After attentively considering the various objects desired in the memorials and petitions, the committee respectfully submit to the House the following resolutions:
1. Resolved, That the sixth article of the ordinance of 1787, which prohibits slavery within the Indiana Territory, be suspended for ten years, so as to permit the introduction of slaves, born within the United States, from any of the individual States.
2. Resolved, That every white freeman of the age of twenty-one years, who has resided within the Territory twelve months, and within the county in which he claims a vote, six months immediately preceding the election, shall enjoy the rights of an Elector of the General Assembly.
3. Resolved, That the petition of certain settlers in the Indiana Territory, praying to be annexed to the State of Ohio, ought not to be granted.
4. Resolved, That it is inexpedient, at this time, to grant that part of the petition of the people of Randolph and St. Clair which prays for a division of the Indiana Territory.
Referred to a Committee of the Whole on Thursday next.
Society of Harmony.
The bill allowing George Rapp and his associates to locate a township of land in the Indiana Territory on certain conditions, was read a third time.
Mr. Clark moved to recommit the bill to the Committee on Public Lands. The bill wants several amendments. There is no penalty, should the petitioners neglect to plant the vines.
Mr. Jackson.—I second the motion of my colleague. These public lands formerly belonged to the State of Virginia; when ceded by that State, the Government of the United States were made trustees “for the common benefit of the Union; faithfully and bona fide for that use, and for no other,” to use the words of the act granting the cession. This is a contract between Virginia and the United States; we are in the place of trustees; we cannot violate the trust, yet this mode of selling the land for the benefit of individual foreigners is a violation of the trust. This precedent will be quoted hereafter, and will operate most injuriously. Notwithstanding what the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Morrow) has said, I cannot help saying, that there are men ready at this time to give six dollars per acre for this very land, or land of this description. This bill will give them a whole township, 23,000 acres of land of the first quality. I cannot conceive the cultivation of the vine as a national benefit, as being “for the common benefit of the Union.” It will diminish the revenue, should vines be raised in abundance here. Wine is heavily taxed, and the tax is paid by the rich. I am altogether opposed to the bill.