A Biography of Henry Clay, the Senator from Kentucky / Containing Also, a Complete Report of All His Speeches; Selections From His Private Correspondence; Eulogies in the Senate and House; and a Poem, by George D. Prentice, Esq.

by Unknown

And by solicitation and acceptance of extensive grants of the public lands from the general government.

The existence of the new state is a falsehood, or the right of all the states to the public domain is an undeniable truth. They have no more right to the public lands, within their particular jurisdiction,than other states have to the mint, the forts and arsenals, or public ships, within theirs, or than the people of the District of Columbia have to this magnificent capitol, in whose splendid halls we now deliberate.

The equality contended for between all the states now exists. The public lands are now held, and ought to be held and administered for the common benefit of all. I hope our fellow-citizens of Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri, will reconsider the matter; that they will cease to take counsel from demagogues who would deceive them, and instil erroneous principles into their ears; and that they will feel and acknowledge that their brethren of Kentucky and of Ohio, and of all the states in the union, have an equal right with the citizens of those three states, in the public lands. If the possibility of an event so direful as a severance of this union were for a moment contemplated, what would be the probable consequence of such an unspeakable calamity; if three confederacies were formed out of its fragments, do you imagine that the western confederacy would consent to have the states including the public lands hold them exclusively for themselves? Can you imagine that the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, would quietly renounce their right in all the public lands west of them? No, sir! No, sir! They would wade to their knees in blood, before they would make such an unjust and ignominious surrender.

But this pretension, unjust to the old states, unequal as to all, would be injurious to the new states themselves, in whose behalf it has been put forth, if it were recognised. The interests of the new states is not confined to the lands within their limits, but extends to the whole billion and eighty millions of acres. Sanction the claims, however, and they are cut down and restricted to that which is included in their own boundaries. Is it not better for Ohio, instead of the five millions and a half, or Indiana, instead of the fifteen millions, or even for Illinois, instead of the thirty-one or thirty-two millions, or Missouri, instead of the thirty-eight millions, within their respective limits, to retain their interest in those several quantities, and also to retain their interest, in common with the other members of the union, in the countless millions of acres that lie west, or northwest, beyond them?

I will now proceed, Mr. President, to consider the expediency of a reduction of the price of the public lands, and the reasons assigned by the land committee, in their report, in favor of that measure. They are presented there in formidable detail, and spread out under seven different heads. Let us examine them; the first is, ‘because the new states have a clear right to participate in the benefits of a reduction of the revenue to the wants of the government, by getting the reduction extended to the article of revenue chiefly used by them.’ Here is a renewal of the attempt made early in the session, to confound the public lands with foreignimports, which was so successfully exposed and refuted by the report of the committee on manufactures. Will not the new states participate in any reduction of the revenue, in common with the old states, without touching the public lands? As far as they are consumers of objects of foreign imports, will they not equally share the benefit with the old states? What right, over and above that equal participation, have the new states, to a reduction of the price of the public lands? As states, what right, much less what ‘clear right’ have they, to any such reduction? In their sovereign or corporate capacities, what right? Have not all the stipulations between them, as states, and the general government, been fully complied with? Have the people within the new states, considered distinct from the states themselves, any right to such a reduction? Whence is it derived? They went there in pursuit of their own happiness. They bought lands from the public because it was their interest to make the purchase, and they enjoy them. Did they, because they purchased some land, which they possess peacefully, acquire any, and what right, in the land which they did not buy? But it may be argued, that by settling and improving these lands, the adjacent public lands are enhanced. True; and so are their own. The enhancement of the public lands was not a consequence which they went there to produce, but was a collateral effect, as to which they were passive. The public does not seek to avail itself of this augmentation in value, by augmenting the price. It leaves that where it was; and the demand for reduction is made in behalf of those who say their labor has increased the value of the public lands, and the claim to reduction is founded upon the fact of enhanced value? The public, like all other landholders, had a right to anticipate that the sale of a part would communicate, incidentally, greater value upon the residue. And, like all other land proprietors, it has the right to ask more for that residue; but it does not, and, for one, I should be as unwilling to disturb the existing price by augmentation as by reduction. But the public lands is the article of revenue which the people of the new states chiefly consume. In another part of this report, liberal grants of the public lands are recommended, and the idea of holding the public lands as a source of revenue is scouted; because, it is said, more revenue could be collected from the settlers as consumers, than from the lands. Here it seems that the public lands are the articles of revenue chiefly consumed by the new states.

With respect to lands yet to be sold, they are open to the purchase alike of emigrants from the old states, and settlers in the new. As the latter have most generally supplied themselves with lands, the probability is, that the emigrants are more interested in the question of reduction than the settlers. At all events, there can be no peculiar right to such reduction existing in the new states. It is a question common to all, and to be decided in reference to the interest of the whole union.

Second. ‘Because the public debt being now paid, the public lands are entirely released from the pledge they were under to that object, and are free to receive a new and liberal destination, for the relief of the states in which they lie.’

The payment of the public debt is conceded to be near at hand; and it is admitted that the public lands, being liberated, may now receive a new and liberal destination. Such an appropriation of their proceeds is proposed by the bill reported by the committee of manufactures, and to which I shall hereafter more particularly call the attention of the senate. But it did not seem just to that committee, that this new and liberal destination of them should be restricted ‘for the relief of the states in which they lie,’ exclusively, but should extend to all the states indiscriminately, upon principles of equitable distribution.

Third. ‘Because nearly one hundred millions of acres of the land now in market are the refuse of sales and donations, through a long series of years, and are of very little actual value, and only fit to be given to settlers, or abandoned to the states in which they lie.’

According to an official statement, the total quantity of public land which has been surveyed up to the thirty-first of December last, was a little upwards of one hundred and sixty-two millions of acres. Of this, a large proportion, perhaps even more than the one hundred millions of acres stated in the land report, has been a long time in market. The entire quantity which has ever been sold by the United States, up to the same day, after deducting lands relinquished and lands reverted to the United States, according to an official statement, also, is twenty-five million two hundred forty-two thousand five hundred and ninety acres. Thus after the lapse of thirty-six years, during which the present land system has been in operation, a little more than twenty-five millions of acres have been sold, not averaging a million per annum, and upwards of one hundred millions of the surveyed lands remain to be sold. The argument of the report of the land committee assumes, that ‘nearly one hundred millions are the refuse of sales, and donations,’ are of very little actual value, and only fit to be given to settlers, or abandoned to the states in which they lie.