‘Resolved, that as a further mean, as well of hastening the extinguishment of the debts, as of establishing the harmony of the United States, it be recommended to the states which have passed no acts towards complying with the resolutions of congress of the sixth of September and tenth of October, 1780, relative to the cession of territorial claims, to make the liberal cessions therein recommended, and to the states which may have passed acts complying with the said resolutions in part only, to revise and complete such compliance.’
That was one of the great objects of the cession. Seven of the old thirteen states had waste crown lands within their limits; the other six had none. These complained that what ought to be regarded as property common to them all, would accrue exclusively to the seven states, by the operation of the articles of confederation; and, therefore, for the double purpose of extinguishing the revolutionary debt, and of establishing harmony among the states of the union, the cession of those lands to the United States was recommended by congress.
And here let us pause for a moment, and contemplate the proposition of the senator from South Carolina, and its possible consequences. We have seen that the possession by seven states of these public lands, won by the valor of the whole thirteen, was cause of so much dissatisfaction to the other six as to have occasioned a serious impediment to the formation of the confederacy; and we have seen that, to remove all jealousy and disquietude on that account, in conformity with the recommendation of congress, the seven states, Virginia taking the lead, animated by a noble spirit of justice and patriotism, ceded the waste lands to the United States, for the benefit of all the states. Now what is the measureof the senator from South Carolina? It is in effect to restore the discordant and menacing state of things, which existed in 1783, prior to any cession from the states. It is worse than that. For it proposes that seventeen states shall give up immediately or eventually all their interest in the public lands, lying in nine states, to those nine states. Now if the seven states had refused to cede at all, they could at least have asserted that they fought Great Britain for these lands, as hard as the six. They would have had, therefore, the apparent right of conquest, although it was a common conquest. But the senator’s proposition is, to cede these public lands from the states which fought for them in the revolutionary war, to states that neither fought for them nor had existence daring that war. If the apprehension of an appropriation of these lands, to the exclusive advantage of the seven states, was nigh preventing the establishment of the union, can it be supposed that its security and harmony will be unaffected by a transfer of them from seventeen to nine states? But the senator’s proposition goes yet further. It has been shown that it will establish a precedent, which must lead to a cession from the United States of all the public domain, whether won by the sword or acquired by treaties with foreign powers, to new states, as they shall be admitted into the union.
In the second volume of the laws of the United States, will be found the act, known as the funding act, which passed in the year 1790. By the last section of that act, the public lands are pledged, and pledged exclusively, to the payment of the revolutionary debt, until it should be satisfied. Thus, we find, prior to the cession, an invitation from congress, to the states, to cede the waste lands, among other objects, for the purpose of paying the public debt; and, after the cessions were made, one of the earliest acts of congress pledged them to that object. So the matter stood whilst that debt hung over us. During all that time, there was a general acquiescence in the dedication of the public lands to that just object. No one thought of disturbing the arrangement. But when the debt was discharged, or rather when, from the rapidity of the process of its extinction, it was evident that it would soon be discharged, attention was directed to a proper disposition of the public lands. No one doubted the power of congress to dispose of them according to its sound discretion. Such was the view of president Jackson, distinctly communicated to congress, in the message which I have already cited.
‘As the lands may now be considered as relieved from this pledge, the object for which they were ceded having been accomplished, it is in the discretion of congress to dispose of them in such way as best to conduce to the quiet, harmony, and general interest of the American people.’
Can the power of congress, to dispose of the public domain be more broadly asserted? What was then said about revenue? That it should cease to be a source of revenue! We never hearof the revenue argument, but when the proposition is up to make an equal and just distribution of the proceeds. When the favorable, but, as I regard them, wild and squandering projects of gentlemen, are under consideration, they are profoundly silent as to that argument.
I come now to an examination of the terms on which the cession was made by the states, as contained in the deeds of cession. And I shall take that from Virginia, because it was, in some measure, the model deed, and because it conveyed by far the most important part of the public lands, acquired from the ceding states. I will first dispose of a preliminary difficulty, raised by the senator from New York. That senator imagined a case, and then combated it, with great force. The case he supposed was, that the senator from Massachusetts and I had maintained, that, under that deed, there was a reversion to the states; and much of his argument was directed to prove that there is no reversion, but that, if there were, it could only be to the ceding states. Now, neither the senator from Massachusetts, nor I, attempted to erect any such windmill, as the senator from New York has imagined; and he might have spared himself the heavy blows, which, like another famed hero, not less valorous than himself, he dealt upon it. What I really maintain, and have always maintained, is, that, according to the terms themselves, of the deed of cession, although there is conveyed a common property, to be held for the common benefit, there is, nevertheless, an assignment of a separate use. The ceded land, I admit, is to remain a common fund for all the states, to be administered by a common authority; but the proceeds, or profits, were to be appropriated to the states in severalty, according to a certain prescribed rule. I contend this is manifestly true, from the words of the deed. What are they? ‘That all the lands within the territory so ceded to the United States, and not reserved for or appropriated to any of the before-mentioned purposes, or disposed of in bounties to the officers and soldiers of the American army, shall be considered a common fund, for the use and benefit of such of the United States as have become, or shall become members of the confederation, or federal alliance of the said states, Virginia inclusive, according to their usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure, and shall be faithfully and bona fide disposed of for that purpose, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever.’
The territory conveyed was to be regarded as an inviolable fund, for the use and benefit of such states as were admitted, or might be admitted into the union, Virginia inclusive, according to their usual respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure. It was to be faithfully and bona fide administered for that sole purpose, and for no other purpose whatever.
Where, then, is the authority for all those wild, extravagant, and unjust projects, by which, instead of administration of the cededterritory for all the states, and all the people of the union, it is to be granted to particular states, wasted in schemes of graduation and preëmption, for the benefit of the trespasser, the alien, and the speculator?
The senator from New York, pressed by the argument as to the application of the fund to the separate use of the states, deducible from the phrases in the deed, ‘Virginia inclusive,’ said, that they were necessary, because, without them, Virginia would have been entitled to no part of the ceded lands. No? Were they not ceded to the United States? was she not one of those states? and did not the grant to them include her? Why, then, were the words inserted? Can any other purpose be imagined, than that of securing to Virginia her separate or ‘respective’ proportion? The whole paragraph, cautiously and carefully composed, clearly demonstrates, that, although the fund was to be common, the title common, the administration common, the use and benefit were to be separate among the several states, in the defined proportions.