SPEECH 
 
 O F 
 
 HON. JOHN L. HAW SON, 
 
 OF PENNSYL 
 
 T A SI A, 
 
 ON 
 
 THE HOMEST 
 
 SAD BILL 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ON TUESDAY 
 
 FEBRUARY 
 
 4 , 1854 . 
 
 I 
 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 PRINTED BY ROBERT ARMSTRONG. 
 
 1854. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/speechofhonjohnl00daws_2 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 3>3 
 
 The House beiug in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, (Mr. Olds in tho 
 chair,) and having under consideration the bill (No. 37) reported from the Committee on Agri¬ 
 culture by Mr. Dawson, “ to encourage Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures, and all other 
 branches of industry, by granting to every man who is the head of a family and a citizen of the 
 United States, a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres of land, out of the public domain, 
 upon condition of occupancy and cultivation of the same for a certain specified period ”— 
 
 Mr. DAWSON addressed the House as follows: 
 
 Mr. Chairman : The disposition of the public domain, and especially 
 in the mode suggested and provided for in the bill now under consid¬ 
 eration, and commonly known as the “ Homestead bill,” involves a 
 policy of vast importance, and which, I trust, will receive the full de¬ 
 liberation as well as the favorable action of this House. Whether con¬ 
 sidered with reference to the change which it proposes in our land 
 polic}^, to its effects in developing the resources of the nation, or to the 
 benefits which it proposes to confer upon a large class of our fellow- 
 citizens, who yet merit this treatment at our hands, there is none to 
 which the proposition contained in this bill yields in importance. 
 
 I propose, upon this occasion, to offer little more in the w r ay of argu¬ 
 ment and illustration to what I had the honor of before advancing in 
 this place upon the subject under consideration. But I confess to an 
 interest in the principles of this bill, and their enactment into law. 
 which is paramount, I will venture to say, to every other which, at the 
 present session, is at all likely to engageour attention. The persuasion 
 that it is a measure of great public interest; the consciousness that, as 
 a legislative body, we possess the power of benefiting, to an incalcula¬ 
 ble extent, both physically and morally, and for generations yet to come, 
 a large class of our fellow-men ; while, at the same time, the nation at 
 large is strengthened and improved in a still greater degree, both so¬ 
 cially and as a State, is sufficient to awaken in us the patriotic desire 
 that this power may be speedily exerted. An enlarged and liberal 
 view of the varied interests of society, a common country and a com¬ 
 mon destiny, invoke us with a voice all too loud for denial, for the 
 establishment of a measure at once so wholesome and just. The deep 
 interest which, in these aspects of the measure, I feel in its success, is 
 the cause of my again pressing it upon your consideration. 
 
 That we may proceed more intelligently in the further discussion of 
 the subject, it may be expedient to advert briefly to the state in which 
 it was left by the debates of the last session. And, in the first place, 
 I would notice the objections which, with such indefatigable diligence 
 and research, and such pre-eminent ability, it has been attacked both in 
 this House and the other wing of the Capitol. If those able objectors 
 have not shown conclusive reasons for rejecting this measure, it can 
 onty be because the reasons for its passage are irresistible and over¬ 
 whelming. 
 
 The objections have been as various as the local interests, real or 
 imagined, which, with a policy much too narrow for the question, they 
 have been so pertinaciously urged, while the great opposing argument has 
 
4 
 
 been based upon an anxious avowal of regard for the integrity and pu¬ 
 rity of the constitution. 
 
 While the language of the constitution, in the third section of the 
 fourth article, is plain and explicit in its grant of power over the whole- 
 subject of the public domain, we think it right to regard the conditions 
 imposed by the deeds of cession from the States of Massachusetts, Con¬ 
 necticut, New York, and South Carolina, as abrogated by this full grant 
 of power. If embraced at all in the term engagements in another 
 clause, by which it is sought to restrain this power, it surely can have 
 no application to those cessions, as in the case of North Carolina and 
 Georgia, made after the adoption of the federal compact, and those im¬ 
 measurably greater tracts of territory embraced in the purchase of 
 Louisiana from France, under the treaty of 1803, and of the Floridas 
 from Spain, under the treaty of 1819, and the immense regions of Cal¬ 
 ifornia and New Mexico, acquired by the triumph of our arms—by the 
 blood of the patriot, and the common treasure of the country. To ob¬ 
 tain a uniform rule of construction, then, with reference to the whole of 
 the public domain, it is as unphilosophical as unnecessary to look fur¬ 
 ther than this grant of the constitution, which is plenary over the whole 
 subject. 
 
 But, admitting the binding force of the deeds of cession to the full 
 extent claimed for them by those who make them the ground of their 
 opposition, and what is the requirement imposed by those unyielding 
 conditions'? It is, in substance, that the proceeds of the ceded terri¬ 
 tories shall be applied for the “general welfare,” and thus the whole 
 question is resolved into one of expediency. 
 
 It has been alleged that these lands are all pledged to the creditors 
 of the government, and that we have no right to diminish their security. 
 That although they have reimbursed the value paid lor them, and the 
 expenses of survey and management, and have returned during the 
 half century past a net proceed to the treasury of more than fifty mil¬ 
 lions of dollars, the lands are still encumbered with the various liens of 
 the government creditors. A heavy national debt of more than fifty- 
 six millions of dollars, it is said, hangs over us, besides other millions 
 to claimants for French spoliations, which we impair our resources to 
 meet, by granting the public lands in limited quantities to actual settlers. 
 
 These, and the construction of a vast naval power, and most ex¬ 
 pensive system of coast defences, have been held up as the legitimate 
 sinks for all the proceeds of these lands for all time to come. But in 
 opposition to this view, it can be shown that with a treasury overflow¬ 
 ing—$15,514,589 75 of the national debt anticipated and redeemed 
 since the 4th of March last—$7,391,708 20 of which at a premium oi 
 21 per cent., and an accumulated surplus on the 8th of February 
 instant, subject to draft, of $25,029,046 29 still in the national exchequer, 
 the proceeds of the customs afford the most ample security to the pub¬ 
 lic creditor. 
 
 But, sir, the great argument so long urged, and with such pretence 
 of reason, that the creditors of the government would, by such a 
 measure as this, lose the main security for their loans, has, by the ex¬ 
 tinction of the debt of the Revolution, for the discharge of which they 
 were specially pledged by the deeds of cession, lost all its point and 
 
tmf 
 
 o 
 
 vigor. And if we still have some millions of public debt, all of recent 
 origin, who now seriously thinks of this in comparison with the variety 
 and extent of our financial resources as offering an obstacle to expendi¬ 
 ture, for whatever purpose sought? 
 
 But granting, for the sake of argument, that all the claims just men¬ 
 tioned are worthy of our attention, it can be very easily shown that we 
 do not, by the passage of this bill, impair our ability to meet those de¬ 
 mands. It requires but little observation to know that land in the 
 wilderness, or in an unsettled or unimproved locality, acquires value 
 just in proportion as that locality may b£ dotted with settlements and 
 improvements. Suppose, then, that of the nine millions of quarter-sec¬ 
 tions which the government owns, exclusive of that in California and 
 New Mexico, one million of alternate quarter-sections shall be occupied 
 by actual settlers within the next ten or twenty years under the opera¬ 
 tion of this bill, then it is not at all extravagant to calculate that in the 
 same space of time the million of intervening quarter-sections will be 
 at least doubled in value; so that by tfye time the government is dis¬ 
 posed to sell, her landed resources will be the same as before. This 
 assumption has sustained the policy and formed the basis upon which 
 Congress, by numerous grants, has given, for the construction of canals, 
 railroads, internal improvements, and the improvement of navigable 
 streams, 18,553,700 acres, while the aggregate donations and grants in 
 the several States and Territories up to the 30th June, 1853, amounts 
 to 129,195,983.* * * § 
 
 * Statement of donations, grants, 8?c., of public lands in the several States and Territories up to 
 
 the 30 th June, 1853. 
 
 States and Terri¬ 
 tories. 
 
 Donations and grants 
 for schools, univer¬ 
 sities, &c. 
 
 Grants for deaf and 
 dumb asylums. 
 
 Grants for internal im- ; 
 provements. 
 
 _ i 
 
 r/j 
 
 *5 
 
 »*■' ^ 
 
 •jZ ci 
 
 .£ 2" 
 
 £ § 
 
 (mm 
 
 oj 
 
 o 
 
 » O 
 
 m 
 
 o 
 
 W -3 
 
 ri 5 
 a to , 
 
 ■-m C SC 
 ,0 5C 
 
 3 2§ 
 
 CL Qj 
 
 , r K 
 
 W 
 
 Grants for military ser- j 
 vices. 
 
 Swamp lands granted 
 to States. 
 
 1 
 
 Railroad grants. 
 
 O'! 
 
 E- 
 
 Ohio .. 
 
 Indiana. 
 
 Illinois. 
 
 Missouri. 
 
 Alabama. 
 
 Mississippi. 
 
 Louisiana. 
 
 Michigan. 
 
 Arkansas. 
 
 Florida. 
 
 Iowa. 
 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 California. 
 
 727,528 
 673:357 
 1,001,795 
 1,222,179 
 925,814 
 860,624 
 832,124 
 l. 113,477 
 '932,540 
 954.583 
 95 g 224 
 1,004,728 
 6,765,404 
 5,089,244 
 12,186,987 
 7,493,120 
 6,681,707 
 
 21,949 
 
 2,097 
 
 20,924 
 
 1,243,001 
 1,609,861 
 500,000 
 500'000 
 500,000 
 500,000 
 500,000 
 1,250.000 
 500,000 
 500,000 
 fl,385,078 
 929,736 
 500.000 
 J340:000 
 . 
 
 32,141 
 
 843 
 
 954 
 
 1,981 
 15,965 
 8,412 
 4.080 
 139;366 
 52.; 114 
 18,226 
 5,705 
 
 2, .760 
 2,360 
 2,360 
 1,620 
 1,980 
 
 13,’ 900 
 10,600 
 6,940 
 
 3, MO 
 6,400 
 
 1,771,263 
 1.200,656 
 8,745,930 
 2,131,963 
 740,084 
 155.383 
 507,470 
 946.803 
 1,627.433 
 272;519 
 4,284,173 
 2,360,937 
 
 §25,640 
 §1.286,827 
 ||1:833.412 
 §2,178,716 
 §2,595 
 §1,824,812 
 §9,771,275 
 §6,788,124 
 §8,690,016 
 §2,065,605 
 §71,958 
 | j 1,259,269 
 Noestimat 
 
 2,595,053 
 2,442,240 
 '230.400 
 549,120 
 
 2,189,200 
 
 • ••••••••a 
 
 • «•••• •••• 
 
 e or report. 
 
