlement.*

The resolution offered was to abolish the office of the land commissioner, and to suspend the sale of public lands for some years, when they would probably be of more value. The subject was justly interesting to all the members of the Senate; for the results of these various plans must be very different to the States. Generally, the Senators from the old, and those from the new States, entertained opposite views on the subject. And a Senator from South Carolina, asserted and labored to prove, that the eastern States especially, were disposed to retard the settlement of the western parts of the Union, from selfish or political views; and therefore wished to prohibit the sale of the public lands, till some distant future period. It was intimated that the statesmen of the eastern part of the Union, were jealous of the growth of the west, as it would lessen their portion of influence in the general government, and would also drain them of much of their population, which would prove injurious to their manufacturing establishments. Such suggestions were made by members from the south as well as from the west. Party or political views, perhaps, had an influence with some members in the views they expressed, and in the charges they made against the eastern States. For strange opinions are advanced, and improper systems urged, not unfrequently, for party purposes; and those who cherish such purposes themselves are often ready to charge their opponents with sinister views.

It had become customary, at this period, to take a wide range in debate, and to refer, by way of illustration or otherwise, to political subjects of a general nature, which divided the friends and the opponents of the administration. The Senator from South Carolina not only seized this oc

* It was stated at the time, that lands, to the amount of nine millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, had been appropriated, from 1790 to 1829, for surveys, for public roads, for academies and schools, and for various works of internal improvements; and almost exclusively for the benefit of the new States.

casion to reproach the eastern States with a design to prevent the settlement and increase of the western parts of the Union, from sectional or political views; but to plead for the doctrine of State rights and power, to a novel and alarming extent; though it had no necessary or immediate connection with the question before the Senate; contending that the several States within which the public lands were situated, should have the entire control and jurisdiction over them. The real or direct question, arising out of the resolution before the Senate, was lightly touched by him; while the points, just mentioned, were discussed at great length, and not without much ingenuity and eloquence: and yet, in the opinion of many impartial men, with less sound reasoning than plausibility. His remarks were so pointed and so severe on the character of the eastern States, that the sensibility of the members from that section of the Union was much awakened, and they felt obliged to notice and to repel them. They differed in some respects from the views of the Senator of South Carolina, and those who agreed with him, as to his plan on the subject of managing the public lands; and as to his doctrine of State rights, and his insinuations of hostile feelings in the people of the east towards those in the west, they were entirely at issue with them. They believed that State rights, as asserted and contended for by him, would interfere with and render utterly powerless the authority of the federal government, which was clearly granted by the Constitution. The legitimate conclusion from the doctrine advanced would be, that a single State even might control the general government; in other words, that one State might govern all the others in the Union. Such probably was not the opinion of the able Senator, but it evidently followed from his doctrine.

Mr. Webster, who was then a member of the Senate from Massachusetts, replied to the Senator from South Carolina, with great power and effect. His argument on the powers of the federal government, granted by the Constitution, as being paramount in certain cases, to any and all State authority, was generally admitted to be sound and entirely unanswerable. He contended that on subjects fully committed to the general government by the Constitution, its powers were exclusive and unlimited; that no one State, nor even a number of States, might justly interfere with its measures; and that the public land, not particularly and expressly ceded to a State, or sold to companies or individuals, was solely at the disposal and under the

jurisdiction of the United States government. When he was charged with pleading for the consolidation of the States, he replied, that he was not disposed to derogate from their authority in any cases or on any subjects, except in so far as the Constitution had given power to the general government-which was of course paramount to that of a State-that in many respects, the States were sovereign, and had the entire control of their own internal affairs, that he was in favor of the consolidation of the Unionwhich was the design of the framers of the Constitution of the United States,-though not of the States, in the sense charged by his opponents. He then showed that the general government had the sole management and disposition of the public lands, which had been ceded by different States, for the benefit of the whole. He did not wish, he said, to exclude the new States from their just portion of the public lands, or from an equal share in the benefits to be derived from the sales; but contended that the original States had an equal, if not a superior, right to them. He said he was not averse to the policy of retaining a large part of the lands for a future revenue, and yet was in favor of selling small tracts to actual settlers, and thus gradually to fill up the vacant territory with inhabitants.

The Senator from Massachusetts referred to the insinuations which had been made against the politicians of the New England States, as if they were selfish; or were opposed to the prosperity and improvements of the new States in the west and north west. And here he discovered some indignant feeling, as justly he might. The reproach on the eastern States was not just; it was, indeed, alike unfounded and ungenerous. They did, indeed, contend for the privileges of commerce and navigation; and it was for the protection of these departments of business, in great part, that the federal government had been instituted. It was important also, that manufactures, which were more attended to in the eastern and middle States than in the south or west, should be encouraged, for the prosperity of the whole nation. But it was not therefore attempted, nor desired, to depress the inhabitants of the west, in their agricultural enterprises, nor to prevent the settlement of the vast territory in that section of the Union. It was only contended, that the public lands should not be wholly appropriated for the benefit of the settlers thereon, or the States where they were situated; but should be sold, or so managed, as to secure to the original States their just proportion. No particular law resulted from this protracted and