third tract between the Great and Little Miami, to John Cleves Symmes, containing at first one million, but afterwards reduced to 248,540 acres.

Besides these, 72,974 acres were sold in 1787, under the ordinance of 1785, for disposing of lands in the western territory and 48,566 acres in 1796, were also sold under the same ordinance. A regular system was afterwards adopted for the disposition of the public domain and Surveyor Generals appointed. In 1800, the acts containing the principal features of the present land system were passed.

They have been subsequently modified, and in 1820, cash sales were substituted for sales on credit; but as they now exist they are substantially as follows.

1

The public lands when surweyed, which is done under the superintendence of five Principal Surveyors, at the expense of the United States, are divided into townships of six miles square, and these are subdivided into 36 sections of a mile square, containing 640 acres each.

The dividing lines run east and west or north and south, though sometimes a navigable river or an Indian boundary creates a fractional section.

The section No. 16, in each township, is reserved for the support of the schools in the townships and distinct reservations are made for Colleges. Salt springs and lead mines are also reserved, subject to be leased by the President.

The other sections are offered for sale at public auction for cash,

under proclamations of the President at the minimum price of $1,25 per acre. Lands not sold at public sale are afterwards subject to entry at private sale at the minimum price.

The whole public domain of the United States amounts to 1,063,000,000 acres, while the superfices of the States and territories, as owned by the States or their citizens, amount to less than 350,000,000 acres.

Of the public lands, where the Indian title has not yet been extinguished, 750,000,000 acres lie in the great Western Territory: 56,804,824 acres in Huron Territory, west of Michigan Lake: 11,411,040 acres in the Territories of Michigan and Florida, and 38,574,598 acres within the limits of States now members of the Union. Besides this, there are 72,892,661 acres in the Territories of Florida, Alabama and Michigan, and 132,780,037 acres within the limits of States where. the Indian title has been extinguished.

About 150,000,000 acres have been surveyed up to the present time; of which 20,000,000 have been sold; 20,000,000 have been granted by Congress for education, internal improvement and other purposes; 80,000,000 have been proclaimed for sale and are now subject to entry at the minimum price, and 30,000,000 have not yet been proclaimed for sale on account of the want of demand. The annual expense of these surveys amounts to about $70,000. The total expense of selling the public lands from 1800 to 1825 amounted to $1,154,

951, and the moneys received from the sales during the same period to $31,345,964, besides $7,955,831 due from purchasers, of which only part can be recovered.

Although the value of the land not sold is incomparably less in proportion to the quantity than that disposed of, the increase of population and the advancing settlement of the country is daily augmenting the value of the portion remaining unsold; and when we regard the future and compare it with the past, sufficient is seen to convince us that the public domain is of vast and incalculable importance to the Federal Government. Whether viewed as an economical or as a political question, it is one full of momentous results; and when taken in connexion with the claims of State sovereignties it becomes as delicate as it is important.

The large quantity of lands within the limits of States, now members of the Confederacy, must eventually give to that question an absorbing interest. It has even now begun to evince the character which renders it a dangerous question to the authority of the Federal Government, and connects the pretensions of the States agitating the subject with the claims and doctrines of the States of Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia. Acting upon the new principle advanced by Georgia in relation to the sovereignty of the State over all land within its limits, some of the new States have lately set up a claim to the property in the soil of all lands

not owned by individuals as an incident of sovereignty.

Complaints had been previously made of the system pursued by the United States, in disposing of the public domain. The principle of holding all lands in the hands of the Government which did not bring the minimum price, it was said, prevented emigrants from settling in those States, where the best lands had been preoccupied, and the population became thus sparsely scattered over a vast extent of country. A system of graduated prices according to their actual value would bring about the sale of large tracts now unsold, and which would remain unsold so long as more valuable land could be purchased farther west at the same price.

Donations of small tracts were also recommended to actual settlers; and a contest was obviously about to commence between those who, regarding the public domain as a fund for the common benefit, were desirous of making it productive to the treasury, by selling it upon liberal terms, and those who, looking only to the settlement of their several States, advocated the forcing the public territory into market without reference to the demand, or to anything except the promotion of local views and objects.

Memorials were sanctioned by some of the Western Legislatures, remonstrating against the existing mode of disposing of the public lands, and the State of Illinois intimated that if it were not changed grave questions would arise among them, whether the title of

while in other districts, where the land was of better quality, and larger tracts for sale, the sales amounted only to 2000.