 3,799,575- 
 4,774,106 
 14,679,706 
 8,477,658 
 2,424,445 
 3,907,184 
 11,619,282 
 10,115,685 
 li; 091,253 
 3,871,986 
 6,714,500 
 . 5,566,775 
 7,265,404 
 5,526,604 
 12,186,987 
 7,493,120 
 6,681,707 
 
 Minnesota Ter... 
 Oregon. 
 
 
 
 
 97,360 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 New Mexico. 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 Utah. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Northwest. 
 
 
 
 
 r < 
 
 
 
 Nebraska. 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 j 
 
 
 
 
 Indian. 
 
 
 
 
 
 • * f • • 1. 
 
 
 
 
 Totals. 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 49,416,435 
 
 1 
 
 *44,971 10,757,677 
 
 279,792 
 
 1 
 
 50,860 24,841,979 
 
 1 
 
 35,798,254 
 
 8,006,013 
 
 129,195,985 
 
 NoTii.— Fractional parts arc omitted in some of the above columns, but are aggregated in the totals. 
 
 * Not finally closed. 
 
 j Includes t he estimated quantity of 560,000 acres of the Des Moines river grant, situated in this State between* 
 the Racoon Fork and source of said river. 
 
 t 1 s the estimated quantity of 340,000 acres of the Dcs Moines river grant, situate in this Territory as above. 
 
 § Repoited by State authorities. 
 
 J] Estimated. 
 
6 
 
 But, sir, it was also shown at the last session, with a fullness of de¬ 
 tail which renders it unnecessary that I should dwell upon it now, that, 
 with a view of enhancing the general receipts into the treasury, by 
 stimulating production and extending the basis of our national com¬ 
 merce, the ability of the government, under our present revenue 
 system of thirty per cent., to meet all the expenditures warranted by a 
 just administration, would be largely increased; and, to that end, the 
 scheme proposed is the very best which could be adopted. It has 
 been argued, again, that the passage of such a measure will tend, in 
 Its operation, to the injury of investments already made in agriculture, 
 by reducing the price of improved lands, and by over-production. I 
 believe that such fears are entirely groundless. The number of persons 
 who could avail themselves of the benefits of this bill are too few in 
 comparison, and their effort to do so would be too gradual, to produce 
 any marked effect of the kind apprehended. The cultivated lands of 
 the old States are too remote irom the wild lands of the West and 
 -South to feel the effect of the competition. It may be added, too, that 
 In the frontier settlements some years elapse before the production ex¬ 
 ceeds the consumption. An additional and forcible answer to the 
 objection is to be found in the geographical position of the old States— 
 their contiguity and approximation to the seaboard—their accumulated 
 wealth, and the energy with which they are constantly opening new 
 avenues of communication, affording a quick and convenient transit for 
 all kinds of agricultural products. The history of the times, our ex¬ 
 tended and extending commerce, with the condition of the markets, 
 and the high prices which every species of agricultural production 
 commands, is an illustration of this truth. 
 
 The year 1847 was distinguished as the “famine year,” and for high 
 prices. Since then, and up to the 30th of June, 1S53, the government 
 has disposed of for cash, and in grants to the States of swamp lands for 
 schools, for railroads, for bounty lands actually located, 114,746,000 
 •acres of the public lands, five per cent, of which, it may be assumed, 
 has been brought under cultivation; and, with a tenfold increased fa¬ 
 cility of reaching the seaboard, prices are largely maintained, agricul¬ 
 ture is eminently prosperous, and the price of improved lands every¬ 
 where advancing. 
 
 It is contended, indeed, that instead of being a bill for the encourage¬ 
 ment of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, as it proposes, this 
 would be more truly denominated a bill for the destruction of all those 
 great interests. It is said that the people are the best judges of their 
 own interests, and that inducements held out to interfere with the reg¬ 
 ular course of industry, or to divert it from its old channels, are founded 
 on false notions of political economy, and fraught with evil. Agricul¬ 
 ture will suffer, manufactures will suffer, by an abstraction of labor 
 from their respective pursuits. We trust to have shown the unreasona¬ 
 bleness of the objection as regards the first of these interests. Let us 
 consider a moment how stands the case with the others. 
 
 Manufactures, it is to be remembered, are carried on chiefly in the 
 thickly-populated districts of the country, and especially in the large 
 cities, where there is a numerous population that have no regular means 
 of procuring their daily bread. It is very apparent that the with- 
 
7 
 
 drawal of a large class of the laboring population from these pursuits 
 will only make room for another class st 11 more needy. It was never, 
 for a moment, supposed that such persons would be enabled immedi¬ 
 ately to settle in crowds on the public l^nds. It is enough if the door of 
 hope be thrown open to them ,* enough Ithat from the degradation of 
 social inequality a pathway may be afbrded them to a higher and 
 better condition. Such hopes, I believe will be presented by the grad-. 
 ual withdrawal of those among the laboring classes who, having the 
 means and the inclination, betake themselves to an agricultural life, 
 and by the consequent demand for new! persons to fill the places of 
 those who have left. Nor can it be saic that such an effect would be 
 but temporary, and that the evils which were for the moment removed 
 by the operation of this measure woild presently return with in¬ 
 creased malignity. Make this bill yoir permanent policy, and the 
 social system having once been corrected and strengthened by its 
 working, will, from a continuance of the cause, be likely to be kept 
 so. 
 
 But while it will be no worse for tb3 manufacturing interest while 
 this change is taking place, it will certainly tend greatly to the advan¬ 
 tage of that interest when the change siall have been once completed. 
 This, because with every additional settler upon the public lands, 
 springs up, of course, an additional demand for the products of manu¬ 
 factures. 
 
 But whatever benefits the agriculturd and manufacturing interests 
 must, in a corresponding degree, assist those of commerce, which is 
 only the agent for distributing the products of both the others. And 
 thus it would seem, at last, that the trufe character of this measure was 
 not inaptly proclaimed by its title. 
 
 To proceed, however, to a more specific detail of the general objec¬ 
 tion, let me first observe, by the way, that if we may suppose that the 
 momentary effects of the bill were ho tile to the interests just men¬ 
 tioned, would it not be as just that capial should feel that momentary 
 inconvenience, as that labor—industry--should forever struggle against 
 a disadvantage not self-induced, but ar incident of that inequality of 
 condition which is the result ot all human society hitherto, and effected 
 in many cases, it may be, by an unequil system of legislation? Allow 
 me to say, that if this bill be, as some 1 muld allege, a bonus from capi¬ 
 tal to labor, it is one which she can w<ll afford to make, and which 
 will be returned with a satisfactory interest. 
 
 But it has been urged, again, that 
 
 this bill embodies a mistaken 
 
 policy with reference to its beneficiaries. It is said you cannot force 
 men into any pursuit against their inclination or natural fitness for it; 
 that most of the persons whom suchla measure as this might be ex¬ 
 pected to benefit are unfit, both physijcally and by education, or pre¬ 
 vious pursuits, for tilling the earth. IiJsupport of this view, we are re¬ 
 ferred to the case of the British soldiers who were donated lands on the 
 St. John’s river, in New Brunswick, and which shows, it is thought, by 
 its present thriftless condition, the absurdity of attempting by bounties to 
 make valuable cultivators of the soil. But the example is surely un¬ 
 fortunate for the cause of the objectors. Because a regiment of British 
 soldiers—a class of people everywhere averse to all civil pursuits— 
 
8 
 
 presented with a small strip of land in an inhospitable valley of the 
 Northeast, and under monarchical institutions, fail, as an experiment, 
 therefore it is iutile and ridiculous, by conferring lands upon actual 
 settlers in the United States, allowing them unrestricted liberty ot 
 choice through almost twenty degrees of latitude, and with the most 
 genial climate, and institutions the most desirable ever established in 
 any nation, to hope for a better result! I apprehend that but little 
 force will accompany such reasoning to the minds of Americans. A 
 similar two-fold application has that maxim which we have frequently, 
 in the course of the debate upon the bill, heard urged with confidence 
 as conclusive against its provisions. We are told that we cannot do 
 indirectly what we cannot da directly; that as it is only indirectly 
 that this measure can pretend to benefit the great interests of the 
 country, that, therefore, this objection is fatal to its pretensions. This 
 sort of view seems, with some gentlemen, to apply well enough when 
 the public lands are under consideration; but its point seems quite for¬ 
 gotten when the question is corcerning the benefits which the system of 
 high duties confers upon the inlustry of the country; though if it do so 
 at all, it must be indirectly. No one can doubt that the protective 
 policy takes money from the consumer; whether it afterwards restores 
 more than it takes, is another cuestion. 
 
 Another objection to this measure is the effect which it is expected 
 to have in reducing not only ttm price of lands in the old States, but of 
 all the grants heretofore made in the new States, whether for eleemosv- 
 nary or educational purposes ; or internal improvements, or as military 
 bounty lands. What with such ostentatious benevolence, it is said, 
 you bestow with one hand, in entire recklessness of good faith, y r ou 
 with the other retract. The old soldier, instead of being presented 
 with bread, will find that he has received nothing but a “stone.” This 
 would indeed prove a formidable objection, if were anything more than 
 what might be supposed to present itself at the first blush of the subject, 
 but which a very little reflecton might well be supposed to dissipate. 
 But lor one feature of the bill, iideed, the force of the objection could not 
 well be gainsaid. With the restriction, however, that the public lands 
 shall be occupied by actual settlers only in alternate quarter-sections, . 
 we believe the interests ol former recipients of the public bounty will 
 enjoy ample protection. By the grams of alternate sections to rail¬ 
 roads, and by similar grants o' quarter-sections to actual settlers now 
 proposed, there is still the same quantity of lands which cannot be 
 settled under the operation o:’ either class of grants reserved to the 
 government. All these alternate sections of the government, which by 
 the construction of public improvements, and by those of actual 
 settlers, will be speedily and greatlv enhanced in value, can only be 
 purchased at high prices at public sale, or else taken up by land war¬ 
 rants. This liability to absorption by land warrants it is which must 
 forever prevent the depreciation of the latter ; for it is by means of them 
 alone that lands which will often be worth several times the govern¬ 
 ment price of $1 25 per acre, can be obtained only at the market value 
 of the warrant. So, also, everywhere in the vicinity ot these settle¬ 
 ments in the new States and the Territories the value of improved lands 
 will naturally increase. It is not merely the fact of getting the land for 
 
9 
 
 nothing which is going to tempt multitudes into the wilderness. The 
 superior advantages in point of education and physical comfort will 
 weigh with many who possess the means to stop short among populous 
 communities. It is not every one who wishes, any more than he is 
 capacitated, to enter into a struggle with the primitive forests and the 
 prairie wilds. 
 
 Other objections to the bill in its present shape are, the restraint im¬ 
 posed by the second section upon alienation, the condition of live years’ 
 residence before the occupant can receive a title to the land, and the 
 exempting of it from sale for debts contracted previous to the settle¬ 
 ment. Ail such restrictions, it has been urged, are against the whole 
 policy of our laws, and most unwise. It is expected, too, that when 
 the Territories are erected into States, these conditions imposed by the 
 general government will interfere or conflict with the local laws, and 
 also that they will tend to create a perpetuity of the same kind as the 
 English system of entails. We have been told, that where the grantor 
 parts with his whole interest in the grant, it is contrary to the rule of 
 the common law that he should at the si me time be permitted, in any 
 wise, to tie up the hands of the grantee; xnd that from the right of Con¬ 
 gress, taking it in its fullest latitude, to cispose of the public territory, 
 the right of disposing of it, so contrary to our common law system, 
 cannot reasonably be inferred. But what does this restriction amount 
 to? Why, merely that lor five years tke settler shall not receive his 
 title. In accordance with the great object which she has steadily pur¬ 
 sued from the beginning, the government makes him a grant of land 
 upon condition of settlement, and only exacts that it shall be a bona 
 fide settlement, by making five years’ residence and cultivation the evi¬ 
 dence of this. Is such a restriction, so manifestly for the benefit of the 
 public as of the individual, inconsistent vith the policy of the common 
 law? And the condition which prevent; the land from coming under 
 legal sale for any debt contracted previous to the reception of the 
 patent for the land—is there anything more in this than the enabling the 
 settler to start clear of incumbrances, which would otherwise, in many 
 cases, paralyze his efforts to improve his condition, even though aided 
 by this kindly provision of his government? 
 
 But—as regards the position that grants with such conditions an¬ 
 nexed are unknown to our law—what, I:t us ask, are the deeds ol ces¬ 
 sion themselves which have been so mu:h in the mouths ol gentlemen 
 in connexion with this subject, and by w iich the old States ceded their 
 wild lands to the general government? Did those deeds not part with 
 the whole interest of the grantors in thoie lands, and vet was it not ac- 
 companied with the condition that the proceeds of those lands should 
 be applied for the “general welfare ?” Then, by the operation of this 
 rule, it appears that these much mooted conditions are at last invalid, 
 and that the grants from the States inure to the general government 
 unincumbered with conditions. 
 
 It is urged, however, that by thus J’etaining a control over these 
 lands after they shall have become State property, and liable to State 
 taxation, a conflict between the State and general government may be 
 anticipated. And yet, by the ordinance of 1787, by which an immense 
 territory was converted into States, the general government still retains 
 
10 
 
 in these States large bodies of public lands, over which its control ex¬ 
 tends; but where is the conflict of laws and jurisdiction apprehended? 
 
 Another objection to the policy of this bill is one which proposes ro 
 substitute in lieu thereof an extension of the present pre-emption prin¬ 
 ciple. Instead of calling into existence a community of freemen, it 
 proposes to establish a great government tenantry—a system of per¬ 
 petual vassalage. The most odious feature of the feudal system, and 
 that which is the most repugnant to all our institutions, is thus sought 
 to be incorporated into our system of administering the public lands; 
 and the settler is thus to become the perpetual tenant of his govern¬ 
 ment. Of a proposition which has so little to commend it to the 
 popular judgment, I do not intend to consume your time in the discus¬ 
 sion. I would only remark that, if put forth in seriousness as the great 
 measure which the occasion demands, it seems founded upon a strange 
 oversight of the motives and principles by which men are commonly 
 governed. The love of property is one of the strongest principles of 
 the human breast, and the prospect of its acquisition is the most potent 
 stimulus to industry and all the homely virtues which it is possible 
 to supply. Take away this stimulus, as you do by your perpetual 
 pre-emption, and you, to the same extent, remove the inducement to 
 settlement. Make payment, although distant, a requisite to acquiring 
 the title, and you deaden to a fatal degree the desire and the effort to 
 do so. The very relation of such a vassalage is derogatory in the 
 eyes of an American citizen, liowever humble. At an early day in the 
 Senate, Colonel Benton pror.ounced the true character of tenantry, 
 when he declared that “tenantry is unfavorable to freedom. It lays 
 the foundation for separate orders in society, annihilates the love of 
 country, and weakens the spirit of independence. The tenant has, in 
 fact, no country, no hearth, ro domestic altar, no household god.” 
 
 The prejudices of the people are against every such policy; and 
 you will never, by any such provision, foster that manly independence 
 which attaches to the absolute proprietor'even of a few humble acres. 
 It is said that the pre-emption principle is preferable, as placing it out 
 of the power of the settler to injure himself, as well as of the speculator 
 to reap the benefits of his kdustry. But what! has it come to this? 
 Has the American pioneer lost his character of thrifty shrewdness, and 
 must needs have a guardian assigned for his protection ? Sir, let us 
 have more respect for this adventurous and noble class of our fellow- 
 citizens. 
 
 But a greater objection then any we have yet mentioned, and one 
 more calculated to oppress the measure with odium, is that which 
 stigmatizes it as agrarian. But how agrarian ? It is not proposed by 
 this bill to rob any man of a particle of his property. It does not pro¬ 
 pose a limit to the quantity of land which any man may own; but 
 simply that the unoccupied public lands—at least such portion of them 
 as is deemed expedient—may'foe taken by whomsoever, under the 
 provisions of the bill, will incur the labor of reducing them under 
 cultivation. And, although such a disposition of them may be regarded 
 as a gift, yet the sacrifices, privations, and actual toils which must 
 be necessarily undergone for this purpose, are in fact no small price 
 
11 
 
 for the settler to pay. If there be agrarianism in this bill, it is of 
 that kind which levels up, and not that which levels down. It is of 
 that kind which every philosopher and patriot, from Confucius and 
 Plato down to Sir Thomas Moore, and Hobbes, and Harrington, 
 and Sidney, and Locke, in their fervid dreams of love for their race, 
 have longed and labored to see established among men. Unlike the 
 distribution proposed by the Licinian law, which fixed the quantity of 
 land which should be held by any individual—unlike that division of 
 the conquered lands among the Roman soldiery of' Augustus’ time, 
 whose harsh effects upon the extruded tenants is so patheticalfy 
 alluded to in the song of Virgil—the distribution proposed by this bill 
 is only of lands which are without occudants, a large part of which are 
 still in the distant wilderness, and which, since the dawn of creation, 
 have been sacred to the wild denizens of the forest—here and there 
 dotted with the path of the Indian warrior, and were never yet torn by 
 the crooked plough. 
 
 So far, Mr. Chairman, we have spokin only of the objections to the 
 passage of this bill. The principal of these we have endeavored to 
 state with candor, and to treat with res)ect, for they have been urged 
 with masterly ability and perseverance in both wings of this Capitol. 
 Justly distinguished as are the gentlemen who oppose this measure, they 
 only remind us, by their course, of those early navigators who forever 
 timidly hung around the coasts of the Mediterranean and the west or 
 Europe, afraid to launch boldly upon the broad ocean, which, in return 
 for their trustfulness, was ready to heap* them to the shores of' a new 
 world. With similar apprehensions, these dialectic mariners see no 
 lands beyond Lake Erie or the Mississippi, or—wrapped up like Ras- 
 selas in the Happy Valley—they cannot/lift their glances beyond the 
 Alleghanies or the waters of the Ohio, jo closely do these politicians 
 steer to the old system of managing the piblic lands, against the opinions 
 and practice of the most conservative anl yet democratic of our states¬ 
 men—of Jackson, of Benton, of Cass, cf Douglas, of Walker, afid of 
 Andrew Johnson. Like intellectual glad: itors, they waste in encounters 
 of skill the strength and adroitness whicji would honorably distinguish 
 them in the service of the State. In a ;pirit too conservative for the 
 times, they seem unwilling to realize tha in the great valle\' east of the 
 Mississippi, and far beyond its angry witers, towards the base of the 
 great mountain, the sun is shining high in the heavens, and that man, 
 in his mission of subduing and civilizing the earth, is hastening to and 
 fro, in all directions, with the hurried 
 battle. 
 
 But let us glance at the positive considerations in favor of this measure. 
 I think it may be assumed as conclusive, that by multiplying individual 
 interests, this bill will furnish us the surest and strongest guarantee 
 against agrarianism. Agrarianism, in the bad sense in which it has 
 been charged, if it mean anything, me^ns taking property from those 
 who have it and distributing it among those who have none. But do 
 not the objectors see that the more you multiply individual interests, 
 however small, the more effectually you increase the number of those 
 who are opposed to measures of levelling distribution? 
 
 It was the conviction of Mr. Jefferson, from his observations in Europe, 
 that the laws of primogeniture and entail tended to an accumulation in 
 
 tramp of armies 
 
 marching 
 
 to 
 
12 
 
 a few hands of all the landed property of the kingdom, and to an entire 
 separation of the tenant from the soil, which consequently destroyed the 
 bond of attachment to the government. Hence his policy of repudiating 
 all such partial provisions ; and in every production which subsequently 
 fell from his pen—from the charter of our liberties through all his 
 messages and correspondence—his care for equality of rights shines 
 conspicuous. A strong -government was not less his care than that of 
 his federal compatriots; but he sought for that strength, not in investing 
 a privileged few with force to control the masses, but by a system 
 founded upon principles of justice and equality, and resting firmly in 
 the affections of the people. 
 
