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

The report of the land committee proceeds to notice and to animadvert upon certain opinions of a late secretary of the treasury, contained in his annual report, and endeavors to connect them with some sentiments expressed in the report of the committee ofmanufactures. That report has before been the subject of repeated commentary in the senate, by the senator from Missouri, and of much misrepresentation and vituperation in the public press. Mr. Rush showed me the rough draft of that report, and I advised him to expunge the paragraphs in question, because I foresaw that they would be misrepresented, and that he would be exposed to unjust accusation. But knowing the purity of his intentions, believing in the soundness of the views which he presented, and confiding in the candor of a just public, he resolved to retain the paragraphs. I cannot suppose the senator from Missouri ignorant of what passed between Mr. Rush and me, and of his having, against my suggestions, retained the paragraphs in question, because these facts were all stated by Mr. Rush himself, in a letter addressed to a late member of the house of representatives, representing the district in which I reside, which letter, more than a year ago, was published in the western papers.

I shall say nothing in defence of myself, nothing to disprove the charge of my cherishing unfriendly feelings and sentiments towards any part of the west. If the public acts in which I have participated, if the uniform tenor of my whole life, will not refute such an imputation, nothing that I could here say would refute it.

But I will say something in defence of the opinions of my late patriotic and enlightened colleague, not here to speak for himself; and I will vindicate his official opinions from the erroneous glosses and interpretations which have been put upon them.

Mr. Rush, in an official report which will long remain a monument of his ability, was surveying, with a statesman’s eye, the condition of America. He was arguing in favor of the protective policy—the American system. He spoke of the limited vocations of our society, and the expediency of multiplying the means of increasing subsistence, comfort, and wealth. He noticed the great and the constant tendency of our fellow-citizens to the cultivation of the soil, the want of a market for their surplus produce, the inexpediency of all blindly rushing to the same universal employment, and the policy of dividing ourselves into various pursuits. He says:

‘The manner in which the remote lands of the United States are selling and settling, whilst it possibly may tend to increase more quickly the aggregate population of the country, and the mere means of subsistence, does not increase capital in the same proportion. * * * * Anything that may serve to hold back this tendency to diffusion from running too far and too long into an extreme, can scarcely prove otherwise than salutary * * * * If the population of these, (a majority of the states, including some western states,) not yet redundant in fact, though appearing to be so, under this legislative incitement to emigrate, remain fixed in more instances, as it probably would be by extending the motives to manufacturing labor, it is believed that the nation would gain in two ways: first, by the more rapid accumulation of capital, and next, by the gradual reduction of the excess of its agricultural population over that engaged in other vocations. It is not imagined that it ever would be practicable, even if it were desirable, to turn this stream of emigration aside; but resources, opened through the influence of the laws, in new fields of industry, to the inhabitants of the states already sufficiently peopled to enter upon them, might operate to lessen, in some degree, and usefully lessen, its absorbing force.’

Now, Mr. President, what is there in this view adverse to the west, or unfavorable to its interests? Mr. Rush is arguing on the tendency of the people to engage in agriculture, and the incitement to emigration produced by our laws. Does he propose to change those laws in that particular? Does he propose any new measure? So far from suggesting any alteration of the conditions on which the public lands are sold, he expressly says, that it is not desirable, if it were practicable, to turn this stream of emigration aside. Leaving all the laws in full force, and all the motives to emigration arising from fertile and cheap lands, untouched, he recommends the encouragement of a new branch of business, in which all the union, the west as well as the rest, is interested; thus presenting an option to population to engage in manufactures or in agriculture, at its own discretion. And does such an option afford just ground of complaint to any one? Is it not an advantage to all? Do the land committee desire (I am sure they do not) to create starvation in one part of the union, that emigrants may be forced into another? If they do not, they ought not to condemn a multiplication of human employments, by which, as its certain consequence, there will be an increase in the means of subsistence and comfort. The objection to Mr. Rush, then, is, that he looked at his whole country, and at all parts of it; and that, whilst he desired the prosperity and growth of the west to advance undisturbed, he wished to build up, on deep foundations, the welfare of all the people.

Mr. Rush knew that there were thousands of the poorer classes who never would emigrate; and that emigration, under the best auspices, was far from being unattended with evil. There are moral, physical, pecuniary obstacles to all emigration; and these will increase, as the good vacant lands of the west are removed, by intervening settlements further and further from society, as it is now located. It is, I believe, Dr. Johnson who pronounces, that of all vegetable and animal creation, man is the most difficult to be uprooted and transferred to a distant country; and he was right. Space itself, mountains, and seas, and rivers, are impediments. The want of pecuniary means, the expenses of the outfit, subsistence and transportation of a family, is no slight circumstance. When all these difficulties are overcome, (and how few, comparatively, can surmount them!) the greatest of all remains—that of being torn from one’s natal spot—separated, for ever, from the roof under which the companions of his childhood were sheltered, from the trees which have shaded him from summer’s heats, the spring from whose gushing fountain he has drunk in his youth, the tombs that hold the precious relic of his venerated ancestors!

But I have said, that the land committee had attempted to confound the sentiments of Mr. Rush with some of the reasoning employed by the committee of manufactures against the proposedreduction of the price of the public lands. What is that reasoning? Here it is; it will speak for itself; and without a single comment will demonstrate how different it is from that of the late secretary of the treasury, unexceptionable as that has been shown to be.

‘The greatest emigration, (says the manufacturing committee,) that is believed now to take place from any of the states, is from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The effects of a material reduction in the price of the public lands, would be, first, to lessen the value of real estate in those three states; secondly, to diminish their interest in the public domain, as a common fund for the benefit of all the states; and, thirdly, to offer what would operate as a bounty to further emigration from those states, occasioning more and more lands, situated within them, to be thrown into the market, thereby not only lessening the value of their lands, but draining them, both of their population and labor.’

There are good men in different parts, but especially in the Atlantic portion, of the union, who have been induced to regard lightly this vast national property; who have been persuaded that the people of the west are dissatisfied with the administration of it; and who believe that it will, in the end, be lost to the nation, and that it is not worth present care and preservation. But these are radical mistakes. The great body of the west are satisfied, perfectly satisfied, with the general administration of the public lands. They would indeed like, and are entitled to, a more liberal expenditure among them of the proceeds of the sales. For this provision is made by the bill to which I will hereafter call the attention of the senate. But the great body of the west have not called for, and understand too well their real interest to desire, any essential change in the system of survey, sale, or price of the lands. There may be a few, stimulated by demagogues, who desire change; and what system is there, what government, what order of human society, in which a few do not desire change?