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

His colleague, (Mr. Benton,) in alluding, on that occasion, to the same message, says:

‘The president was right. His views were wise, patriotic, and statesmanlike.’ ‘He had made it clear, as he hoped and believed, that the president’s plan was right; that all idea of profit from the lands ought to be given up,’ and so forth.

I might multiply these proofs, but there is no necessity for it. Why go back eight or nine years? We need only trust to our own ears, and rely upon what we almost now daily hear. Senatorsfrom the new states frequently express their determination to wrest from this government the whole of the public lands, denounce its alleged illiberality, and point exultingly to the strength which the next census is to bring to their policy. It was but the other day we heard the senator from Arkansas, (Mr. Sevier,) express some of these sentiments. What were we told by that senator? ‘We will have the public lands. We must have them, and we will take them in a few years.’

[Mr. Sevier. So we will.]

Hear him! Hear him! He repeats it. Utters it in the ears of the revenue-pleading senator, (Mr. Wright,) on my left. And yet he will vote against distribution.

I will come now to a document of more recent origin. Here it is—the work, nominally, of the senator from Michigan, (Mr. Norvell,) but I take it, from the internal evidence it bears, to be the production of the senator from South Carolina, over the way, (Mr. Calhoun.) This report, in favor of cession, proposes to cede, to the states within which the public lands are situated, one third, retaining, nominally, two thirds to the union. Now, if this precedent of cession be once established, it is manifest that it will be applied to all new states, as they are hereafter successively admitted into the union. We begin with ceding one third; we shall end in granting the whole.

[Mr. Calhoun asked Mr. Clay to read the portions of the report to which he alluded.]

I should be very glad to accommodate the senator, but I should have to read the whole of his report, and I am too much indisposed and exhausted for that. But I will read one or two paragraphs.

‘It belongs to the nature of things, that the old and new states should take different views, have different feelings, and favor a different course of policy, in reference to the lands within their limits. It is natural for the one to regard them chiefly as a source of revenue, and to estimate them according to the amount of income annually derived from them; while the other as naturally regards them, almost exclusively, as a portion of their domain, and as the foundation of their population, wealth, power, and importance. They have more emphatically the feelings of ownership, accompanied by the impression that they ought to have the principal control, and the greater share of benefits derived from them.’ ‘To sum up the whole in a few words: of all subjects of legislation, land is that which more emphatically requires a local superintendence and administration; and, therefore, ought preëminently to belong, under our system, to state legislation, to which this bill proposes to subject it exclusively, in the new states, as it has always been in the old.’

It must be acknowledged, that the new states will find some good reading in this report. What is the reasoning? That it is natural for the old states to regard the public lands as a source of revenue, and as natural for the new states to take a different view of the matter; ergo, let us give the lands to the new states, making them, of course, cease any longer to be a source of revenue. It isdiscovered too, that land is a subject which emphatically requires a local superintendence and administration. It therefore proposes to subject it exclusively to the new states, as (according to the assertion of the report,) it always has been in the old. The public lands of the United States, theoretically, have been subject to the joint authority of the two classes of states, in congress assembled, but, practically, have been more under the control of the members from the new states, than those from the old. I do not think that the history of the administration of public domain in this country, sustains the assertion that the states have exhibited more competency and wisdom for the management of it, than the general government.