[NILES’S Weekly Register of January second, 1836, makes the
following appropriate remarks. ‘We have the pleasure to present
the able and beautiful speech of Mr. Clay, on again presenting
his bill to dispose of the proceeds of the public lands. What
an immense good would grow out of the passage of that bill!
His history of this bill is very _severe_, though stated in the
mildest terms possible.’ The bill offered by Mr. Clay at this
session passed the senate, by a vote of twenty-five to twenty;
but was laid on the table in the house, by one hundred and four
to eighty-five.]
ALTHOUGH I find myself borne down by the severest affliction with
which Providence has ever been pleased to visit me, I have thought that
my private griefs ought not longer to prevent me from attempting, ill
as I feel qualified, to discharge my public duties. And I now rise, in
pursuance of the notice which has been given, to ask leave to introduce
a bill to appropriate, for a limited time, the proceeds of the sales of
the public lands of the United States, and for granting land to certain
states.
I feel it incumbent on me to make a brief explanation of the highly
important measure which I have now the honor to propose. The bill,
which I desire to introduce, provides for the distribution of the
proceeds of the public lands in the years 1833, 1834, 1835, 1836,
and 1837, among the twenty-four states of the union, and conforms
substantially to that which passed in 1833. It is therefore of
a temporary character; but if it shall be found to have salutary
operation it will be in the power of a future congress to give it an
indefinite continuance; and, if otherwise, it will expire by its own
terms. In the event of war unfortunately breaking out with any foreign
power, the bill is to cease, and the fund which it distributes is to
be applied to the prosecution of the war. The bill directs that ten
per centum of the net proceeds of the public lands, sold within the
limits of the seven new states, shall be first set apart for them,
in addition to the five per centum reserved by their several compacts
with the United States; and that the residue of the proceeds, whether
from sales made in the states or territories shall be divided among
the twenty-four states, in proportion to their respective federal
population. In this respect the bill conforms to that which was
introduced in 1832. For one I should have been willing to have allowed
the new states twelve and a half instead of ten per centum, but as that
was objected to by the president, in his veto message, and has been
opposed in other quarters, I thought it best to restrict the allowance
to the more moderate sum. The bill also contains large and liberal
grants of land to several of the new states, to place them upon
an equality with others to which the bounty of congress has been
heretofore extended, and provides that, when other new states shall be
admitted into the union, they shall receive their share of the common
fund.
The net amount of the sales of the public lands in the year 1833 was
the sum of three million nine hundred and sixty-seven thousand six
hundred and eighty-two dollars and fifty-five cents; in the year 1834
was four million eight hundred and fifty-seven thousand and six hundred
dollars and sixty-nine cents; and in the year 1835, according to actual
receipts in the three first quarters and an estimate of the fourth,
is twelve million two hundred and twenty-two thousand one hundred and
twenty-one dollars and fifteen cents; making an aggregate for the three
years of twenty-one million forty-seven thousand four hundred and four
dollars and thirty-nine cents. This aggregate is what the bill proposes
to distribute and pay to the twenty-four states on the first day of May,
1836, upon the principles which I have stated. The difference between
the estimate made by the secretary of the treasury and that which I
have offered of the product of the last quarter of this year, arises
from my having taken, as the probable sum, one third of the total
amount of the three first quarters, and he some other conjectural sum.
Deducting from the twenty-one million forty-seven thousand four hundred
and four dollars and thirty-nine cents the fifteen per centum to which
the seven new states, according to the bill, will be first entitled,
amounting to two million six hundred and twelve thousand three
hundred and fifty dollars and eighteen cents, there will remain for
distribution among the twenty-four states of the union the sum of
eighteen million four hundred and thirty-five thousand and fifty-four
dollars and twenty-one cents. Of this sum the proportion of Kentucky
will be nine hundred and sixty thousand nine hundred and forty-seven
dollars and forty-one cents, of Virginia the sum of one million five
hundred and eighty-one thousand six hundred and sixty-nine dollars
and thirty-nine cents, of North Carolina nine hundred and eighty-eight
thousand six hundred and thirty-two dollars and forty-two cents, and
of Pennsylvania two million eighty-three thousand two hundred and
thirty-three dollars and thirty-two cents. The proportion of Indiana,
including the fifteen per centum, will be eight hundred and fifty-five
thousand five hundred and eighty-eight dollars and twenty-three cents,
of Ohio one million six hundred and seventy-seven thousand one hundred
and ten dollars and eighty-four cents, and of Mississippi nine hundred
and fifty-eight thousand nine hundred and forty-five dollars and
forty-two cents. And the proportions of all the twenty-four states are
indicated in a table which I hold in my hand, prepared at my instance
in the office of the secretary of the senate, and to which any senator
may have access.[23] The grounds on which the extra allowance is made
to the new states are, first, their complaint that all lands sold by
the federal government are five years exempted from state taxation;
secondly, that it is to be applied in such manner as will augment the
value of the unsold public lands within them; and, lastly, their recent
settlement.