 So far, then, from being levelling in its tendency, it is a measure the 
 best calculated possible to create a great conservative interest of every¬ 
 thing valuable in our institutions, social and political. By this bill, if 
 you pass it, you call into existence a great community of freeholders, 
 each one sovereign within the limits of his domain, and, as regards the 
 security of his political and civil rights, as the Chief Magistrate of the 
 country. Who is interested in upholding the government and institu¬ 
 tions of the country, if they, the holders of the soil, be not ? If you wish 
 to increase the safeguards of the nation—its ability to repel external 
 aggression as well as preserve internal order—you must increase the 
 number of freehold homes. What was the exhortation so common in 
 the mouths of the Roman generals when addressing their countrymen 
 on the eve of battle against an invading foe? It was, “ Fight for 3amr 
 altars and your firesides.” This measure, therefore, is best as regards 
 the defences of the country; for, unlike the sea-girt isles of the British 
 realm, the defences of this magnificent land are not so much in her 
 “ wooden walls ” or her fortifications; these are, indeed, great and 
 important; but insignificant in comparison with that which is furnished 
 by the living ramparts of our hardy }momanry and laboring population. 
 They it is which are the life-blood of the nation—who twice resisted 
 successful^ the disciplined armies of England—who recently planted 
 the flag of their country in triumph upon the walls of the far-distant and 
 ancient-renowned city of the Montezumas, and who are ever ready to 
 present an impregnable front :o every foreign assault. 
 
 But, sir, the measure has been proven best as regards the revenue of 
 the country. I will take occasion to remind my auditors that, in a 
 speech which I had the honor to make from this place at the last ses¬ 
 sion, it was shown that the increase of agricultural productions conse¬ 
 quent upon the settlement, under this bill, of one million of freeholders, 
 and the consequent extension of our commerce, will add annually to the 
 national revenue seven times the annual average receipts of the govern¬ 
 ment from the public lands since the first acre was sold. It was also 
 shown in the course of the discussion of this measure, that it would be 
 the best policy towards the twelve States which have public lands within 
 their limits, by converting them into private propert} 7 —subjecting them 
 to taxation—and thus securing from them a legitimate contribution to 
 the burdens of State government. 
 
 But the distribution of the public lands which the measure proposes, 
 strikes me as in the highest degree equitable towards the old States, 
 for by it we provide for all the States exactly in proportion tothenum- 
 
13 
 
 ber of the neecty and enterprising within their limits. As this popula¬ 
 tion is the most numerous in the old States, they are, in this point of 
 view, the greatest participators in its bounty ; and is it any objection to 
 this view that the immediate beneficiaries of the measures should be 
 that large—yet in many respects meritorious—class of our feliow-citizens 
 who are borne down by the ever-increasing distance between wealth 
 and poverty in our old communities'?—a class who, without much hope 
 of elevating their condition, struggle helplessly and hopelessly there ; 
 and who, though numerous in all the States, stand in special need of 
 the liberal aid of a paternal government in those crowded communi¬ 
 ties where population presses upon subsistence. 
 
 Is this objected to as partial and clas£ legislation ? And have we 
 had none such hitherto ? Has there evei been a measure adopted by 
 Congress, by which money was to be distributed among the commu¬ 
 nity—be it for internal improvements, for erecting light-houses, coast 
 defences, or public structures—that it did not inure to your proprietors, 
 your contractors, and men of substance— ho those who had something— 
 and not, as the benefits proposed by this bill, to those chiefly who have 
 nothin"? We all know how much has lieen done bv direct legislation 
 for the benefit of capital. For whom directly, but to capitalists, do 
 your innumerable corporations and your protective tariffs yield their 
 benefits? True, these benefits may gc indirectly to labor. Let us 
 grant that it is so; still, where will you ind a single enactment for the 
 benefit of labor directly, and especially of that class whose whole capi¬ 
 tal is labor ? 
 
 In close connexion with the topic of benefiting the land States, I will 
 merely refer to the policy which has beek illustrated with such ability 
 and success during the last two sessions of Congress in approval of 
 railroad grants—the manifest tendency of such grants to fulfil the object 
 of the whole land policy of the government—namely, the settlement of 
 the public domain, and its erection into States ; and I can assert, with 
 confidence, that not an argument was urtecl in behalf of those measures 
 which does not apply with triple force tc the bill under consideration. 
 
 Reasons scarcely less forcible than any we have presented, in favor 
 of this change proposed in our land policy, may be derived from a con¬ 
 sideration of some features of the present system. Among these, it has 
 been shrewdly questioned whether the benefits of the policy of pre¬ 
 emptions, under existing laws, are not more for the speculator than the 
 settler; in other words, to favor the capitalist at the expense of the man 
 of small means. The latter first settler upon his tract, and bestows 
 his labor with energy and skill in reducing it under cultivation; and 
 after a series of trials, incident to a frontier settlement, he fails for the 
 want of means to pay the government for the title, loses his twelve 
 months’ privilege of purchase, and is compelled to linger out a servile 
 existence as a tenant, or pitch his tent still further West, in a feeble 
 struggle for a home. What, again, is the operation of the public sales? 
 Are they the media of transferring the lands to actual settlers and cul¬ 
 tivators ? On the contrary, is it not notoriously the fact, that the lands, 
 on such occasions, pass chiefly into the hands of capitalists, who hold 
 them for an advance in price from the cultivator, who at length must 
 have them for tillage? Is there not crying injustice in this; and is 
 
14 
 
 there no obligation resting upon us, as legislators, to strike from our 
 policy a stigma so opprobrious ? 
 
 Not less objectionable is the working of the bounty land laws. Par¬ 
 tial and defective as these provisions must be admitted to be in their 
 character, they are equally so in their practical application—either the 
 bounty itself to expire within a certain time, or upon certain contingen¬ 
 cies, or the individuals who are to be its recipients designated with 
 little regard to equity. The rules and regulations which the Depart¬ 
 ment of the Interior, as the custodian of the public property, has felt 
 itself bound to adopt, operate, in many cases, with unmitigated hard¬ 
 ship. I am informed, that of the applications for the benefit of these 
 laws a large proportion have either been rejected altogether, or remain 
 suspended for want of evidence to bring them within the several acts. 
 Doubtless many fraudulent attempts have been made in this way to get 
 possession of the public territory ; but how many cases have failed of 
 allowance for want of proof of one or two days’ service more than the 
 Auditor gives from the rolls, or of a few days’ travel? Then, again, 
 how many kinds of service, just as meritorious as any included in the 
 law of September 28, 1850, of March, 1852, or any of the previous 
 acts, have been omitted to be provided for?—veteran frontiersmen, 
 who fought with St. Clffir and Wayne; volunteers who have done coast 
 duty, and minute men—those whose service was divided between the 
 sea and the shore—those who were engaged in the suppression of Burr’s 
 conspiracy, in the French disturbances prior to 1800, and the flotilla 
 men in the war of 1812. I do not pretend that I give a complete enu¬ 
 meration, but it is sufficient to show the limited and unequal character 
 of the present provison. It is true the Indian warriors of 1793-’4 are 
 allowed to prove services, but in most cases this provision is a mock¬ 
 ery, and merely nugatory, and the aged patriots who defended the 
 Northwest, as well as the “dark and bloody ground,” long standing upon 
 the threshold of the grave, drop away one by one, uncheered by any 
 return for their sacrifices and services by a grateful country. 
 
 These, sir, are great hardships. The working of these laws must 
 be allowed to be very partial and unjust; and I believe that the mea¬ 
 sure which is now proposed is the only one which will fully embrace 
 all cases intended to be provided for by these acts—that it will effect¬ 
 ually cure the difficulty, and silence complaint throughout the land. 
 In addition to all we have urged in behalf of this measure, I would also 
 allude, though only in passing, to the consideration, that the foundation 
 of the most extensive and available civilization is the cultivation of the 
 soil. Nothing else can enable a nation to subsist so large a number. 
 The most populous empire upon the face of the globe, it is well known, 
 and which supports one third of the human race—I mean the empire 
 of China—is that in which the culture of the soil is the most extensive, 
 And let us not forget that, in the opinion of the greatest people of an¬ 
 tiquity—I mean the Romans—it was the only pursuit worthy of a free¬ 
 man. An opinion, this, which was illustrated in the lives of Cincin- 
 natus, Dentatus, and Fabricius. 
 
 In behalf of this measure, other arguments of force, no way inferior, 
 rise to our reflections. It was most aptly said, by Sir William Black- 
 stone, of the common law—which is the perfection of reason—that it 
 
15 
 
 resembles the human skin, fitting alike the new-born infant and the full- 
 grown man. Something in the nature of the common law as applied 
 to government is the spirit and policy of our republican system; 
 and as this system is itself an experiment, successful so far, as it was 
 original and bold, yet still an experiment, it should be administered 
 with a policy in harmony with its origin. 
 
 The policy of territorial grants to individuals, with a view to settle¬ 
 ment and cultivation, is by no means first announced in the measure 
 before us. Such grants have, in fact, been almost coeval with the dis¬ 
 covery of America, and have been made upon a scale of magnitude,, 
 and with an absoluteness of control to the grantee, which, from sover¬ 
 eigns of three centuries ago, may well challenge our admiration. It 
 was in 1497—only five years after the k$el of Columbus’s little vessel 
 first grated upon the shores of the Bahamas—that Henry VII granted 
 to John Cabot a patent for territory containing, as the historian says, 
 “the worst features of colonial monopoly and commercial restrictions.” 
 In 1512, to Ponce de Leon, the companion of Columbus in his second 
 voyage, and the discoverer of Florida, was granted, by Charles V, the 
 government of that country, “with the onerous condition that he should 
 colonize the country which he was appointed to rule.” Similar grants 
 were afterwards made by the French an[l Spanish sovereigns, and by 
 almost every monarch of England down to the time of the revolution 
 of 1688. The names of Fernando de S<j>to, De Monts, Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir George Calvert, Endicott, \\ inthrop, 
 and others of the Plymouth company, Six Ferdinand Gorges, and Cap¬ 
 tain Smith, in connexion with these grants, recur to our memories with 
 something of chivalric interest. * 
 
 But if an}^ force is supposed to exist in example, it will be found 
 that the practice of governments upon yhich we are accustomed to 
 look down as inferior, has been upon principles far more liberal than 
 our own. The lands of Canada have kng been offered as a free gift 
 to all who choose to occupy them. So it was in Mexico, until she lost 
 Texas. So it was, and perhaps still is, m the West Indies, and in all 
 the Spanish republics of the Western Continent; and, with strange 
 inconsistency, we behold the nation which boasts the most enlightened 
 
 government under the sun, the only one, 
 del Fuego, which refuses a free home to 
 
 But equal liberality, in this particula 
 potic Asia. It was the King of Persia 
 at London, issued, some thirty years agq, 
 who should emigrate to Persia gratuitous grants of land, for the declared 
 purpose of improving his country. 
 
