32D CONG....2D SESS.

Union-that the citizens of each State have a common interest in the fund, and that Congress is the trustee, charged with the duty of disposing of the lands in such manner as shall best promote the interests of all, without doing injustice to any. The power of Congress over the public domain differs materially from its power over money in the Treasury. If the best interests of the cestui que trust will be promoted by it, it is not only the right of Congress, but it is its duty to give the lands away. But we have not the power to collect money in the form of taxes to give away, for the conclusive reason that the Constitution has not conferred the taxing power for any such purpose, and we cannot appropriate money when collected and in the Treasury for any other object than that for which we were authorized to collect it.. With this view of the power and duty of Congress over the subject, I proceed to consider the merits of the bill. The object sought to be attained by the bill is, that every head of a family shall have and enjoy one hundred and sixty acres of the public land upon his or her making the application in due form, taking an oath that he or she is the head of a family, and not the owner of any estate in lands, and with the additional requirement that the applicant shall occupy and cultivate the same for five consecutive years; that after all these requisites shall have been complied with, a patent shall issue. These are the leading features of the bill.

Mr. President, I am by no means certain that it would not be a money-making operation, having in view its effects on imposts, to give to actual settlers the public lands, in preference to the present mode of selling them at $1 25 per acre. Bear in mind that the Government has adopted the principle of raising revenue for its support almost exclusively from duties on imports. Then go with me to the dwelling of the poor man, who feels that he is but a tenant at will either of the Government or of a wealthy speculator. Observe that man toiling for years upon a rented farm; he pays one third of the proceeds of his labor to his landlord, and nine years out of ten he secures but a scanty subsistence for his family. His improvements, repairs, and cultivation of the soil, are carried on from year to year to meet present wants. Not knowing what a day may bring forth, his labors look not to the future for their fruition. But, sir, let some fortunate turn in his affairs occur, so that he is enabled to secure a freehold in his own right, and you will see him work with a new energy. His improvements are made with a view to permanence, knowing that he, and those who are most dear to him, will reap the benefits of his labors in years to come. His farm is enlarged, his property improves, he begins to count the years when his orchard will yield its various fruits, his garden blooms, his children are educated, he has artificial wants which he knew not before, he is able to purchase and pay for imported goods, and by these means the receipts in your Treasury are swelled far beyond his contribution of two hundred dollars for his one hundred and sixty acres of land, which when once paid, never pays again.

The Homestead Bill-Mr. Adams.

enough to pay for the quarter section on which
they had erected their humble hut, cleared and
fenced a small field. If the speculator should bid
one dollar above the Government price, their home-
stead was swept away, and their wives and chil-
dren left without a shelter to protect them from the
pelting storm. I have witnessed the settler as the
crier, proceeding in numerical order, approached
his tract; I have gazed upon his anxious counte-
nance giving expression to alternate hopes and
fears, while his heart beat responsively to his alarm
and apprehension. And as his home was struck
down to him, I have witnessed the glow of joy
with which his countenance was lit up, as he turned
from the stand and retraced his steps, to convey
the good news to his expectant wife and children,
that his improvement had become the family
homestead. They only can appreciate such a pic-
ture and realize its truth, who have felt the sting
of poverty, and witnessed the scenes I have at-
tempted to describe.

And, sir, it is no fancy sketch that I have pre-
sented to your view, but one of the sober realities
of everyday frontier life. Nay more, sir, the
settler is honest, kind-hearted, and hospitable. If
the stranger or weary traveler calls on him, he is
"taken in," not in any doubtful sense, but with
cheerfulness and a hearty welcome, which more
than compensates for his homely fare. He never
forgets a favor, either from an individual or the
Government. I recollect an occasion at a land
sale, of being requested by some settlers to bid off
their lands for them. I did so. Some years after-
wards I was canvassing for the office of circuit
judge. On approaching a certain neighborhood,
I met a man with whom I was unacquainted, but
when I made myself and the object of my visit
known, he remarked that I need not go into his
neighborhood seeking votes; that they had learned
that I was a candidate; that they remembered me
as having aided some of the settlers in purchasing
their homes, and that they all intended to vote for
me. I did not lose a vote at that box. I allude
to this incident, in passing, to prove the truth of
my remark, that these people are never ungrateful

Sir, I have not overstated the attachment of the settler to his homestead. If misfortune overtakes him, he will surrender all his other property before his homestead. A lady will yield to her husband's creditors her carriage, and other valuables almost without a murmur, but when you come to take the homestead, that spot which has become endeared to her by so many associations, the deep-drawn sigh and the unbidden tear attest the strong hold it has upon the human heart.