It may be recollected that a bill passed both houses of congress,
in the session which terminated on the third of March, 1833, for
the distribution of the amount received from the public lands, upon
the principles of that now offered. The president, in his message at
the commencement of the previous session, had specially invited the
attention of congress to the subject of the public lands; had adverted
to their liberation from the pledge for the payment of the public debt;
and had intimated his readiness to concur in any disposal of them which
might appear to congress most conducive to the quiet, harmony, and
general interest of the American people.
After such a message, the president’s disapprobation of the bill could
not have been anticipated. It was presented to him on the second of
March, 1833. It was not returned as the constitution requires, but was
retained by him after the expiration of his official term, and until
the next session of congress, which had no power to act upon it. It
was understood and believed that, in anticipation of the passage of
the bill, the president had prepared objections to it, which he had
intended to return with his negative; but he did not. If the bill had
been returned, there is reason to believe that it would have passed,
notwithstanding those objections. In the house, it had been carried
by a majority of more than two thirds. And, in the senate, although
there was not the majority on its passage, it was supposed that, in
consequence of the passage of the compromise bill, some of the senators
who had voted against the land bill had changed their views, and would
have voted for it upon its return, and others had left the senate.
There are those who believe that the bill was unconstitutionally
retained by the president and is now the law of the land. But whether
it be so or not, the general government holds the public domain in
trust for the common benefit of all the states; and it is, therefore,
competent to provide by law that the trustee shall make distribution
of the proceeds of the three past years, as well as future years,
among those entitled to the beneficial interest. The bill makes such
a provision. And it is very remarkable, that the sum which it proposes
to distribute is about the gross surplus, or balance, estimated in the
treasury on the first of January, 1836. When the returns of the last
quarter of the year come in, it will probably be found that the surplus
is larger than the sum which the bill distributes. But if it should not
be, there will remain the seven millions held in the bank of the United
States, applicable, as far as it may be received, to the service of the
ensuing year.
It would be premature now to enter into a consideration of the probable
revenue of future years; but, at the proper time, I think it will not
be difficult to show that, exclusive of what may be received from the
public lands, it will be abundantly sufficient for all the economical
purposes of government, in a time of peace. And the bill, as I have
already stated, provides for seasons of war. I wish to guard against
all misconception by repeating, what I have heretofore several times
said, that this bill is not founded upon any notion of a power in
congress to lay and collect taxes and distribute the amount among
the several states. I think congress possesses no such power, and has
no right to exercise it until such amendment as that proposed by the
senator from South Carolina (Mr. Calhoun) shall be adopted. But the
bill rests on the basis of a clear and comprehensive grant of power to
congress over the territories and property of the United States in the
constitution, and upon express stipulations in the deeds of session.
Mr. President, I have ever regarded, with feelings of the profoundest
regret, the decision which the president of the United States felt
himself induced to make on the bill of 1833. If it had been his
pleasure to approve it, the heads of departments would not now be
taxing their ingenuity to find out useless objects of expenditures, or
objects which may be well postponed to a more distant day. If the bill
had passed, about twenty millions of dollars would have been, during
the three last years, in the hands of the several states, applicable
by them to the beneficent purposes of internal improvement, education,
or colonization. What immense benefits might not have been diffused
throughout the land by the active employment of that large sum? What
new channels of commerce and communication might not have been opened?
What industry stimulated, what labor rewarded? How many youthful minds
might have received the blessings of education and knowledge, and been
rescued from ignorance, vice, and ruin? How many descendants of Africa
might have been transported from a country where they never can enjoy
political or social equality, to the native land of their fathers,
where no impediment exists to their attainment of the highest degree
of elevation, intellectual, social, and political? Where they might
have been successful instruments, in the hands of God, to spread the
religion of his son, and to lay the foundations of civil liberty!
And, sir, when we institute a comparison between what might have been
effected, and what has been in fact done, with that large amount of
national treasure, our sensations of regret, on account of the fate of
the bill of 1833, are still keener. Instead of its being dedicated to
the beneficent uses of the whole people, and our entire country, it
has been an object of scrambling amongst local corporations, and locked
up in the vaults, or loaned out by the directors of a few of them, who
are not under the slightest responsibility to the government or people
of the United States. Instead of liberal, enlightened, and national
purposes, it has been partially applied to local, limited, and selfish
uses. Applied to increase the semi-annual dividends of favorite
stockholders in favorite banks! Twenty millions of the national
treasure are scattered in parcels among petty corporations; and
whilst they are growling over the fragments and greedy for more, the
secretaries are brooding on schemes for squandering the whole.
