But he would not now enter into the consideration of granting the public property in the manner proposed by this bill. He had risen to notice a subject which seemed to have been lost sight of. It had been said, the government lost nothing by preëmption; but he could not conceive how the accounts were made out in proof of this assertion. The president tells us, that the whole average amount gained above the minimum price is only about six cents per acre; others state it at two, four, and five cents; and the secretary of the treasury asserted, in his annual report, that the revenue would be augmented by the passage of a preëmption law. The preëmption law! As if the competition of a fair, open, public sale would not produce more; as if preëmptioners would not go tothe public sales, if preëmption were denied them, and buy their land as reasonably as it could be purchased! Could any one be so stupid as to suppose that the gain on the land could be greater by preëmption than by public auction?
But Mr. Clay wished especially to call the attention of the senate to a document to which he would refer. Two years ago a report from the commissioner of the land office had been sent here by this same secretary of the treasury, the report of a person more conversant with settlements in the western country than perhaps any man in congress, and certainly more than any connected with the executive government, the late commissioner, Mr. Brown, the late governor of the state of Ohio. What did he say of the loss incurred by preëmption laws? The document was number two hundred and eleven of the session of 1836. The whole of it was well worthy of deliberate perusal, and it was replete with fraud, abominable, execrable fraud, scandalous to the country, scandalous to the government, and scandalous to the perpetrators. In saying this, Mr. Clay would not denounce any whole class; but he would say that the preëmption system was a scheme of heartless and boundless speculation. What does the commissioner say?
‘This office possesses no data whereby to estimate with tolerable accuracy how far the sales of public lands have been effected, in respect to quantity, by the preëmption act of nineteenth of June, 1834. Considering the great demand for land within the last two years, it remains to be shown that a greater number of acres has been disposed of in that period in consequence of the privilege it confers. It is quite impossible to estimate with satisfactory accuracy the effect that has been produced on this branch of the revenue by allowing (to those who have, and pretend to, a right of preference) the choice, at the lowest rate, of distinguished sites for towns, and their vicinities, the best mill seats, and the finest farming lands, including those so highly prized for the culture of cotton.
‘The general land office has no certain data for a just calculation of the amount which the treasury has been prevented from receiving by the operation of this law, but considering the many tens of thousands of claims that have arisen under it and the prevailing desire in the mean while to vest money in public land, the conclusion seems fair, that the selected spots would have been sold for a price proportioned to their excellence, if no such law, nor any improper conspiracy, had existed. The estimate of three millions of dollars, which I had the honor to submit to you on the twenty-eighth of January last, appears to me now to underrate much rather than magnify the difference between the receipts for preëmption concessions, and the sum the same lands would have brought into the treasury, had no impediment laid in the way of full and free competition for the purchase.
‘It is but just, however, to observe, that the revenue from public lands has not been impaired by preëmptions alone; and I may be allowed to remark, in this place, that the information, on the subject of the last resolution referred to me, consists of what common fame represents as avowed and notorious, namely: that the public sales are attended by combinations of two kinds, interested in keeping bids down to the minimum; the one composed of those who have and those who pretend to a right of preference, and resort to intimidation by threats and actual violence, as exemplified most particularly at the public sales at Chicago, in June, 1835, when and where the controlling party is represented to have effectually prevented those from bidding who were not acceptable to themselves; the other description formed of persons associated to frustrate the views of individuals desirous of purchasing, who refuse to join their coalition, or submit to their dictation, by compelling the recusants to forego their intended purchases, or give more than the market value of the lands.’
Now, resumed Mr. Clay, how did this conspiracy take place? He would tell. In September last, the Indian title had been extinguished to a tract of most valuable land in Indiana, at one dollar per acre, by the United States. What was the consequence? The instant the Indian title was extinguished, there was a rush upon it from all quarters; and if that land should be exposed at public sale, it would be found that these men, who had seized the property of the people of the United States, would combine to intimidate and overawe all competitors, and thereby acquire the land on their own terms. In this way lawless men had often combined, not only without but against the positive authority of law; and here, while vindicating the rights and guarding the property of the whole people, Mr. Clay would not be awed nor deterred from performing his duty by any personal considerations. He would read no more of this document, senators could read it at their leisure; it was the deliberate judgment of an experienced and intelligent man against the whole system of preëmption.
But he wished to call the attention of the senate to some official documents, one of which was from a district attorney, he believed of Louisiana.
‘Sir: I present, herewith, a number of affidavits in relation to preëmptions obtained by Gabriel H. Tutt, to the southeast quarter, Richard Tutt, to the east half of the northeast quarter, and Benjamin Tutt, to the west half of the northeast quarter, of section number three west, in the land district of Dempolis, in the state of Alabama. These affidavits have been taken by some of the most respectable men in the state of Alabama, and have been sent on to me for the purpose of procuring the grant of the above preëmptions to be set aside, on the ground that they were obtained by fraud and imposition; and that this is the fact, I entertain no doubt whatever. Shortly before I left Alabama, I was in the immediate vicinity of the above lands, and heard a number of persons speaking of the manner in which they had been paid out; and the opinion was general, without exception, that a most shameful and scandalous imposition had been practiced upon the government. There is no doubt that all the lands mentioned were paid out at the instance and for the benefit of James B. Tutt, a man, to my knowledge, of notoriously bad character. Gabriel H. Tutt, as the affidavit shows, is a citizen of Greene county, (the county in which I reside myself, and I know him well,) and that he never did reside on the quarter section paid out in its name, or near it, his residence in Greene county being at least fifteen or twenty miles from the land paid out in his name. Richard Tutt and Benjamin Tutt are, I believe, both public paupers, and have been so for years; I am confident as to one, and am satisfied in my own mind as to the other. I have known them for several years; they have lived in Greene county, and have been supported at the charge and expense of the county.Neither of them, as the affidavits show, have resided on the lands since they were paid out, and Richard Tutt was not on the land paid out in his name until January, 1834, and had no improvements whatever in 1833.’
‘If reckless and unprincipled men can succeed in cheating and defrauding government, by appropriating and securing to their own use public lands at the minimum price, under acts of bounty and benevolence, passed for the benefit of honest, enterprising, and industrious settlers, corruption and venality must and will become the order of the day, wherever there is a quarter section of public land left worth contending for: and it is greatly to be feared that this has become too much the case already. May I ask to be informed of any steps taken by the department in this matter, as early as convenient?’
And here are some comments of the receiver of the land office at Mount Salus, who tells us he has been in the public service since 1806.