Mr. President, I cordially approve the object of this bill, and appreciate the anxiety of its friends for its passage, and I think I shall not fall behind them in any proper effort to make glad the hearts of the poor. But neither this, nor any other object good in itself, should be attained at the expense of justice. I have some objections to the bill, which I shall proceed to state. In the first place, it is not founded on the proper basis. I respectfully subhemit, that the correct principle for the disposition

As many of the Senators from the older States are not personally acquainted with the characters of those who are intended to be the beneficiaries of this bill, and with the privations they are compelled to endure, I shall be pardoned for adverting briefly to them. In the first place, your lands are absolutely worthless in the wilderness, until the pioneer prepares the way for others. By his enterprise and labor he makes the settlement attractive, and your contiguous lands.len-edge Thin Cast on it's overnment. But when you add to this, that our complex yet model Government is maintained and supported by the confidence and affection of the people, we see that it is the highest duty of the Government, no less than its true policy, to afford every facility for its citizens to become freeholders, because by having an interest in the soil, you increase their interest in the Government.

I have witnessed scenes at land sales that convinced me of the love of the settler to his house. I have seen men attend such sales who had encountered all the toils, hardships, and privations of a frontier life; who, knowing the Government price, had managed, by pinching economy, to save barely

and.

of this trust fund, is to sell it to actual settlers at
cost. Let us so dispose of it as to provoke no
complaints from the old States, that they have
paid for these lands, and the new States have
reaped the benefits of them. Graduate the price
according to their value by such a scale as will
restore to the Treasury every dollar of the cost of
acquisition, survey, sale, and incidental expenses;
but let not the Government turn land speenlator
Every principle fur citizens, forbid it. I acknowl-
- nu generosity, as
the plausibility of the claim of the old States to
a portion of the proceeds of sales of the public lands.
But sir, it seems to me that if the people of those
States will reflect upon the privations and toils of
the early settlers in the new States in making the
lands valuable-if they will recollect that these set-
tlers are their children, (for the new States are
composed of emigrants from the old,) they will
come to the conclusion to which I have arrived,
that the lands should not be sold on speculation.
There is something abhorrent to every generous
mind in the idea of this Federal Government spec-
that class of her citizens, too, who have the
ulating upon the homesteads of her citizens, and
strongest claim upon her paternal regard and
fostering care.

"The adventurous and hardy population of the West, besides contributing their equal share of taxation under our impost system, have, in the progress of our Government, for the lands they occupy paid into the Treasury a large pro. portion of $40,000,000, and of the revenue received therefrom but a small part has been expended among them. When, to the disadvantage of their situation in this respect, we add the consideration that it is their labor alone which gives real value to the lands, and that the proceeds arising from their sale are distributed chiefly among States which had not originally any claim to them, and which have enjoyed the undivided emolument arising from the sale of their own lands, it cannot be expected that the new States will remain longer contented with the present policy after the payment of the public debt. To avert the consequences which may be apprehended from this cause, to put an end forever to all partial and interested legislation on this subject, and to afford to every American citizen of enterprise the opportunity of securing an independent freehold, it seems o ine, therefore, best to abandon the idea of raising a future tevenue out of the public lands."

This statement of facts made by President Jackson in his annual message is, to my mind, unanswerable, and I now propose to adopt his recommendation. Twenty years after its delivery I find it to be as true in fact and sound in principle as it was on the day it was read to the two Houses of Congress. I shall at the proper time move to strike out from the enacting clause of the bill and insert the following as a substitute:

That all of the public lands of the United States shall be subject to sale and entry at one dollar per acre, and any portion which shall have been in market for five years or

upwards, prior to the time of application to enter the same under the provisions of this act, and still remaining unsold, shall be subject to sale at the price of seventy five cents per acre; and all the lands of the United States that shall bave been in market for ten years or upwards, as aforesaid, and still remaining unsold, shall be subject to sale at fifty cents per acre; and all of the lands of the United States that shall have been in market for fifteen years or upwards, as afore said, and still remaining unsold, shall be subject to sale at twenty five cents per acre; and all of the lands of the United States that shall have been in market for twenty years and upwards, as aforesaid, and still remaining unsold, shall he subject to sale at ten cents per acre; and all lands of the United States that shall have been in market for twenty-five years or more, shall be subject to sale at five cents per acre: Provided, This section shall not be so construed as to extend to lands reserved to the United States, in acts granting laud to States for railroad or other internal improvements, or to mineral lands held at over one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.

SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That upon every reduction in price, under the provisions of this act, the occupant and settler upon the lands shall have the right of preemption at such graduated price, upon the same terms, conditions, restrictions, and limitations upon which the public lands of the United States are now subject to the right of preemption, until the next graduation or reduction shall take place; and if not so purchased, shall again be subject to right of preemption for twelve months as before, and so on from time to time, as reductions take place: Provided, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to inter

fere with any right which has or may accrue by virtue of any act granting preëmption to actual settlers upon public ands.

c. 10. And be it further enacted, That any person applying enter any of the aforesaid lands under the proviseighth and ninth sections of this act, shall be

ions of b

required to ke affidavit before the register or receiver of
the proper land
ffice, that he or she enters the same for his
or her own use, ah for the purpose of actual settlement and
cultivation, or for the of an adjoining farm or plantation,
owned or occupied by wm or herself, and together with
said entry, he or she has acquired from the United
States, under the provisions of this act, more than three
hundred and twenty acres according to the established sur-
veys; and if any person or persons taking such oath or affi-
davit shall swear falsely in the premises, be or she shall be
subject to all the pains and penalties of perjury: Provided,
That any person entitled to a preemption shall be author
ized to enter forty acres of the public land, to include the
dwelling-house, at ten cents per acre."

Mr. President, in the amendment which I shall propose, I have preserved the principle set forth in General Jackson's message. If it possesses any merit it is due to his memory, not to me. The Treasury. I think it will rather exceed it. But graduation proposed will certainly reimburse the it is impossible to arrive at any certainty either as to the amount of the expenditures or the receipts

surveyed and brought into market, every tract
worth the Government price is entered and paid
for in less than five years, and the sales after that

under a graduation system, such as I propose.
We know, however, that the receipts into the
Treasury from the sales of the public domain
amounted to upwards of one hundred and thirty-test of its value are owing to the improvements of
one millions of dollars in 1847, and now amounts
to near one hundred and forty millions. We
know, too, that the sales of the lands ceded by the
Chickasaws, where alone the graduation principle
has been tested, and the price of the land reduced
to twelve-and-a half cents per acre, has resulted in
bringing into the Treasury a larger sum than the
sales in the same extent of territory anywhere else
has done. Sir, the practical operations of the gradu-
ation system in the Chickasaw cession has often
been the subject of discussion in both ends of this
Capitol, and until the system becomes general,
and its beneficent influence is made to spread over
your whole public domain, it will continue to be
adduc d as triumphant proof that it is the true
principle for the disposition of the public lands.
It is owing to this system that the Chickasaw
counties in Mississippi have become so densely
populated. Thousands of men, poor, no doubt,
but happy, contented, and prosperous, are now
scattered over those counties, whose homestead
have cost them but twenty dollars. For that sum
of money they have been enabled to purchase one
hundred and sixty acres of land—not rich land, it
is true-but having ten or twenty acres of fair
cultivable soil, on which they are now supporting
their families. Search the habitable globe, and I
defy you to find a country where a man is in the
enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, that opens
such facilities to your citizens for becoming free-
holders, as the Chickasaw counties have for many
years presented, in consequence of the system of
graduation in the price of those lands.