But although we have lost three precious years, the secretary of the
treasury tells us that the principal is yet safe, and much good may
be still achieved with it. The general government, by an extraordinary
exercise of executive power, no longer affords aid to any new works
of internal improvement. Although it sprung from the union, and cannot
survive the union, it no longer engages in any public improvement
to perpetuate the existence of the union. It is but justice to it to
acknowledge, that, with the coöperation of the public-spirited state
of Maryland, it effected one national road having that tendency. But
the spirit of improvement pervades the land, in every variety of form,
active, vigorous, and enterprising, wanting pecuniary aid as well as
intelligent direction. The states have undertaken what the general
government is prevented from accomplishing. They are strengthening the
union by various lines of communication thrown across and through the
mountains. New York has completed one great chain. Pennsylvania another,
bolder in conception and far more arduous in the execution. Virginia
has a similar work in progress, worthy of all her enterprise and energy.
A fourth further south, where the parts of the union are too loosely
connected, has been projected, and it can certainly be executed with
the supplies which this bill affords, and perhaps not without them.
This bill passed, and these and other similar undertakings completed,
we may indulge the patriotic hope that our union will be bound by ties
and interests that render it indissoluble. As the general government
withholds all direct agency from these truly national works, and from
all new objects of internal improvement, ought it not to yield to the
states, what is their own, the amount received from the public lands?
It would thus but execute faithfully a trust expressly created by
the original deeds of cession, or resulting from the treaties of
acquisition. With this ample resource, every desirable object of
improvement, in every part of our extensive country, may, in due
time, be accomplished. Placing this exhaustless fund in the hands of
the several members of the confederacy, their common federal head may
address them in the glowing language of the British bard, and
‘Bid harbors open, public ways extend,
Bid temples worthier of the God ascend.
Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain,
The mole projecting break the roaring main.
Back to his bounds their subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land.’
The affair of the public lands was forced upon me. In the session
of 1831 and 1832 a motion from a quarter politically unfriendly to
me, was made to refer it to the committee of manufactures, of which
I was a member. I strenuously opposed the reference. I remonstrated,
I protested, I entreated, I implored. It was in vain that I insisted
that the committee on the public lands was the regular standing
committee to which the reference should be made. It was in vain that I
contended that the public lands and domestic manufactures were subjects
absolutely incongruous. The unnatural alliance was ordered by the
vote of a majority of the senate. I felt that a personal embarrassment
was intended me. I felt that the design was to place in my hands a
many-edged instrument, which I could not touch without being wounded.
Nevertheless I subdued all my repugnance, and I engaged assiduously
in the task which had been so unkindly assigned me. This, or a similar
bill, was the offspring of my deliberations. When reported, the report
accompanying it was referred by the same majority of the senate to the
very committee on the public lands to which I had unsuccessfully sought
to have the subject originally assigned, for the avowed purpose of
obtaining a counteracting report. But, in spite of all opposition, it
passed the senate at that session. At the next, both houses of congress.
I confess, I feel anxious for the fate of this measure, less on account
of any agency I have had in proposing it, as I hope and believe, than
from a firm, sincere, and thorough conviction, that no one measure,
ever presented to the councils of the nation, was fraught with so much
unmixed good, and could exert such powerful and enduring influence
in the preservation of the union itself, and upon some of its highest
interests. If I can be instrumental, in any degree, in the adoption
of it, I shall enjoy, in that retirement into which I hope shortly to
enter, a heart-feeling satisfaction and a lasting consolation. I shall
carry there no regrets, no complaints, no reproaches on my own account.
When I look back upon my humble origin, left an orphan too young to
have been conscious of a father’s smiles and caresses, with a widowed
mother, surrounded by a numerous offspring, in the midst of pecuniary
embarrassments, without a regular education, without fortune, without
friends, without patrons, I have reason to be satisfied with my public
career. I ought to be thankful for the high places and honors to which
I have been called by the favor and partiality of my countrymen, and
I am thankful and grateful. And I shall take with me the pleasing
consciousness, that, in whatever station I have been placed, I have
earnestly and honestly labored to justify their confidence by a
faithful, fearless, and zealous discharge of my public duties. Pardon
these personal allusions. I make the motion of which notice has been
given.
[Leave was then granted, and the bill was introduced, read twice,
referred to the committee on the public lands, and ordered to be
printed.]