 Time forbids me, at present, from examining these grants in detail, 
 but those of principal importance will form a portion of my printed 
 remarks;* and it will be found, on tracing them with particularity, that 
 
 from Hudson’s Bay to Terra 
 the settler. 
 
 , was exhibited even in des- 
 \vho, through his ambassador 
 , a proclamation offering to all 
 
 * Abstract of colonial grants. 
 
 1497. Henry VII granted to John Cabot, a Bristol merchant, (from Venice,) a patent for 
 territory, “ containing the worst features of colonial monopoly and commercial restriction. 
 
 1498. A new patent granted by Henry to John Cabot and his son Sebastian, a native oa 
 
 Bristol. 
 
16 
 
 the settlement of the country is the leading idea in all. So this were but 
 likely to be accomplished, powers and privileges the most arbitrary 
 and unlimited were freely conferred upon the favored object of the 
 royal bounty. 
 
 1512. To Ponce de Leon, the companion of Columbus in his second voyage, and the dis¬ 
 coverer of Florida, the government of that country, “ with the onerous condition that he should, 
 colonize the country which he was appointed to ride." 
 
 1528. To Pamphilo de Narvaez, Florida, as far west as the river of Palms. 
 
 1538. To Fernando de Soto, by Charles V, “ the government of the isle of Cuba, with abso¬ 
 lute power over the immense territory to which the name of Florida was still vaguely 
 applied.” 
 
 1579. Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained from Queen Elizabeth a patent, “ conferring on him¬ 
 self or his assigns the soil which he might discover, and the sole jurisdiction, both civil and 
 criminal, of the territory within two hundred leagues of the settlement to be formed.” 
 
 1583. Sir Walter Ealeigh received t patent almost in the same terms as his step-brother, 
 Gilbert. 
 
 1600. “ A monopoly of the fur trade, with an ample patent, was obtained in 1600 by Chauvin 
 and Pontgrave, a merchant of St. Malo,” from Henry IV. 
 
 1604. The sovereignty of Acadia and its confines, from the 40th to the 46th degree of 
 latitude—that is, from Philadelphia to beyond Montreal, with a patent of ample extent—was 
 issued by Henry IV, exclusively to the able, patriotic, and honest De Monts. He had “ a 
 still wider monopoly of the fur trade, :he exclusive control of the soil, government, and trade, 
 and freedom of religion for Huguenot emigrants.” 
 
 1606. The grant by James I to a company of noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants of Lon¬ 
 don, of whom the prominent names were Chief Justice Popham, Sir Ferdinand Gorges, and 
 Sir Eichard Hakluyt. This company had an exclusive right to occupy the region from 34° to 
 38° of north latitude, or from Cape Fear to the southern limit of Maryland. 
 
 At the same time, to another company of west-of-England men, consisting of knights, gen¬ 
 tlemen, and merchants. Of these the leading spirits were Sir Bartholomew Gosnold, Edward 
 Maria Wingfield, and the renowned Ctptaiu Smith. The right of this company was equally 
 exclusive to the territory between 41° and 45°. The historian remarks that this was the first 
 written charter of a permanent American colony. 
 
 1620. The patent issued by King James to forty of his subjects, conferring on the patentees 
 in absolute property, with unlimited jurisdiction, the sole powers of legislation, &c., and ex¬ 
 tending “ in breadth from the 40th to the 48th degree of north latitude, and in length from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific—that is, nearly all the inhabited British possessions to the north 
 of the United States; all New England, New York, half of New Jersey, very nearly all of 
 Pennsylvania, and the whole of the country to the west of these States— comprising, and at 
 the time believed to comprise, much more than a million of square miles, and capable of sus¬ 
 taining more than two hundred millions of inhab itants, were, by a single signature of King James, 
 given away to a corporation within the realm composed of but forty individuals .” 
 
 “ This patent to the Plymouth company, in the American annals, aud even in the history of 
 the world, has but one parallel. The grant was absolute and exclusive: it conceded the land 
 and islands, the rivers and the harbors, the mines and fisheries.” 
 
 1621. John Mason obtained from the council of Plymouth a grant of lands between Salem 
 river and the furthest head of the Merrimac 
 
 1622. Sir Ferdinand Gorges and Mason took a patent for Laconia, the whole country be¬ 
 tween the sea, the St. Lawrence, the Merrimac, and the Kennebec. 
 
 1629. The royal charter to the Massachusetts Bay Company, confirming to them the country 
 “from three miles south of the river Charles and the Massachusetts Bay, to three miles north 
 of the river Merrimac.” 
 
 1621, (about.) The Dutch West India Company, incorporated by the States General, aud 
 invested with the exclusive privilege to traffic and plant colonies on the coast of Africa, from 
 the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope; “ on the coast of America, from the Straits 
 of Magellan to the remotest north.” They had absolute power over such countries as they 
 might conquer and colonize, subject to the approval of the States General. The result of 
 this grant was the settlement in the United States of the New Netherlands—a term which 
 designated the country from the southern shore of Delaware Bay to New Holland or Cape 
 Cod. This is the era of the permanent settlement of New York, or. as at first called, New 
 Amsterdam. 
 
 1632. The grant of the country between the fortieth parallel of latitude, the meridian of the 
 western source of the Potomac, that river to its mouth, and the Atlantic ocean, to 8ir George 
 Calvert, (Lord Baltimore.) “This territory was given to Lord Baltimore, his heirs and as¬ 
 signs, as to its absolute lord and proprietary, to be holden by the tenure of fealty only”—a 
 
17 
 
 Now, the important practical conclusion suggested by a reference to 
 these grants is most clearly and positively in favor of the policy of this 
 bill. Can it be said that those chartered grants, whose recipients were 
 made the repositaries of such enormous and irresponsible powers, have 
 failed of their object? Is it not rather to them—made, as they often 
 were, at the caprice of the monarch, and burdened with imperfections, 
 and in spite of the sometimes arbitrary and oppressive character of 
 the proprietaries—that we trace that national and individual prosperity 
 of which we have everywhere such positive indications to-day, and 
 which renders us the envy of an admiring world? If, then, the abso¬ 
 lute control, with unimportant reservations, over boundless territories, 
 may be granted to one or a few subjects, it may well be asked, shall a 
 republic be less liberal towards its citizens by denying a few acres to 
 individual enterprise? Must, then, a single individual, with a kingly 
 charter, be regarded as a better almoner of the public lands than a 
 government springing from and administered for the people? Or is 
 the tenant who holds of a lordly proprietor more likely to bring under 
 prosperous culture his qualified estate, than the absolute owner and 
 settler his little domain? A policy which has been productive of such 
 vast results in our colonial history, and which we have shown so well 
 
 colony established on such principles of moderation al soon obtained for it the most unprece¬ 
 dented success. 
 
 1633, (about.) The grant of the valley of the Connecticut to the Earl of Warwick as pro¬ 
 prietary, subsequently assigned by him to Lords Say and Seal, Lord Brooke, John Hampden, 
 and others. 
 
 The grant of the Province of Carolina, extending from the 36th degree of north latitude 
 to the river San Matheo, to Lord Clarendon and others. These proprietaries, in contempt 
 of the claims of Spain and Virginia, asserted their rigit to the territory thus indicated. 
 
 1639. Gorges obtained, by royal charter, the title of lord proprietary of the territory since 
 known as the State of Maine. 
 
 1665. Lord Clarendon and others obtained a new charter for Carolina, which granted them 
 all the lands lying between 29° and 36° 36' north latitude—a territory extending seven and a 
 half degrees from north to south, and more than forty degrees from east to west—comprising 
 all the territory of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, 
 Louisiana, Arkansas, much of Florida and Missouri, marly all of Texas, and a large portion of 
 Mexico. 
 
 1681. The patent for the territory of Pennsylvania 
 solute proprietary, by King James II. 
 
 vas confirmed to William Penn, as ab- 
 
 Extract from a decree of the Repufilic of Colombia, dated June, 1823 . 
 
 “ The Senate and House of Representatives of the Republic of Colombia, united in Congress, 
 considering— 
 
 “ 1. That a population numerous and proportionate to the territory of a State, is the basis 
 of its property and true greatness; 
 
 “ 2. That the fertility of the soil, the salubrity of the climate, the extensive unappropriated 
 lands, and the free institutions of the republic, permic and require a numerous emigration of 
 useful and laboring strangers, who, by improving thejr own fortunes, may augment the reve¬ 
 nues of the nation; have decreed— 
 
 “ That foreigners emigrating to Colombia shall receive gratuitous donations of land, in par¬ 
 cels of two hundred fanegas [about four hundred acres] to each family/’ 
 
 Proclamation of t/te King of Persia, through his ambassador, dated London, July 8 , 1823 . 
 
 “ Mirza Mahomed Saul, Ambassador to England, in the name and by the authority of Abbas 
 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 and contri¬ 
 butions of any kind, and with the free enjoyment of their religion; the King's object being to 
 improve his country.” 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 adapted to our condition and circumstances, can involve no sacrifice to 
 the government. 
 
 The public domain, instead of being a blessing to the government, 
 is in reality an incumbrance to it. It is even now the apple of discord, 
 influencing, and in a measure controlling, the legislation of Congress. 
 Schemes are being constantly projected to get possession of, and to 
 absorb the public territory; while the ingenuity and combination em¬ 
 ployed with the same object, in regard to the public revenue, are 
 beyond the limits of calculation. The application now before Con¬ 
 gress to confer upon the participants in the war of 1812, the Mexican 
 war, and the various wars since 1790, without regard to length or char¬ 
 acter of service, 160 acres of land, would require, as appears from a 
 statement which I recently obtained from the Department of the Inte¬ 
 rior, an additional issue of 574,811 warrants, and the quantity of land 
 necessary to satisfy them would be 83,209,760 acres—an area equal to 
 that of the six New England States, together with that of New York, 
 New Jersey, and Maryland. 
 
 An economical government can never be found with an overflowing 
 treasury. They are inconsistent, both in element and practice. Strong 
 governments—monarchical governments—rely upon bayonets as well 
 as concentrated political power, and treasures wrung from the industry 
 of the patient but oppressed massed. Republics rest upon the intelli¬ 
 gence and purity of public opinion. By their theory no more money 
 should be raised by taxation than is necessary for the adequate but 
 economical administration of the government. Then wherefore col¬ 
 lect revenue from the needy to distribute among the opulent ? 
 
 Gen. Jackson, in his annual message to Congress in 1832, stated: 
 
 “ It cannot be doubted that the speedy settlement of these lands constitute the true inter¬ 
 ests of the republic. The wealth and strength of a country are its population ; and the best 
 part of the population are the cultivators of the soil. Independent farmers are everywhere 
 the basis of society, and true friends of liberty. It seems to me to be our true policy, that 
 the public lands shall cease as soon as practicable to be a source of revenue.” 
 
 A similar policy to*that which regulates our public domain was that 
 which long existed in regard to the crown lands of Great Britain, and 
 which one of the wisest of British statesmen was the means of ex¬ 
 ploding. Edmund Burke, in speaking before the British Parliament 
 m support of his bill for the alienation of those lands, declared: 
 
 •‘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 circu¬ 
 lation, and through the political secretions , into well-regulated revenue.” 
 
 I will further remark that, by the late message of General Pierce, it 
 appears that, at the close of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1852, 
 there remained a balance in the treasury of $14,632,136, and that “the 
 public revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1853, amounted to 
 $61,337,574, while the public expenditures for the same period, exclu¬ 
 sive of payments on account of the public debt, amounted to $43,554,262; 
 leaving a balance of $32,425,447 of receipts over expenditures.” 
 
 It is evident, from this exhibit, that no moment more favorable for 
 the introduction of the policy suggested by General Jackson can be 
 expected to occur than the present. During the eight years of his ad¬ 
 ministration, the aggregate expenditures, exclusive of the amount paid 
 on the public debt, was but $145,792,767 30, being an average of 
 
19 
 
 $18,224,095 91 per year. The receipts for the same period, from all 
 sources, amounted to $252,061,370 85 ; while the aggregate expendi¬ 
 tures during the four years’ administration of General Taylor and Mr. 
 Fillmore, exclusive of the amount paid on the public debt, reached the 
 enormous sum of $165,150,156 95, being an average of $41,287,539 23 
 per year. The population of the United States, at the census taken 
 during the administration of General Jackson, was 12,866,020, while 
 that taken during the administration of Mr. Fillmore was 23,191,876. 
 Mark the disparity in expenditure, as compared with the increase of 
 population. 
 
 But a greater and more important point of view, than any from which 
 we have yet regarded the proposition of freehold homes, is that which 
 contemplates them as the most effectual safeguards against disunion . 
 I know, sir, we are in the habit of passing over this topic with a light¬ 
 ness which indicates how little we anticipate such a result or dread its 
 dangers. But I prefer, sir, to respect the wisdom of the founders of 
 the republic, who looked with no small apprehension to dangers from 
 “ anarchy among the members.” Without a doubt, if ever this mag¬ 
 nificent temple of free government is destined to be numbered among 
 the faded glories of the past, it will be found, as in the case of the free 
 States of old, that the dismemberment of the empire was the first grand 
 stride towards its extinction in the night of ruin. I prefer to consider 
 it as the part of true statesmanship, in all great measures of policy, to 
 look possible, nay, even probable, dangers in the face. There is no 
 change in human motives or character. Temptations to political ex¬ 
 cesses, to attempts mo 2 'e or less direct upon the sovereignty of the States, 
 exist the same now as in the days of Sylla, of Marius, and the Caesars. 
 The race of such aspirants, nor yet of the Catalines and Cethegi, is 
 by no means extinct. 
 
 It is true there is nothing in our present condition to excite the slight¬ 
 est alarm. The eye may sweep the political horizon without discovering 
 so much as the little cloud—no larger thqn the prophet’s hand—signifi¬ 
 cant of approaching danger. But what is the present in the existence 
 of a nation? It is even as a day or a month in the life of man. And 
 in seeking for the country and the institutions of our affections, that per¬ 
 petuity which is the object of our hopes, it is well to look ahead. Let 
 us carry our vision forward only to the close of the next half century, 
 when, in the impressive language of President Pierce, in his thessage, 
 “thousands of persons who have already arrived at maturity, and are 
 now exercising the rights of freemen, will close their eyes on the spec¬ 
 tacle of more than one hundred millions t>f population, embraced within 
 the majestic proportions of the American Union.” Can we say, with 
 confidence, that there will be no danger then from the ambition, preju¬ 
 dices, and conflicting interests which such a population is sure to en¬ 
 gender, or in the ages which are to unfold themselves after ? On the 
 contrary, is it not the part of wisdom, while the vessel is still in the 
 harbor, to fit her for the dangerous navigation of boisterous seas? While 
 she is flying buoyantly before the genial breeze, and beneath beaming 
 skies, is it not true seamanship to put her in trim to ride out the storm 
 which she is sure to encounter? 
 
 Nor do we find less source of alarm when we advert to the circum- 
 
20 
 
 itances which are apt to be prolific of such adventurers. So long as 
 he hardy and simple virtues of the early fathers endured, the integrity 
 >f the Roman Commonwealth was safe. It was only when, with an 
 overcrowded population, with the progress of conquest luxury poured 
 in with its corrupting influences, that laxity of principle seized upon all 
 ranks of public men, and that the State was regarded as the lawful 
 prey of intrigue and audacity. Of course the holders of such projects 
 never avow them openly ; but when did corrupt ambition ever lack a 
 pretext ? And though not forgetting in the parallel the notice of those 
 superior influences which Christianity imparts alike to the community 
 and its public representatives, we cannot forget the usurpations of Crom¬ 
 well, made in the name of religion itself. 
 
 And now, sir, while professing myself, as I have done, a friend of 
 progress in its best sense, and believing in the high destiny of our race 
 as regards extension of territory and position among the nations of the 
 earth—of which we are in the habit of boasting rather more than good 
 taste would justify—still, in view of our matchless progress in com¬ 
 mercial prosperity, of the colossal strides we are making in wealth 
 and luxury, with vice and corruption thronging in their train—in view, 
 
 I say, of these significant facts in our condition, it strikes me as the 
 first duty of statesmanship to foster and diffuse all those checks and 
 influences which are calculated to counteract the corrupting tendencies 
 of the age, and to guard against those special dangers to which, from 
 our form of government as a confederacy of States, we are peculiarly 
 exposed. 
 
 No better corrective, in my judgment, of the tendencies to which, 
 from our very excess of prosperity, we are prone; and no firmer bar¬ 
 rier to the assaults of disunion can be found, than that which may be 
 procured by increasing the number of freehold homes. We thus create 
 an extensive interest, which, owing its existence to the general govern¬ 
 ment, will, from the principle of self-preservation, as well as of grati¬ 
 tude, natural to uncorrupted hearts, desire to preserve in its integrity, 
 as well as purity and simplicity, that united sovereignty of whose signal 
 munificence they have been made the recipients. 
 
 Sir, it is the property of rural pursuits, while giving vigor and hard¬ 
 iness to the body, to impart a like robustness to the mental and moral 
 character. Honesty, simplicity of habits, industry, frugality, and pa¬ 
 tience, are the noble and manly virtues of the cultivator of the soil. 
 These it is which will serve to temper the luxurious excesses of com¬ 
 mercial prosperity, and which will stand unshaken amid the wares of 
 faction. 
 
 But what, after all, is the great bonus bestowed by this measure, 
 and which is to impoverish the nation ? It has been already shown, 
 
 i 
 
21 
 
 that of the thirteen hundred and sixty millions of acres* which the gov¬ 
 ernment owns, not more than one hundred and sixty millions would 
 for several years come under the operation of this bill. Why, sir, if 
 to this you add fifty millions, to aid in the construction of the Pacific 
 railway, you have still eleven hundred and fifty millions for your 
 public domain—a territory fourteen times as large as the united terri¬ 
 tory of England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, and sufficient in extent 
 to make two hundred States of the size of Maryland, New Jersey, or 
 New Hampshire 
 
 In view, then, of the magnitude of this imperial possession, a large 
 portion of which, without a change of policy, must remain a wilderness 
 for centuries—of the mighty spirit of progress in science and art which 
 characterizes the age, and preeminently distinguishes this happy land 
 of ours; of the fact that all civilizing agencies are advancing in a geo¬ 
 metrical ratio, so that that is done now in a single decade of years 
 which centuries before could scarcely accomplish—with a view, too, 
 to settling our vacant territory, of converting it from an uncultivated 
 wilderness to its natural purpose, and building it up into States, by 
 wdiich the happiness of every part, as well as of the whole, is to be 
 augmented—I may be allowed to say, that no disposition of those lands 
 would be so wise as that proposed in the bill under consideration. 
 
 Sir, it is time we approach this question in a different humor from 
 that of the school logician. We must cease to reason in a circle. We 
 must abandon old and partial premises, which lead only to the conclu¬ 
 sion that whatever is, is the best. We must drop the character of the 
 special pleader, and assume that of the legislator and the statesman. 
 We must look for new premises in the altered'condition of the times—in 
 the progressive spirit of the age—which lead to new conclusions of 
 faith in man’s capacity, and favorable to human improvement. 
 
 Need I remind my auditors that we live at a period when new agen¬ 
 cies have been pressed into human service in countless applications, 
 extending, to an incalculable degree, our influence over matter ? That 
 the steamboat, the steamship, the electric telegraph, and the railway— 
 the multitudes of discoveries and improvements in the arts, and the 
 
 * Stated and Territories. 
 
 Area of acres unsold 
 and unappropriated 
 of offered and unof- 
 ered lands, June 30, ' 
 1853. 
 
 -—»-■- 
 
 States and Territories. 
 
 Area of aeres unsold 
 and unappropriated 
 of offered and unof- 
 ered lands, June 30, 
 1853. 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 244,196.03 
 247, 339. 41 
 
 4,115,909.97 
 22,722,801.41 
 
 Town. _ _ 
 
 22,773, i75. 57 
 23, 673,486.19 
 113,632,436.00 
 85,225,601.41 
 
 Indiana.. 
 
 Wisconsin __...... 
 
 Illinois. 
 
 California__...... 
 
 Missouri... 
 
 Minnesota Territory... 
 
 Alabama. 
 
 15,049,693.70 
 
 Oregon Territory. 
 
 206, 349, 333. 00 
 
 Mississippi. 
 
 9, 083, 655. 94 
 
 New Mexico Territory. 
 
 127, 383, 040. 00 
 
 Louisiana. 
 
 9,134,143.81 
 
 Utah Territory. 
 
 113,589,013. 00 
 
 Michigan. 
 
 16,142,293.48 
 
 Northwest Territory .. 
 
 338, 334, 000. 00 
 
 Arkansas. 
 
 15,725, 383.83 
 
 Nebraska Territory... 
 
 87,488,000.00 
 
 Florida. 
 
 29,262,674.59 
 
 Indian Territory. 
 
 Total. 
 
 119,789, 440. 00 
 
 1,360,070,681.89 
 
22 
 
 marvellous perfection of machinery—mark this as the most inventive 
 age upon the records of our race—is a remark which loses its impres¬ 
 sive significance only from the frequency with which we are compelled 
 to utter it. Is it sought to compare the works of our times with those 
 of antiquity ’? Shall we place our canals, our railways, our telegraphs— 
 crossing the land and the water alike, sending its flash across the 
 English channel, and all but piercing the Atlantic; and on this side of 
 the water extending from Halifax to New York, and from thence to the 
 Gulf of Mexico—shall we place these, with our suspension bridges, 
 our tunnels, and our national monuments, by the side of those vast but 
 unmeaning works, the pyramids, the wall of China, and the Lake of 
 Moeris ? Shall we even compare them with the great highways of the 
 Roman empire—the Appian and Flaminian ways'? Nothing more is 
 necessary to illustrate the immeasurable superiority of the works of the 
 present era, when compared with that standard which is recognised as 
 the guide for industry—namely, the promotion of human happiness— 
 than the mention of these great works in juxtaposition. It is ail one as 
 if we should compare the Grecian triremes or the Roman galleys, with 
 the complete and effective war steamer of our da}’, capable of stretch¬ 
 ing a girdle of vapor around the earth in a quarter of its revolution 
 around the sun, and in less time than either of the former would pass 
 from Rome or Athens to the ports of the Euxine—all one as if we should 
 compare the clumsiness and tardiness of their merchant ships with the 
 well-appointed and manageable sailing craft of our mercantile marine. 
 
 Sir, I was struck by a remark made by the attorney general of the 
 government in a recent speech made at Baltimore or Newark, when ac¬ 
 companying, with his brethren of the cabinet, our honored chief ma¬ 
 gistrate in his official visit to New York. “ Action,” said Mr. Cushing, 
 “is the necessity of our age, and especiallv of the position, physical 
 and political, which we hold among the nations of the earth.” This, 
 sir, is most emphatically true; and the onward march of events will 
 not permit us to stand still if we wish it. This appropriate and well 
 uttered remark was made in reference to another great question with 
 which the present has a most important connexion. I allude to the 
 great Pacific railway. The value of such a highway to the commerce 
 of the country and the world, I am glad to find, is thoroughly appre¬ 
 ciated by our people. Suffer me to glance a moment at the great ends 
 which are contemplated by the completion of that work. But, sir, I 
 must dissent entirely from the conclusion of the argument drawn by the 
 distinguished head of the War Department—from its necessity as a 
 measure of defence to the country, except in connexion with the home¬ 
 stead policy, which will carry along the line of the road, and into the 
 gorges of the mountain, a train of emigrants, of actual settlers, able 
 and willing to protect it against hostile aggression. 
 
 But I wish to look a moment at the great purpose which it is des¬ 
 tined to subserve in facilitating the commerce of the world. It is by 
 such a highway, indeed, that the disjointed members of our vast con¬ 
 federacy—disjointed only by the intervention of a vast expanse of des¬ 
 olate forest and prairie, which separate our Atlantic and Pacific re¬ 
 gions—are to be brought into close and easy proximity; that the bar¬ 
 rier of the Stony mountains is to be broken dowm, no longer to inter- 
 
23 
 
 pose, by towering heights and inhospitable snows, an obstacle to inter¬ 
 course ; but the dweller by the Aroostook, the Hudson, the Delaware, 
 and the Potomac, may pass as readily and almost as quickly to his 
 friends on the Sacramento and the San Joaquin as he can at this time 
 to New Orleans, Mobile, or Pensacola. This alone will constitute it a 
 mighty and magnificent achievement of scientific labor and skill. But 
 still greater appears the magnitude of this enterprise when we reflect 
 that it is to form the great avenue to the - Oriental trade, and to make 
 our continent the highway for the other grand divisions of the world. 
 This work it is which is to make Sari Francisco the New York of the 
 Pacific—soon to vie with the queen of the Atlantic, but scarcely to sur¬ 
 pass her. From these two points, as centers on either side, the com¬ 
 mercial streams will radiate and be reflected back with increased in¬ 
 tensity; on the one hand, from the mother pf our American races, and 
 the home of the Moor and the African ; and on the other, from the cradle 
 of our first parents and the furthest isles of the sea, abounding with 
 those rare and costly products which nature has distributed with so 
 partial a hand, and overflowing with myriads of our fellow-beings. 
 The value of the commerce of which we are thus to become the most 
 favored recipients is no secret to the world. 
 
 Upon this trade grew the greatness of Tyre and Sidon as commer¬ 
 cial cities. Its peculiar commodities built up subsequently and in suc¬ 
 cession the cities of Babylon, and Palmyra,, and Alexandria, and Con¬ 
 stantinople, and Venice, and Genoa, and Antwerp, and Bruges, and 
 Amsterdam, and, at this da} r , contributes its richest streams to the com¬ 
 mercial greatness of London, and Paris, and New York. 
 
 But, sir, the course and enriching character of the Oriental commerce 
 have been traced with a particularity, (which I cannot imitate here,) by 
 one who, still in this branch of the legislature, has grown gray in the 
 distinguished service of his country. I refer to the Senator from Mis¬ 
 souri, w’hose enthusiasm upon this subject does him honor, and who, in 
 his speeches upon it, has illustrated it with a flood of elegant learning, 
 which he is ever ready to pour over every subject which he touches. 
 
 If we do not immediately perceive the connexion which this project 
 has with the measure chiefly under consideration, we have only to re¬ 
 flect that the commerce of any country is, limited by the amount of 
 products which it has to give in exchange. Now, it is exactly the pro¬ 
 ducts of agriculture which are called for by the millions of the Chinese 
 and Japan Empires—suffering from the evils of an overcrowded popu¬ 
 lation ; and w'hich the rapid means of transit afforded by this road, in 
 connexion with the Pacific steamer, reaching the East from the W est, 
 will enable us to furnish them with admirable promptness, and in the 
 greatest abundance. In return, the cultivator of the soil will receive 
 a full and cheap supply of the now costly luxuries of China and India. 
 The farmer will see, without alarm at the inroads of luxury, his wife 
 and daughters comfortablv arraved in the silks and cashmeres of China 
 and Thibet, and the teas of the Celestial empire will greet him with a 
 freshness and a delicacy of flavor which he will scarcely recognise as 
 of the same herb which, robbed of its best properties by a twelve 
 months’ voyage, he yet knows how to prize. 
 
 True it is that the spirit of the age is commercial, and that the ships 
 
24 
 
 of all civilized nations now meet in friendly rivalry upon every sea. 
 The share of trade, however, which will fall to each nation is yet to 
 be determined by the internal capacities and development of each. 
 And allow me to say, that the effect upon production of the passage of 
 this bill in connexion with that which shall provide for the construc¬ 
 tion of the Pacific railway, will be great beyond the reach of prophecy 
 to tell. What the opening of a great avenue into territory at that time 
 unsettled will effect, has already been illustrated on a magnificent scale 
 in the case of New York. The genius of D,e Witt Clinton projecting 
 the Erie canal, to unite the waters of the Atlantic and Lake Erie, her 
 extensive and dreary solitudes sprung at once into a populous, empire. 
 
 At the beginning of the present century New York had a population 
 of but fifty thousand. That she now approaches in magnitude the city 
 of Paris, numbering more than seven hundred thousand souls, is to be 
 attributed mainly to the development of her great internal resources, 
 consequent upon the completion of the canal; and yet further since, by 
 those triple bands of iron by which her eastern and western extremities 
 have been bound together, and which have invited the trade of the 
 vast regions of the lakes and the northwest. Vain, would have been 
 her efforts to build up a foreign trade without domestic products to 
 exchange—without her iron, her salt, her agricultural products, and 
 those of her factories and workshops; vain, without a numerous and 
 still growing people to clothe with stuffs from foreign looms, and to 
 supply with foreign luxuries—with coffees and teas, and sugars and 
 molasses; with wines, and brandies and spices ; with silks and cottons; 
 with cutlery and crockery; with laces and jewelry; with linens and 
 woollens. 
 
 But what are the still extending lines of railway throughout the coun¬ 
 try? What the canals, and the rivers ploughed by the steamboat, but 
 illustrations of the happy effects of such works in opening up our domes¬ 
 tic resoures, in calling into being new and happy rural communities, 
 which react again upon the size of large cities, and altogether tend to 
 swell the tide of the general prosperity? Doubtless the extent of pro¬ 
 duction is greatly affected by the presence or absence of Government 
 restrictions ; and it is apparent that this trade, as between England and 
 America, has been increased largely in consequence of the repeal of 
 the corn laws and the adoption of our revenue tariff in 1846, and that 
 production has been immensely stimulated thereby. Great as is this 
 trade and production, however, it only faintty foreshadows what would 
 be the result if the 
 were oifce adopted. 
 
 The cultivation of the soil is a natural pursuit, and it is a result of 
 civilization, and the organization of Governments, that there must be 
 an interchange of commercial commodities. The Almighty in his bound¬ 
 less beneficence created man after his own image, filled him with do- 
 sires, endowed him with reason—with an intellect almost approximat¬ 
 ing to divinity itself—and fully designed that he should carry on a so¬ 
 cial and commercial intercourse, coextensive with the planet he in¬ 
 habits. For that purpose he created this globe with a variety of soil 
 and a variety of climate ; and connected it by rivers, seas, lakes, gulfs, 
 and oceans, that there might be a full interchange of its varied corn- 
 
 policy now proposed in regard to the public lands 
 
25 
 
 modities. He fully designed that the products of the valley of the Mis¬ 
 sissippi should be exchanged for those of the Indus and the Ganges, as 
 well as of the Thames and the Rhine* 
 
 Commerce, then, is the ruling spirit of the age, and it is a wise and 
 benignant spirit. What has so much tended to break down the preju¬ 
 dices of nations, strangers to each other, as the freedom and frequency 
 of commercial intercourse ? What is so liberal as commerce in diffusing 
 the blessings of civilization, in building up cities, and in establishing and 
 fostering religion? If in any age religion has been honored, science 
 and learning have shone with a blaze of lustre, it has been when the 
 commercial spirit was at its height. Was not commerce flourishing at its 
 acme in the kingdom of Israel under Solomon, the wise king ? Did they 
 not go hand in hand in the Augustan age of the Roman Empire ? Was 
 not the same true of the Eastern empire at Byzantium, and among the 
 “ merchant princes of Venice and Genoa?” And lastly, is it not pre¬ 
 eminently true in this, the most commercial age the world has seen, 
 that the Christian religion is the most extended and cherished, and that 
 every influence of knowledge and learning favorable to human happi¬ 
 ness, exists in a degree never before witnessed ? Sir, if we are wise, we 
 shall have a reference to this spirit in our legislation. 
 
 “ Commerce is king,” but his throne at least is supported by manu¬ 
 factures and agriculture—chiefly the latter. Commerce, it is true, is 
 the glorious efflorescence, the flower and fruit of the tree of industry 
 and labor, as applied to the soil and material products; and if the fruit 
 be so excellent and desirable, how must we judge of the tree? Let us 
 cultivate this tree with care. Let us water its roots and prune its 
 branches, and we shall rear a plant which the axe of destiny shall 
 glance harmlessly by; and beneath its branches the oppressed of all 
 nations will find a shelter. 
 
 I have already referred to the beneficent influence of commerce as 
 the handmaid of religious and moral improvement. While the passage 
 of this bill, by favoring commerce, will encourage this influence, it will 
 do so in a still higher degree directly. Who that has studied human 
 nature practically but will admit that, if you wish to elevate the intel¬ 
 lectual and moral condition of a people, you should first make them easy 
 in their physical circumstances. Small, indeed, the success of those 
 philanthropists and Christian missionaries who have labored for human 
 improvement, while the people under their charge consumed their whole 
 time in supplying their material wmnts. Once place it in their power, by 
 regular and not overtasked industry, to procure for themselves the ne¬ 
 cessaries and some of the comforts of subsistence, and then their higher 
 and better natures at once begin to unfold. Then you furnish a fit field 
 for the teacher of science, literature, and religion. 
 
 But however numerous and convincing the reasons in support of 
 this measure, and however certain its success in the popular branch of 
 the national legislature, it is apprehended by some that a fatal opposi¬ 
 tion awaits it in the Senate. I cannot say, sir, that I am a sharer to 
 any great extent in those apprehensions. It is true that in other coun¬ 
 tries, and under very different forms of government, great measures of 
 popular reform have been sometimes delayed in their passage by the 
 action of the higher branch of the legislature. The reader of English 
 
26 
 
 history needs hardly to be reminded that, in its encroachments upon 
 the privileges of Parliament, and upon the rights of the subject, the 
 Throne was generally upheld by the House of Lords. It was the 
 British House of Lords which, at the Revolution of 1688, hesitated 
 against the clearly expressed will of the nation at the bill of rights 
 and the act of settlement by which civil and religious liberty were 
 accurately defined and forever guaranteed, and the descent of the 
 crown directed in accordance with the national will. It was the same 
 body which, for fifty years, waged a relentless hostility to the passage 
 of the emancipation bill, to the reform bill in 1832, and to the repeal 
 of the corn laws in 1846. It is true, that in each of those cases the 
 Lords yielded, but only when they perceived resistance would be una¬ 
 vailing, and perhaps prove their own political destruction. 
 
 But very different from the British House of Lords, as well in origin 
 as character, in responsibilities and sympathies, is the American Senate. 
 Though representing in the Federal Congress the States in their sover¬ 
 eign capacity, they are yet elected at short intervals by delegates im¬ 
 mediately from the people. While their responsibility for the use 
 of power, therefore, is ever to the people, their sympathies are ever 
 with them. As a co-ordinate branch of the national legislature, it is 
 with pride and with pleasure that I acknowledge its respectability and 
 dignity, its conservative character and importance. Sir, I believe the 
 interests of the people are safe in its hands; and that on a question of 
 such great importance as this—of such unquestionable policy, and 
 which the popular voice has so unequivocally approved—it will never 
 be found to continue a vain and fruitless opposition. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the friends of this measure must persevere; it is a 
 great question, affecting the happiness of thousands who are now living, 
 and of millions yet to come. They should remember that most of the 
 great reforms which have been made in legislation have been effected 
 slowly and against great opposition. Under conservative professions, 
 and a timid distrust of the popular capacity for self-government, what 
 a struggle was maintained against the enlargement of popular suffrage 
 and representation in England within the recent memory of the present 
 generation—a struggle which lasted for a period of forty years! What 
 a struggle against the Catholic emancipation bill, and still more recently 
 against the removal of the restrictions imposed by the corn laws, 
 and by which the people were furnished with cheap bread! By the 
 energy and liberality of Peel, Cobden, and Macaulay, this reform was 
 effected ; and whilst the fruits of their bold and humane policy are now 
 enjoyed at every humble English fireside, their names stand out in bold 
 relief, and will shed imperishable lustre upon the records of the English 
 Parliament. What a struggle was maintained in this country to defeat 
 the incorporation of federal doctrines in the organization of the govern¬ 
 ment, and subsequently against the schemes of the moneyed interests, 
 in their efforts to uphold a great financial institution to control the 
 currency and interfere with the legislation of the country! What pre¬ 
 dictions of ruin, blight, and desolation to all the varied interests of our 
 people to follow upon the destruction of that institution! What a 
 struggle have we not all witnessed, against the union of capitalists to 
 procure the prevalence of class legislation in the form of a high pro- 
 
27 
 
 tective tariff! What resistance to the acquisition of territory since 
 the formation of the Union and the adoption of the federal constitution, 
 in 1789—to the purchase of Louisiana—of the Floridas—the annexation 
 of Texas—the conquest of New Mexico and California, which com¬ 
 pleted our march across the continent, from one great ocean to the other, 
 and established the western line in the survey of an ocean-bound re¬ 
 public ! 
 
 In every one of these instances it has been seen that the popular 
 mind has had sagacity enough to perceive the futility of the objections 
 to the reforms proposed; that the spirit of the age, like the bounding 
 spirit of youth, has laughed at all the timid apprehensions of the honest, 
 though misjudging, advocates of the interests of capital to the exclusion 
 of labor; of the timid and contracted to the acquisition of territory; 
 at the fears of the weak, and the schemes of the interested; and in 
 every instance in which the change has been made, how genial and 
 salutary have been the fruits of that change. How happy the results 
 of the English reform bill and the repeal of'the corn laws—the change 
 from the United States bank to the independent treasury—the adoption 
 of the revenue tariff; and now last, but not least, how fruitful in great 
 and glorious results the passage of a bill which places upon the founda¬ 
 tion of law an additional million of homesteads. 
 
 What a spectacle do we present at this time! A republic, sprung 
 from an aggregation of separate and sovereign communities, from 
 colonies into States, and from States into a mighty nation, overshadow¬ 
 ing a continent. The State which, in a peculiar and lofty sense, has 
 established the liberty and equality of the individual, and exalted the 
 diginity of human nature, it would seem, requires alone this crown¬ 
 ing act of magnificent philanthropy to complete the measure of her 
 glory. 
 
 Once more, then, Mr. Chairman, let us leave the images in our caves. 
 Let us come forth into the open air. Let us not be afraid to lose sight 
 of the headlands and beacon-lights of our native lands. Let us trust 
 to the stars and the magnet, as our fathers did when they left the shores 
 of Old England, and ventured out upon the billows of a broad yet 
 doubtful ocean—at first casting their anchor within the hospitable 
 waters of the Chesapeake, and then again landing per chance upon 
 the bleak and weather-beaten rock of Plymouth. Let us imitate in a 
 measure their example. Let us muster on their courage; let us mingle 
 
 E hilanthropy with national interest, and give liberty an additional foot- 
 old upon American soil; and my word for it, we shall yet make new 
 discoveries in politics and legislation, not unworthy of the race which 
 claims as ancestral memories the Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, the 
 Declaration of Independence, and the Federal Compact. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, in another quarter of a century, within easy reach of 
 vision from this Capitol, that noble work, now rearing its shaft upon the 
 banks of the Potomac, will have been completed, which will do honor 
 alike to the matchless character which it is to commemorate and the 
 patriotism of the present generation. That marble obelisk will have 
 climbed the skies to its destined height—a marvel alike and a monu¬ 
 ment. Every morning sun will see its shadow stretching far into the 
 State of Virginia, and in his evening glow it will fall towards the 
 
28 
 
 Chesapeake. To latest time that monument will stand as an index 
 upon the great dial-plate of the globe; while its shadow, revolving 
 with the annual march of the sun through the heavens, will mark the 
 stages through which our country makes its progress in everything 
 great, glorious, and noble. In the unequalled condition of things upon 
 which, from its proud elevation, that monument shall then look down, 
 I am deeply persuaded that no agency will have been found more 
 operative in producing that state of affairs, no cause more general and 
 effective of the universal prosperity of the country, than the disposition 
 of the public lands now proposed by this bill. 
 
 *,