Sir, I think my proposition has many advantages over the House bill. In the first place, it does no injustice to any State or individual in the United States. In the next, it does full justice to a meritorious class of our citizens, and I believe, if the sense of those who are intended to be benefited by the act were taken upon the subject, a large majority of them would prefer my amendment to the original bill. The bill gives to the man who has no land one hundred and sixty acres, while his neighbor, who by his industry may have secured a tract of forty acres, is excluded from its benefits because he is not a landless man in the common parlance of the day, and must pay $150 to increase his tract to the size of that of his more fortunate neighbor. It is only necessary to state the objection for every one to see its force. Again: the bill requires the party to reside on the land for five consecutive years before he can be come entitled to his patent. This feature of the bill is very objectionable to many persons. While perhaps every man who settles a tract of new land, fully expects to occupy it continuously for five years, yet it is very repugnant to him to take it clogged with such a condition. He wishes to be at liberty to sell out and settle a new place, should his location prove unhealthy or the neighborhood not be agreeable to him, or for any other cause that suits his fancy. He would greatly prefer paying the price I propose, with the privilege of selling at pleasure, rather than have his land given to him embarrassed with the restrictions of the bill. And more especially is this true, when his homestead can only be obtained by the oath of insolvency. Sir, I have always had an unconquerable aversion to the insolvent debtor's oath. It is galling enough to the just pride of an unfortunate man to be compelled to admit his poverty to creditors, and those who are yet more keenly to suffer by it-wife and children; but it is cruel to compel or require him to go before an officer of the law and swear to it. Many proud-spirited men who would be entitled to the provisions of this act, would refuse it on such terms.

The graduation principle was recommended by President Polk, advocated by Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Walker, passed at different times by this body, and has been sustained by such unanswerable arguments in this and the other branch of Congress, to say nothing of its practical advantages where it has been tested, that I deem it useless to consume the time of the Senate in offering further arguments of my own, or in repeating those of others, in its support. Every Senator is aware of the fact, that when a new country is

the pioneer settlers, by which an enhanced value
is imparted to the contiguous lands. In a vast
number of instances, these contiguous lands be-
come necessary to enlarge the farms of the settlers
for stock ranges, &c., when, in fact, the lands are
not worth, intrinsically, the money paid for them.
In this way, and for these reasons, the Gov-
ernment has extorted millions from her citizens.
I trust no one desires to see it longer continued.
My proposition is a more liberal one to the set-
tler than any that has been heretofore made.
Since the origin of our land system, public senti-
ment has undergone a great change with regard
to the true policy of disposing of the lands. The
first plan was to sell the lands to the highest bid-
der, giving the occupant no preference by pre-
emption or otherwise, and fixing the minimum
price at two dollars per acre. This policy was
pursued till 1820, when it yielded to a more just
and liberal one, by which the price was reduced
to $1 25 per acre, and secured a right of preemp-
tion to the actual settler upon payment of that
sum. Much of your lands have been in market
at that price for thirty years, and remain unsold,
for the obvious reason that it is not worth the
price you ask for it, and I might safely add, never
will be, unless in the progress of railroad im-
provements, a demand should arise in specially-
favored districts of country. The man who would
hold his rich and poor, valuable and valueless
lands at the same inflexible price, would be con-
sidered a very unwise land operator. What would
be unwise in an individual, seeking to increase his
own gains, is surely still more so in the Govern-
ment, which does not or should not seek to re-
plenish its Treasury at the expense of the best
class of its citizens.

As the price was reduced from $2 to $1 25 thir-
ty-three years ago, it is quite time that it should
be reduced to $1 per acre, and then graduated as
proposed by my amendment. If you will adopt
this amendment as a substitute for the original
bill, and the House concurs, as I have no doubt it
will, not a whisper of discontent will be heard
throughout this broad land. Our people have never
been known to complain of Congress for doing
justice to her citizens. By the adoption of this
amendment you will do not only an act of justice, ||
but you place homesteads within the reach of
thousands who cannot obtain them under the pres-
ent law. And what is equally as important, you
present him no temptation to forfeit his self-re-
spect. Men do not like to become paupers upon
the Government, unless I have utterly mistaken
the characters of those with whom I have lived all
my life. I firmly believe that this amendment
would not only be more acceptable to the people
generally, but would be hailed with more joy than
any act of Congress that has passed within the
last thirty years.

Mr. President, it must be obvious to all who
have closely observed the indications of public
opinion, that something must be done with the
public lands; some radical change in our policy
with regard to their disposition must be made.
You have an overflowing Treasury, arising from ||
duties on imports amply sufficient to meet the
most extravagant wants of the Government. We
have, therefore, no excuse for persevering in the
policy of selling these lands at a profit; no just
reason for refusing to act liberally with the settler.
I am confident that if this subject could be fully
understood, and fairly presented to the American
people, and their wishes could be expressed there-
on at the polls, that nine-tenths of them would
say with General Jackson, sell for such sum as
will reimbuse the Treasury, but not on specula-
tion. And if the other sex, man's better half,
were consulted, their vote would be unanimous.
I have said, and repeat, that something must be
done.

It will be recollected that we have on our calen-
dar a bill passed by the House, known as the
Bennett bill, which provides for a distribution of
the lands among the States. There was a time
in our political history when a great party in this
country passed an act for the distribution of the
proceeds of sales of the public lands among the

SENATE.

States. Another party, greater in numbers, re-
sisted the policy, and appealed to the people upon it.
Their opposition to it was ingrafted upon their
platform of principles, and was sustained by the
popular verdict. There it stands yet, with the
seal of the people reversing the policy of distribu-
tion. It cannot be denied that this bill just alluded
to, violates the spirit and intent of that feature
in the platform of principles to which I have re-
ferred. It is substantially the distribution system,
but in a much more objectionable form.
Whig party proposed to divide the proceeds. The
Bennett bill proposes a division of the lands,
thereby making freeholders of the old States and
tenants of the new. The soil of a sovereign State
is proposed to be owned and controlled by thirty
other States; the land to be leased, rented, or sold
for the highest possible price, according to the
whim or caprice of the proprietor. Perhaps the
Senators from Maine could tell us something of
the practical effects.

The

We have heard much said from time to time on the subject of State sovereignty and Federal encroachments; but, in my humble judgment, there never has been a proposition introduced into either branch of Congress since the adoption of the Constitution, which involves a more outrageous violation of the just rights of the States, than the bill to which I have alluded. I have ever been opposed to the doctrine of nullification; but, sir, if any law passed by Congress would justify such resistance, it would be this. For the same reason, I opposed another bill on your calendar, known as Miss Dix's bill. No one appreciates more highly than I do the motives of that most benevolent lady and public benefactress; but I can never consent to make a donation of lands within a sovereign State, to a corporation without its limits. When this is done, you retard the settlement of the country, corrupt the morals of the people, depress the energies, and violate the sovereignty of the State. Congress has in several instances donated alternate sections of the public land to aid in the construction of railroads. This was right and proper, because the lands penetrated by those improvements are thereby enhanced in value, sought after and sold, and the reserved lands sell for more than the whole would have done without the improvement. I am not informed how it is in other States, but the greater portion of the lands granted to the Mobile and Ohio railroad, as well as those reserved to the Government, were not worth one cent per acre, and never would have sold for even that, without the improvement; but with it, they will be valuable. Beside this, the State of Mississippi has already paid into your Treasury immense profits on the entire cost of the lands sold within that State.

If I have not greatly deceived myself, Mr. President, I have shown that if the amendment I propose should be adopted, strict justice will be done to every interest concerned, yet so tempered with mercy that it will be acceptable to this great nation; that it will reimburse the Treasury every dollar expended in the acquisition, survey, and sale of the lands; that it will relieve the Government from the odious character of land speculator upon its own citizens; that it will augment the revenues of the Government by the increased prosperity of our citizens, it being the consumer of goods who pays the duties; and that it will be really more acceptable to those who are intended to be its beneficiaries than the original bill. It will be carrying out the humane recommendation of President Jackson, made twenty years ago. It is substantially the homestead bill without its objectionable features. It will benefit a much larger class of citizens. It will preserve the selfrespect of those who are to enjoy its benefits, and will not be opposed by the people of the old States or the new. These, in my judgment, are sufficient reasons for the adoption of my amendment.

Before concluding, I will invite the attention of the Senate to a significant fact connected with this question. Since this bill has been pending in this body, many petitions have been presented praying its passage; but, so far as I recollect, not one petition has been introduced here from any point south of Philadelphia or west of Cincinnati, except Arkansas. Why is this? How comes it, that the people from the land States as they are called, are not asking the passage of this bill?

The Homestead Bill-Mr. Dodge, of Iowa.

lobby or special delegates to meet Senators and Representatives whenever they go without the bar of their respective Houses, to make interest for them. Several times during the last twenty-five or thirty years, their friends have succeeded in passing through one or the other House of Congress measures similar to this, but not receiving the sanction of both, they fell between them; and say, with feelings of the deepest apprehension and regret, that I believe this, the best bill of the kind which has passed either branch of Congress, is in imminent peril from the inattention or indifference of some of those who ought to be its best friends. I repeat, that twenty-five or thirty years ago the Senate of the United States passed a bill to donate the refuse lands to such persons as would actually inhabit and cultivate the same for a period much shorter than that fixed in the bill spoken at. After a seven years' struggle of the people's Representatives in the other House, that bill, thus assailed in advance in this body, passed. And I now have in my eye its indefatigable and indomitable author, an esteemed friend and member of the House, [Hon. ANDREW JOHNSON, of Tennessee,] to whom, as one deeply sympathizing with him in sentiment, I return my thanks as an Iowa man. He is the type of the men for whom this bill is intended-now a most able and faithful member of Congress, once a mechanic struggling with poverty and working with the hands which God gave him, and expending that sweat by which it was the decree of the Almighty that man should obtain his bread. Cannot those who profess friendship for the people be willing to take his seven years' labor and exertion at least sufficiently long to try the practical operation of this bill:

Let me tell my friends, the Senators from Georgia, [Messrs. CHARLTON and DAWSON,] that I often meet Georgia emigrants in Iowa.

|

The first progressive movement from the original system of selling large tracts, and on credit, was the passage of the act of the 10th of May, 1800, which provided for sales in sections and half sections. This law was certainly one of a most beneficial tendency, and its passage forms an era in the history of this Republic of perhaps greater magnitude and interest than any other in our annals. No other act of the Government has ever borne so immediately upon the settlement, the rapid improvement, and permanent prosperity of the western States. Previous to the year 1820, the United States required two dollars per acreone fourth of which was paid at the time of purchase, and the remainder in three equal annual installments. This mode of selling did not, how-destiny for half a century. Witness the deplorever, work well, and was abandoned in the year last named for the present system and price of $125 per acre. Since then, Congress has, from time to time, modified the system, and reduced,

32D CONG.....2D SESS.

those now constituting the galaxy of the American Union.

The Homestead Bill-Mr. Dodge, of Iowa.

The

Mr. President, the homestead bill, so called, comes to us with a strong indorsement from the people's Representatives. It passed the House, after having been before that body for nearly seven years, during which time it was considered and discussed in nearly all its aspects and bearings. It is emphatically a measure of progress, and one which I think, if enacted into a law, is destined to produce benefits to our whole country. In examining the objections which have been urged against this measure, I am astonished to perceive that they are but a repetition of those which were made against every preemption and graduation bill that has ever been brought before Congress since the commencement of our land system; and yet, at this day, so great has been the triumph of correct principles, that few, if any, can be found who will raise their voices against preemption or graduation. Try this measure in its practical workings for but a few years, and like results, I venture to predict, will be produced. This homestead bill is but a just tribute to agricultare-that first, noblest, and God-favored calling of man. It is the only measure at all likely to come before Congress for the benefit of those who till the earth for a support; and this consideration, of itself, is sufficient to commend it to my support. It will not only be an evidence of the favor with which Congress views the cultivation of the soil, but it will tend greatly to increase the number of those engaged in that pursuit, thus augmenting the productions of our country, and the comfort, independence, and happiness of our people. Some think that it will destroy the receipt of all revenues from the public domain. In this opinion 1 do not concur. Indeed, I may say, I fear they are mistaken; for I have long been of the opinion that the best interest of the Republic demand an abolition of the auction or private sales of the public domain, and that it should be conveyed only to those who design to settle upon and improve it. The gigantic and ruinous speculations in the public lands in 1835-'36, to which I have before alluded, can never be forgotten in the history of this country. It was in the year last named that the late distinguished Secretary of the Treasury, R. J. Walker-then a Senator from Mississippi-brought forward a bill in this body to put an end to all speculation in the public domain, and to restrict its sale to actual settlers and culti-fact, that a large number of our citizens abandoned vators. It was the measure of a statesman, and, if it had been adopted, would, I humbly conceive, have wrought great benefits to our whole

country.

The fact, so often mentioned, that a poor man can now buy one hundred and sixty acres of land for $200, is, according to the conceptions of my mind, no objection to this bill. There are many thousands of families in this country-good and deserving people-who never saw the day, and never will see it, when they will have that sum, or the half, or the fourth of it, ready to pay down for a quarter section, an eighty acre, or a forty acre tract. I further give it as my earnest belief, that no one hundred and sixty acres, in a state of nature, on the extreme verge of civilization, is worth $200 to him who buys for no other purpose than settlement and improvement. I think the policy of holding on to the public domain, with a view to extorting the last dollar from the cultivator, unwise and impolitic. I can quote eminent authority to show that it is so. Hear the great Edmund Burke, who said, in the British Parlia

ment:

"A landed estate is certainly the very worst which the Crown can possess." "All minute and dispersed possessions-possessions that are often of indeterminate value, and which require a continued personal at tendance-are of a nature more proper for private managemeat than for public administration. They are fitter for the care of a frugal land steward than of an office in the State." * * "If it be objected that these lands, at present, will sell at a low market, this is answered by showing that money is at a high price. The one balances the other. Lands sell at the current rate, and nothing can sell for more. But be the price what it may, a great object is always answered, whenever any property is transferred from hands which are not fit for that property to those that are. The buyer and the seller must mutually profit by such a bargain; and, what rarely happens in matters of revenue, the relief of the subject will go hand in hand with the profit of the Exchequer."* "The revenue to be derived from the sale of the forest lands will not be considerable as many have imagined; and I conceive it would be un

wise to screw it up to the utmost, or even to suffer bidders
to enhance, according to their eagerness, the purchase of
objects wherein the expense of that purchase may weaken
the capital to be employed in their cultivation. The prin
cipal revenue which I propose to draw from these unculti-
vated wastes, is to spring from the improvement and popu-
lation of the kingdom; events infinitely more advantageous
to the revenues of the Crown than the rents of the best
landed estate which it can hold."
"It is thus I
would dispose of the unprofitable landed estates of the
Crown: throw them into the mass of private property; by
which they will come, through the course of circulation,
and through the political secretions of the State, into well
regulated revenue."
"Thus would fall an ex-
pensive agency, with all the influence which attends it."
But I have higher authority than even that of
England's great statesman. We are commanded
in that book which should be the rule of life for
all, not to glean either the "sheaf," the "grape,"
the "olive," or the "corners of the land."
soil of a country is the gift of the Creator to his
creatures, and in a government of the people,
that gift should not become the object of specula-
tion and monopoly. I am strongly of the belief
that these donations will work great good both to
the Government and the people. All other Gov-
ernments have made them. The domain of the
United States is the only one, I believe, for which
pay was ever demanded in gold and silver, before
it could be settled and cultivated. Different was
the conduct of other Governments, and even that
of the States owning and: Kentucky, Tennessee,
and one third of Ohio, and a considerable portion
of Georgia-if my information be correct-were
settled by free grants of land. Upper and Lower
Louisiana, and the two Floridas, as I have before
remarked, were settled by gratuitous donations
from the Kings of Spain. Since those countries
have become ours, the early settlers, to whom these
grants were made, have been harassed and an-
noyed by having their titles contested by the Uni-
ted States officers in the courts, and in every other
conceivable manner. Very different has been the
policy of the conterminous and other Govern-
ments on this continent. Are not the British
lands in Canada given at this day to all who will
come and take them? In 1825, the British Parlia-
ment, with a view to the strengthening of a remote
province, appropriated £30,000 sterling (nearly
$135,000) to pay the expenses of emigrants moving
to Canada. Look at what Mexico and Texas
have done. They have given land in immense
quantities to any one who would go and take it
within their limits. It is a well-known historical
this, the land of their nativity, and the freest
Government on earth, many years since, about
the time that Austin went to Texas, and accepted
the landed bounty of foreign, and at that time des-
potic Governments-their own offering none.

In the West Indies, and all over South America,
the same liberal system of disposing of the public
domain has prevailed. I read from a decree of the
Republic of Colombia, dated June, 1823:

"The Senate and House of Representatives of the Republic of Colombia, united in Congress, considering: 1st. That a population, numerous and proportionate to the territory of a State is the basis of its prosperity and true greatness; 2nd. That the fertility of the soil, the salubrity of the climate, the extensive unappropriated lands, and the free institutions of the Republic, permit and require a numerous emigration of useful and laboring strangers, who, by improving their own fortunes, may augment the revenues of the nation, have decreed:

"That foreigners emigrating to Colombia shall receive gratuitous donations of land, in parcels of two hundred fanegas (about four hundred acres) to each family. That it may be chosen in the middle or the mountainous districts, in the regions favorable to the production of sugar, coffee, cocoa, indigo, rice, cotton, wheat, barley, rye, and all the varieties of fruits, both of tropical and high latitudes. That five years' cultivation shall entitle a foreigner to naturalization. That $1,000,000 be appropriated in aid of agriculture, to be distributed in loans to industrious farmers."

Such was the conduct of the free Republics of South America. All of them did the same;-but it is unnecessary to cite their numerous laws to that effect. Throughout the New World, from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn, (with the single exception of these United States,) land, the gift of God to man, is also the gift of the Government to those who will improve it. This wise policy has not been circumscribed to the New World-it has even prevailed in Asia.

The King of Persia published, in the London newspapers in 1823, a proclamation, from which I read:

"Mirza Mahomed Saul, Embassador to England, in the

SENATE.

name, and by the authority of Abbys Mirza, King of Persia, offers to those who shall emigrate to Persia, gratuitous grants of land, good for the production of wheat, barley, rice, cotton, and fruits, free from taxes or contributions of any kind, and with the free enjoyment of their religion, the King's object being to improve his country."

The object here stated by the Persian King, to improve his country, is one worthy to be observed and imitated. Shall this Government, the creature of the people, and made for their benefit, be less wise in its policy, and less generous to its citizens than the despotisms of the Old World, or the Republics of the New? I trust not! Land was given, not sold, in that country which was the peculiar care of God. "God gave the earth to the inhabitants thereof." The promised land was a gift to the children of Israel; one dollar and twenty-five cents the acre was not demanded for it; nor the actual cultivator expelled from his home, if he possessed not the two hundred dollars to pay down for the one hundred and sixty acres, and his home sold, under the hammer, to the highest bidder; land was then the gift of God to man, and to woman also; for the daughters of Manasseh were permitted to inherit and partake of the bounty of the Giver of all good.

Mr. President, to show the evils of the present land system, I call your attention to a letter from the Commissioner of the General Land Office respecting the State of Missouri. From this letter it is seen that that State contains a superficial area of about 65,037 square miles, or 41,623,680 acres; of this quantity 17,125,174 acres have been sold, and 188,901 acres absorbed by Spanish and French grants, leaving 24,309,605 acres unsold upon the 30th day of June last, according to the Commissioner's statement now before me.

Under the present wretched system of disposing of the public lands, the first sales in Missouri took place in 1818. Thus, if it has taken thirty-four years for the Federal Government to sell 17,125,174 acres, by the same ratio, estimating by the rule of proportion, it will take forty-eight years to dispose of the remaining lands in that State. The 24,309,635 acres, divided by 160, the quantity given to each settler under this bill, would add to the population of the State 151,935 land-owning and tax-paying inhabitants.

In Michigan the state of things is even worse, as is seen from the following letter of the Commis. sioner of the General Land Office:

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, February 25, 1853.
SIR: In reply to your inquiries of this date, I have the
honor to inform you that the first public sale of lands in
Michigan was made in the year 1818. From that date to
the 30th June last, a period of thirty-four years, there was
sold and located by land warrants 9,858,670 acres. On the
30th June last there remained undisposed of the quantity of
19,679,811 acres. Estimating the future by the past, it will
sixty-eight years.
require, to dispose of this remaining land, a period of about

With great respect, your obedient servant,
JOHN WILSON, Commissioner.
Hon. A. C. DODGE, U. S. Senate.

These are but fair samples of the injury inflicted upon the West by the present system. Is there any Senator so dead to the interests of Missouri and Michigan as to wish to prolong this state of things?

To show how much the advantages of this bill are overrated, I call attention to the fact, that a few years since we passed a law granting to settlers in Oregon, free of cost, and on condition of settlement and five years' occupancy, much larger quantities of land than are proposed to be given by this bill; and yet you find the people, owing to the abundance of money, caused by the discovery of gold in California, asking a repeal of the restriction, and that they be permitted to pay for their lands. Such a law has been passed during the present session, and those settlers now have their option of purchase or conditional gift. I only refer to this circumstance to show that the conditions imposed by the homestead bill are rigorous, and are so regarded by its beneficiaries-those at least of them who are so fortunate as to accumulate the means necessary to pay for their claims before the expiration of the five years.

The constitutional power to pass the homestead bill I regard as clearly conferred. Its language is: "Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting, the territory of other property belonging to the United States."

What more needful rule and regulation could be established than settlement and cultivation? And