He thought, therefore, it was proper to inquire into the expediency of stopping for a time this indiscriminate sale of public lands. Mr Benton opposed this resolution as part of a systematic policy for crippling the growth of the West, which had been pursued for forty years. It was as old as the existence of the Government. The practical effect of the resolution would be to check emigration to the West- for who would move to a new country if it was not to get new lands? He was desirous of meeting the question now, and he would move to make it the order for a future day. Mr Noble was opposed to the resolution, but was willing to meet the question, and proposed to make it the order of the day for Monday next. Mr Benton Mr Benton wished a longer day and moved for its postponement to the succeeding Monday.

On the 18th of January, 1830, the subject was resumed and Mr Benton commenced a speech in opposition to the resolution, which he asserted was intended to stop the surveying of public lands; to abolish all the offices of the Surveyors General, and to limit the sales to the land now in market.

The effect of these measures would be to check emigration to the new States, to retard their settlement, to deliver up large portions of them to the dominion of wild beasts, and to remove all the land records from the new

States He contended that the effect of the inquiry would be to alarm and agitate the West.

Two great attempts had been made to prevent emigration to the West, besides the one now making, to induce the people of the East to stay at home, and work in manufactories, instead of emigrating to the West. The first great attempt was in 1786; the scheme was, to give up the navigation of the Mississippi, for twentyfive or thirty years, to Spain; seven States north of Maryland, voted for that surrender; six States south of Maryland, inclusive, voted against it. In this attempt was to be discerned the germ of that policy by which the valley of the Mississippi had been dismembered, and her rivers amputated. The second great attempt was made by a committee of twelve in Congress, of whom eight were from the north, and four from the south of the Potomac. The committec were Messrs Long, of New Hampshire; R. King, of Massachusetts; Howell, of Rhode Island; Jolinson, of Connecticut ; R. R. Livingston, of New York; Stewart, of New Jersey; Gardiner, of Pennsylvania; Henry, of Maryland; Grayson, of Virginia; Williamson, of North Carolina; Ball, of South Carolina; ard Houston, of Georgia. This committee reported the present plan of surveys of the public land; but they also reported a provision, which would have prevented a settlement out of sight of the Pennsylvania line. This was,

that each township should be sold out complete, before any land was

offered in the next one.' This would have been fatal to the West. By the exertions of Virginia, and the whole South, aided by scattered reinforcements from the North, the provision was stricken out, and thus ended the second great attempt to injure the West. The object, however, had never been abandoned, and it could be seen at intervals, in refusing troops and money to defend the frontiers of the West, and to extinguish the Indian titles; and in Mr Adams' withdrawal from the market, in violation of law, of 1000 square miles in Missouri. The West must still look to the solid phalanx of the South for succor, until by the quiet superiority which the census of 1840 would give her, she could set all right.

On the 19th of January, Mr Smith of Maryland, expressed himself in favor of the inquiry, and of his personal knowledge denied that Mr Adams was the first to relinquish the Colorado as a boundary. Mr Adams said that must and should be our western boundary, and this occasioned a quarrel betwixt Mr Adams and Don Onis.

Mr Holmes of Maine objected to an attempt to charge one section with hostility to another. He had never been sectional. During the late war he had done what he could to sustain the West. The East hostile to the West! Where? When? In what act of Congress? Was it in the charter of July, 1787? Was it in providing by that able state paper for new States, and receiving them when they possessed 60,000 inhabitants? The fact of purchas

ing lands showed that the East was not hostile to emigration; Mr Holmes replied to Mr Benton n detail. He stated that 200,000,000 of acres were now ready ad in the market for settlers.

Mr Woodbury, of New Hampshire, offered an amendment, which proposed an inquiry into the expediency of hastening the sales and extending more rapidly the surveys of public lands. He alluded to the bounties given to settlers in Canada, and the necessity of countervailing it.

Mr Foot, of Connecticut, opposed an amendment.

Mr Barton, of Missouri, would vote for the amendment.

Mr Smith of Maryland, could see no occasion for the amendment. He was in favor of an inquiry. The result of an inquiry would show that no hostility existed. The Senate had always been liberal to the new States and they had acknowledged it.

Mr Livingston, of Louisiana, said there was a regular and an irregular mode of doing business. By the regular mode, resolutions went to a committee; by the irregular mode, members undertook to furnish information and go into subjects at length. He wished the regular mode had been preferred. He was opposed to the original resolution, but in favor of the amendment.

Mr Sprague, of Maine, suggested a union of the two propositions, and Mr Foot, of Connecticut, accepted it; so the resolution as it stood, ordered an inquiry into the expediency of hastening as well as of limiting sales; and of extending more rapidly the sur