Statement of the amount of money which has been paid by the United States for the title to the public lands, including the payments made under the Louisiana and Florida treaties; the compact with Georgia; the settlement with the Yazoo claimants; the contracts with the Indian tribes; and the expenditures for compensation to commissioners, clerks, surveyors, and other officers, employed by the United States for the management and sale of the Western domain; the gross amount of money received into the treasury, as the proceeds of public lands, to the 30th of September, 1832; also, the net amount, after deducting five per cent., expended on account of roads within, and leading to the Western States, &c., and sums refunded on account of errors in the entries of public lands.
Payment on account of the purchase of Louisiana:
| Principal, | $14,984,872 28 | |
| Interest on $11,250,000 | 8,529,353 43 | |
| $23,514,225 71 |
Payment on account of the purchase of Florida:
| Principal, $4,985,599 82 | |
| Interest to 30th September, 1832, 1,489,768 66 | |
| $6,475,368 48 | |
| Payment of compact with Georgia, | 1,065,484 06 |
| Payment of the settlement with the Yazoo claimants, | 1,830,808 04 |
| Payment of contracts with the several Indian tribes (all expenses on account of Indians), | 13,064,677 45 |
| Payment of commissioners, clerks, and other officers, employed by the United States for the management | |
| and sale of the Western domain, | 3,750,716 43 |
| $49,701,280 17 | |
| Amount of money received into the treasury as the proceeds of public lands to 30th September, 1832, | $39,614,000 07 |
| Deduct payments from the treasury on account of roads, &c., | 1,227,375 94 |
| $38,386,624 13 |
T. L. Smith, Reg.
Treasury Department, }
Register's Office, March 1, 1833. }
Such was this ample and well-considered message, one of the wisest and most patriotic ever delivered by any President, and presenting General Jackson under the aspect of an immense elevation over the ordinary arts of men who run a popular career, and become candidates for popular votes. Such arts require addresses to popular interests, the conciliation of the interested passions, the gratification of cupidity, the favoring of the masses in the distribution of money or property as well as the enrichment of classes in undue advantages. General Jackson exhibits himself as equally elevated above all these arts—as far above seducing the masses with agrarian laws as above enriching the few with the plundering legislation of banks and tariffs; and the people felt this elevation, and did honor to themselves in the manner in which they appreciated it. Far from losing his popularity, he increased it, by every act of disdain which he exhibited for the ordinary arts of conciliating popular favor. His veto message, on this occasion was an exemplification of all the high qualities of the public man. He sat out with showing that these lands, so far as they were divided from the States, were granted as a common fund, to be disposed of for the benefit of all the States, according to their usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever; and that by the principles of our government and sound policy, those acquired from foreign governments could only be disposed of in the same manner. In addition to these great reasons of principle and policy, the message clearly points out the mischief which any scheme of distribution will inflict upon the new States in preventing reductions in the price of the public lands—in preventing donations to settlers—and in preventing the cession of the unsalable lands to the States in which they lie; and recurs to his early messages in support of the policy, now that the public debt was paid, of looking to settlement and population as the chief objects to be derived from these lands, and for that purpose that they be sold to settlers at cost.