"It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy, without feeling sensations of disgust and horror at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept continually vibrating between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. From the disorders which disfigure the annals of those republics, the advocates of despotism have drawn arguments, not only against the forms of republican government, but against the very principles of civil liberty. They have decried all free government as inconsistent with the order of society, and have indulged themselves in malicious exultation over its friends and partisans."
And again they say:
"It must carry its agency to the persons of the citizens. It must stand in need of no intermediate legislation; but must itself be empowered to employ the arm of the ordinary magistrate to execute its own resolutions. The majesty of the national authority must be manifested through the medium of the courts of justice."
After reading these extracts, Mr. B. said: It was to get rid of the evils of the old confederation that the present Union was formed; and, having formed it, they who formed it undertook to make it perpetual, and for that purpose had recourse to all the sanctions held sacred among men—commands, prohibitions, oaths. The States were forbid to form compacts or agreements with each other; the constitution and the laws made in pursuance of it, were declared to be the supreme law of the land; and all authorities, State and federal, legislative, executive, and judicial, were to be sworn to support it. The resolutions which have been read contradict all this; and the General Assembly mistook their own powers as much as they mistook the sentiments of the people of Missouri when they adopted them.
CHAPTER XC.
PUBLIC LANDS:—DISTRIBUTION OF PROCEEDS.
Mr. Clay renewed, at this session, 1832-'33, the bill which he had brought in the session before, and which had passed the Senate, to divide the net proceeds of the sales of public lands among the States, to be applied to such purposes as the legislatures of the respective States should think proper. His principal arguments, in favor of the bill, were: first, the aid which the distribution would give to the States, in developing their resources and promoting their prosperity; secondly, the advantage to the federal government, in settling the question of the mode of disposing of the public lands. He explained his bill, which, at first, contained a specification of the objects to which the States should apply the dividends they received, which was struck out, in the progress of the bill, and stated its provisions to be:
"To set apart, for the benefit of the new States, twelve and a half per cent., out of the aggregate proceeds, in addition to the five per cent., which was now allowed to them by compact, before any division took place among the States generally. It was thus proposed to assign, in the first place, seventeen and a half per cent. to the new States, and then to divide the whole of the residue among the twenty-four States. And, in order to do away any inequality among the new States, grants are specifically made by the bill to those who had not received, heretofore, as much lands as the rest of the new States, from the general government, so as to put all the new States on an equal footing. This twelve and a half per cent., to the new States, to be at their disposal, for either education or internal improvement, and the residue to be at the disposition of the States, subject to no other limitation than this: that it shall be at their option to apply the amount received either to the purposes of education, or the colonization of free people of color, or for internal improvements, or in debts which may have been contracted for internal improvements. And, with respect to the duration of this scheme of distribution proposed by the bill, it is limited to five years, unless hostilities shall occur between the United States and any foreign power; in which event, the proceeds are to be applied to the carrying on such war, with vigor and effect, against any common enemy with whom we may be brought in contact. After the conclusion of peace, and after the discharge of the debt created by any such war, the aggregate funds to return to that peaceful destination to which it was the intention of the bill that they should now be directed, that is, to the improvement of the moral and physical condition of the country, and the promotion of the public happiness and prosperity."
He then spoke of the advantages of settling the question of the manner of disposing of the public lands, and said: