overthrown, gave no heed to another pledge in the Compromise Act, and omitted to arrest the reduction of duties, for the purpose of meeting the wants of Government. This fact shows with how bad a grace the friends of the tariff of 1842 were charged with having violated the Compromise Act of 1833.

THE LAND BILL.

Mr. Clayton was an active advocate of the Land Bill, which was passed at this important session of 1833. It was, indeed, a measure, the adoption of which assisted to procure the passage of the compromise itself; and may be said to form part and parcel of the compromise. So far back as the year 1830, Mr. Clayton, in his speech on the 4th of March of that year, strongly advocated the right of the old States to a share of the public lands; and, for the purpose of explaining the principles with respect to a subject so important, the following extract is copied from that speech:

"I am constrained to say that I cannot vote for this bill (the bill to graduate the price of the public lands, to make provisions for actual settlers, and to cede the residue to the States in which they lie). According to my mode of considering it, it is a proposition to give away the birthright of our people for a nominal sum; and I am yet to learn that the citizens of the Middle States have indicated any feeling in regard

in the vote re

to it, differing from that expressed in ferred to when, with a single exception, all the Senators, representing States north of Mason and Dixon's line, opposed the measure. They do not look to these lands, as has been unjustly stated, with the eye of an unfeeling landholder who parts with acres as a miser parts with his gold. They view the new States as younger sisters of the same family, upon an equal footing with themselves, and entitled to an equal share of the patrimony; but having children to educate, and numerous wants to be supplied, they will think it ungenerous, unjust, and oppressive, should these younger sisters take away the whole. Sir, it is the inheritance which descended from our forefathers, who wrested a part of it from the British crown, at the expense of their blood and treasure; and paid for the rest of it by the earnings of their labor. It is not for me to people of the Middle is their privilege to

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say what are the feelings of the States on the subject. But it speak for themselves, and they will, doubtless, when they think it necessary, exercise that privilege. Yet I will say that if they entertain the sentiments of their fathers, they will never consent to cede away hundreds of millions of acres of land for a nominal consideration, or gratuitously relinquish them to any new State, however loudly she may insist on the measure due to her rights and her sovereignty, or however boldly she may threaten to defy the Federal judiciary, and decide the controversy by her own tribunals and in her own favor. Those who are conversant with our Revolutionary history will remember that the exclusive claims of Virginia, and other members of our political family, to our public lands, were warmly resisted by New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, as soon

as those claims were avowed after the rupture with the mother country. The articles of confederation were not signed on the part of New Jersey until the 25th of November, 1878; although she had bled freely in the cause of American liberty, from the commencement of the struggle. One of the principal objections which caused this delay in the ratification of those articles, will be found in the able representation of the Legislature, presented by her delegates to Congress, before she acceded to the Union. The ninth article,' said they, 'provides that no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States. Whether we are to understand by territory is intended any land the property of which was heretofore vested in the crown of Great Britain, or that no mention of such land is made in the confederation, we are constrained to observe that the present war, as we always apprehended, was undertaken for the general defence and interest of of the confederating colonies, now the United States. It was ever the confident expectation of this State, that the benefits, derived from a successful contest, were to be general and proportionate; and that the property of the common enemy, falling in consequence of a prosperous issue of the war, would belong to the United States, and be appropriated to their use. We are therefore greatly disappointed in finding no provision made in the confederation for empowering the Congress to dispose of such property, but especially the vacant and unpatented lands, commonly called called the crown lands, for defraying the expenses of the war, and for such other public and general purposes. The jurisdiction ought, in every instance, to belong to the respective States, within the charter or determined limits of which such lands may be seated; but reason and

justice must decide, that the property which existed in the crown of Great Britain, previous to the present Revolution, ought now to belong to the Congress, in trust for the use and benefit of the United States. They have fought and bled for it in proportion to their respective abilities; and therefore the reward ought not to be predilectionally distributed.'

"And when in November, 1778, the Legislature of New Jersey determined to attach her to the Union, they did it, as they then expressed, in firm reliance that the candor and justice of the several States would, in due time, remove the subsisting inequality, yet still insisting on the justice of their objections then lately stated and sent to the General Congress. So too, Delaware and Maryland, for the same reasons, refused to join the confederation, until a still later period- the former ratifying the articles on the 22d of February, 1779, and the latter on the 1st of March, 1781. The State which I have the honor in part to represent here, had, on the Ist of February, 1779, adopted the following resolutions to authorize her accession to the Union:

Resolved, That this State considers it necessary for the peace and safety of the State, to be included in the Union; that a moderate extent of limits should be assigned for such of those States as claim to the Mississippi or South Sea; and that the United States, in Congress assembled, should and ought to have power of fixing their western limits.

Resolved, also, That this State considers herself justly entitled to a right in common with the members of the Union, to that extensive tract of country which lies to the westward of the United States, the property of which was not vested in or granted to individuals, at the commencement of the present war; that the same hath been or may be gained from the King of Great Britain, or the native Indians, by the

blood and treasure of all, and ought therefore to be a common estate, to be granted out on terms beneficial to the United States.

"But after the accession of Delaware, with this protest, Maryland still persevered in her refusal to join the confederation, solely on the ground, that she might thereby be stripped of the common interest, and the common benefits derived from the Western lands. She still insisted that some security for these lands was necessary for the happiness and tranquillity of the Union; denied the whole claim of Virginia to the territory northwest of the Ohio; and still pressed upon Congress that policy and justice required that a country, unsettled at the commencement of the war, claimed by the British crown, and ceded to it by the treaty of Paris, if wrested from the common enemy by the blood and treasure of the thirteen States, should be considered as common property.

"In February, 1780, New York made her cession, to accelerate the Federal alliance, and declared the territory ceded, should be for the use and benefit of such of the United States as should become members of that alliance, and for no other use or purpose whatever. And although Virginia attempted, for awhile, to vindicate her claim, yet other States, feeling a strong attachment to Maryland, and conscious of the justice of her representations, disliked a partial Union, which would throw out of the pale a people, standing, as Marylanders have always stood, among the bravest and most patriotic of our countrymen. The ordinance of Congress then followed, in October, 1780, declaring that the territory to be ceded by the States should be disposed of for the common benefit of the Union; and on the 2d of January, 1781, Virginia, in