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 grant was for the benefit of the states, ‘according to their usual respective proportions in the common charge and expenditure.’ Bear in mind the date of the deed; it was in 1784—before the adoption of the present constitution, and whilst the articles of confederation were in force. What, according to them, was the mode of assessing the quotas of the different states towards the common charge and expenditure? It was made upon the basis of the value of all the surveyed land, and the improvements in each state. Each state was assessed according to the aggregate value of surveyed land, and improvements within its limits. After that was ascertained, the process of assessment was this; suppose there were five millions of dollars required to be raised, for the use of the general government, and one million of that five were the proportion of Virginia; there would be an account stated on the books of the general government with the state of Virginia, in which she would be charged with that million. Then there would be an account kept for the proceeds of the sales of the public lands; and, if these amounted to five millions of dollars also, Virginia would be credited with one million, being her fair proportion; and thus the account would be balanced. It is unnecessary to pursue the process with all the other states; this is enough to show that, according to the original contemplation of the grant, the common fund was for the separate benefit of the states; and that, if there had been no change in the form of government, each would have been credited with its share of the proceeds of the public lands in its account with the general government. Is not this indisputable? But let me suppose that Virginia, or any other state, had said to the general government, ‘I choose to receive my share of the proceeds of the public lands into my separate treasury; pay it to me, and I will provide in some other mode more agreeable to me,for the payment of my assessed quota of the expenses of the general government;’ can it be doubted that such a demand would have been legitimate, and perfectly compatible with the deed of cession? Even under our present system, you will recollect, sir, that, during the last war, any state was allowed to assume the payment of its share of the direct tax, and raise it, according to its own pleasure or convenience, from its own people, instead of the general government’s collecting of it.

From the period of the adoption of the present constitution of the United States, the mode of raising revenue, for the expenses of the general government, has been changed. Instead of acting upon the states, and through them upon the people of the several states, in the form of assessed quotas or contributions, the general government now acts directly upon the people themselves, in the form of taxes, duties, or excises. Now, as the chief source of revenue raised by this government is from foreign imports, and as the consumer pays the duty, it is entirely impracticable to ascertain how much of the common charge and general expenditure is contributed by any one state to the union.

By the deed of cession, a great and a sacred trust was created. The general government was the trustee, and the states were the cestui que trust. According to the trust, the measure of benefit accruing to each state from the ceded lands, was to be the measure of burden which it bore in the general charge and expenditure. But, by the substitution of a new rule of raising revenue to that which was in contemplation at the time of the execution of the deed of cession, it has become impossible to adjust the exact proportion of burden and benefit with each other. The measure of burden is lost, although the subject remains, which was to be apportioned according to that measure. Who can now ascertain, whether any one of the states has received, or is receiving a benefit from the ceded lands, proportionate to its burden in the general government? Who can know that we are not daily violating the rule of apportionment prescribed by the deed of cession? To me, it appears clear, that, either from the epoch of the establishment of the present constitution, or certainly from that of the payment of the revolutionary debt, the proceeds of the public lands being no longer applied by the general government, according to that rule, they ought to have been transferred to the states, upon some equitable principle of division, conforming as nearly as possible to the spirit of the cessions. The trustee not being able, by the change of government, to execute the trust agreeably to the terms of the trust, ought to have done, and ought yet to do, that which a chancellor would decree, if he had jurisdiction of the case—make a division of the proceeds among the states, upon some rule, approximating as nearly as practicable to that of the trust. And what rule can so well fulfil this condition, as that which was introduced in the bill which Ipresented to the senate, and which is contained in my colleague’s amendment? That rule is founded on federal numbers, which are made up of all the inhabitants of the United States other than the slaves, and three fifths of them. The south, surely, should be the last section to object to a distribution founded on that rule. And yet, if I rightly understood one of the dark allusions of the senator from South Carolina, (Mr. Calhoun,) he has attempted to excite the jealousy of the north on that very ground. Be that as it may, I can conceive of no rule more equitable than that compound one, and I think that will be the judgment of all parts of the country, the objection of that senator notwithstanding. Although slaves are, in a limited proportion, one of the elements that enter into the rule, it will be recollected that they are both consumers and the objects of taxation.

It has been argued that since the fund was to be a common one, and its administration was to be by the general government, the fund ought to be used also by that government to the exclusion of the states separately. But that is a non sequitur. It may be a common fund, a common title, and a common or single administration; but is there any thing, in all that, incompatible with a periodical distribution of the profits of the fund among the parties for whose benefit the trust was created? What is the ordinary case of tenants in common? There the estate is common, the title is common, the defence against all attacks is common; but the profits of the estate go to the separate use of, and are enjoyed by, each tenant. Does it therefore cease to be an estate in common?

Again. There is another view. It has been argued, from the fact that the ceded lands in the hands of the trustee were for the common benefit, that that object could be no otherwise accomplished, than to use them in the disbursements of the general government; that the general government only must expend them. Now, I do not admit that. In point of fact, the general government would continue to collect and receive the fund, and as a trustee, would pay over to each state its distributive share.

The public domain would still remain in common. Then, as to the expenditure, there may be different modes of expenditure. One is, for the general government itself to disperse it, in payments to the civil list, the army, the navy, and so forth. Another is, by distributing it among the states, to constitute them so many agencies, through which the expenditure is effected. If the general government and the state governments were in two different countries, if they had entirely distinct and distant theatres of action, and operated upon different races of men, it would be another case; but here the two systems of government, although for different purposes, are among the same people, and the constituency of both of them is the same. The expenditure, whether made by the one governmentdirectly, or through the state governments as agencies, is all for the happiness and prosperity, the honor and the glory, of one and the same people.

The subject is susceptible of other illustrations, of which I will add one or two. Here is a fountain of water held in common by several neighbors living around it. It is a perennial fountain; deep, pure, copious, and salubrious. Does it cease to be common because some equal division is made by which the members of each adjacent family dip their vessels into it, and take out as much as they want? A tract of land is held in common by the inhabitants of a neighboring village. Does it cease to be a common property because each villager uses it for his particular beasts? A river is the common highroad of navigation to conterminous powers or states. Does it cease to be common because on its bosom are borne vessels bearing the stripes and the stars, or the British cross? These, and other examples which might be given, prove that the argument, on which so much reliance has been placed, is not well founded, that, because the public domain is held for the common benefit of the states, there can be no other just application of its proceeds than through the direct expenditures of the general government.

I might have avoided most of this consumption of time by following the bad example of quoting from my own productions; and I ask the senate to excuse one or two citations from the report I made in 1834, in answer to the veto message of president Jackson, as they present a condensed view of the argument which I have been urging. Speaking of the cession from Virginia, the report says:

‘This deed created a trust in the United States which they are not at liberty to violate. But the deed does not require that the fund should be disbursed in the payment of the expenses of the general government. It makes no such provision in express terms, nor is such a duty on the part of the trustee fairly deducible from the language of the deed. On the contrary, the language of the deed seems to contemplate a separate use and enjoyment of the fund by the states individually, rather than a preservation of it for common expenditure. The fund itself is to be 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, Virginia inclusive. The grant is not for the benefit of the confederation, but for that of the several states which compose the confederation. The fund is to be under the management of the confederation collectively, and is so far a common fund; but it is to be managed for the use and benefit of the states individually, and is so far a separate fund under a joint management. Whilst there was a heavy debt existing, created by the war of the revolution, and by a subsequent war, there was a fitness in applying the proceeds of a common fund to the discharge of a common debt, which reconciled all; but the debt being now discharged, and the general government no longer standing in need of the fund, there is evident propriety in a division of it among those for whose use and benefit it was originally designed, and whose wants require it. And the committee cannot conceive how this appropriation of it, upon principles of equality and justice among the several states, can be regarded as contrary to either the letter or spirit of the deed.’

The senator from New York, assuming that the whole debt of the revolution has not yet been paid by the proceeds of the publiclands, insists that we should continue to retain the avails of them until a reimbursement shall have been effected of all that has been applied to that object. But the public lands were never set apart or relied upon as the exclusive resource for the payment of the revolutionary debt. To give confidence to public creditors, and credit to the government, they were pledged to that object, along with other means applicable to its discharge. The debt is paid, and the pledge of the public lands has performed its office. And who paid what the lands did not? Was it not the people of the United States?—those very people to whose use, under the guardianship of their states, it is now proposed to dedicate the proceeds of the public lands? If the money had been paid by a foreign government, the proceeds of the public lands, in honor and good faith, would have been bound to reimburse it. But our revolutionary debt, if not wholly paid by the public lands, was otherwise paid out of the pockets of the people who own the lands; and if money has been drawn from their pockets for a purpose to which these lands were destined, it creates an additional obligation upon congress to replace the amount so abstracted, by distributing the proceeds among the states for the benefit and the reimbursement of the people.