"However absolute the right of an individual may be, it is still
in the nature of that right that it must bear a portion of the
public burdens, and that portion must be determined by the
Legislature."[79]
[78] Dobbins _v._ Commissioners of Erie Co., 16 Peters, 447.
[79] Providence Bank _v._ Billings and Pittman, 4 Peters, 563.
In the same case, the Court, after declaring "that the taxing power
is of vital importance,--that it is essential to the existence of
Government,--that the relinquishment of such a power is never to be
assumed," add, cautiously, that they "will not say that a State may not
relinquish it,--_that a consideration sufficiently valuable to induce a
partial release of it may not exist_."[80]
[80] Providence Bank _v._ Billings and Pittman, 4 Peters, 561.
While thus upholding the right of taxation as one of the precious
attributes belonging to the States, the Court, under the Constitution
of the United States, properly exempt instruments and means of
government; but they limit the exemption to these instruments and
means. Thus it is expressly decided in a celebrated case,[81] that,
while the Bank of the United States, being one of the necessary
_instruments and means_ to execute the sovereign powers of the nation,
is not liable to taxation, yet the real property of the Bank is thus
liable, in common with other real property in a particular State.
[81] McCulloch _v._ The State of Maryland, 4 Wheaton, 316.
Now the lands held by the United States do not belong to _instruments
and means_ necessary and proper to execute the sovereign powers of
the nation. In this respect they clearly differ from fortifications,
arsenals, and navy-yards. They are strictly in the nature of
_private property_ belonging to the nation and situated within the
jurisdiction of States. In excusing them from taxation, our fathers
acted unquestionably according to the suggestions of prudence, but
also under the influence of precedent, derived _at that time_ from
the prerogatives of the British Crown. It was an early prerogative,
transmitted from feudal days, when all taxes were in the nature of
aids and subsidies to the monarch, that the property of the Crown, of
every nature, should be exempt from taxation. _But mark the change._
This ancient feudal principle is not now the law of England. By the
statute of 39 and 40 George III., chap. 88, passed thirteen years
after the Ordinance of 1787, the lands and tenements purchased by the
Crown out of the privy purse or other moneys not appropriated to any
public service, or which came to the King from his ancestors or private
persons,--in other words, lands and tenements in the nature of _private
property_,--are subjected to taxation even while they belong to the
Crown.
Thus the matter stands. Lands belonging to the nation, which, it
seems, even royal prerogative at this day in England cannot save from
taxation, are in our country, under express provisions of compact,
early established, exempted from this burden. Now, Sir, I make no
complaint; I do not suggest any change, nor do I hint any ground of
legal title in the States. But I do confidently submit, that in this
peculiar, time-honored immunity, originally claimed by the nation, and
conceded by the States within which the public lands lie, there is
ample ground of equity, under which these States may now appeal to the
nation for assistance out of these public lands.
When I listen to comparisons discrediting these States by the side
of the old States, when I hear it charged that they are constant
recipients of the national bounty, and when I catch those sharper terms
of condemnation by which they are characterized as "plunderers" and
"robbers" and "pirates," I am forced to inquire whether the nation has
not already received from these States something more than it has ever
bestowed, even in its most liberal moods,--whether, at this moment, the
nation is not _equitably_ debtor to these States, and not these States
debtors to the nation.
II. I am now brought to the _second_ head of this inquiry,--that is,
the extent and value of the immunity from taxation, after deducting all
reservations and grants to the several States. Authentic documents and
facts place these beyond question.
From the official returns of the Land Office in January, 1849,[82]
it appears that the areas of the twelve Land States--Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Michigan,
Arkansas, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Florida--embrace 392,579,200 acres.
California was not at that time a State of the Union. Of this
territory, only 289,961,954 acres had been, in pursuance of the laws of
the United States, surveyed, proclaimed, and put into the market. In
some of the recent States, more than a moiety of the whole domain had
never been brought into this condition. At the date of these official
returns it continued still unconscious of the surveyor's chain. Thus,
in Wisconsin, out of more than thirty-four millions of acres, only a
little more than thirteen millions were proclaimed for sale; and in
Iowa, the very State whose interests are now particularly in question,
out of more than thirty-two millions of acres, only a little more than
twelve millions were proclaimed for sale. I cannot doubt that in fact
the aggregate of the public lands within the States at all times much
exceeds the amount actually in the market; but since it may be said
that lands not yet surveyed, proclaimed, and put into the market,
though nominally under the jurisdiction of the State, must lie actually
beyond the sphere of its influence, so as not to derive any appreciable
advantage from the local government, and as I desire to hold this
argument above every imputation of exaggeration,--knowing full well
that it can afford to be understated,--I forbear to take the larger
amount as basis, but found my estimates upon the extent of territory
actually proclaimed for sale, from the beginning down to January, 1849,
amounting to 289,961,954 acres.
[82] Exec. Doc., 30th Cong. 2d Sess., H.R. No. 12, Table 6, p. 255.
All these lands thus proclaimed have been exempt from taxation.
But since they were proclaimed at different periods, and also sold
at different periods, so far as they are sold, it is necessary, in
arriving at the value of this immunity, to ascertain what is the
average period during which the lands, after being put into the market,
are in the possession of the United States. This we are able to do from
official returns of the Land Office. Here is a table now before me,
from which it appears, that, of the lands offered for sale during a
period of thirty years, large quantities were, at the expiration of the
period, still on hand. Of the fourteen millions offered in Ohio during
this period, more than two millions remained, while, of the nineteen
millions offered in Missouri, more than twelve millions remained.
Of all the lands offered during this period of _thirty_ years,
more than half were still unsold.[83] And out of the aggregate of
289,961,954 acres proclaimed from the beginning down to January, 1849,
notwithstanding the advancing tread of our thick-coming population,
only 100,209,656 acres had been sold.[84] Now, without further pursuing
these details, I assume, what cannot be questioned, as it is most
clearly within the truth, that lands proclaimed are not all sold
till after a period of fifty years. This estimate makes the average
period during which the lands, after being surveyed and proclaimed,
are actually in the possession of the United States, and free from
taxation, twenty-five years.
[83] Exec. Doc., 30th Cong. 2d Sess., H.R. No. 12, Table 2, p. 210.
[84] Ibid., Table 6, p. 255.
According to this estimate, 289,961,954 acres, proclaimed for
sale, have been absolutely free from taxation during the space of
twenty-five years; and yet, during this whole period, they have,
without the ordinary consideration, enjoyed the protection of the
State, with advantages and increased value from highways, bridges, and
school-houses, all of which are supported by the adjoining proprietors,
under the laws of the State, without assistance of any kind from the
United States.
Such is the extent of this immunity. But, in order to determine its
precise value, it is necessary to advance a step farther, and ascertain
one other element: that is, the average annual tax on land in these
States,--for instance, on the land of other non-residents. There
are no official documents within my knowledge by which this can be
determined. But, after inquiry of gentlemen, themselves landholders
in these States, I have thought it might be placed, without risk of
contradiction, at one cent an acre. Probably it is rather two, or even
three cents; but, desiring to keep within bounds, I call it only one
cent an acre. The annual tax on 289,961,954 acres, at the rate of one
cent an acre, would be $2,899,619, and the sum-total of this tax for
twenty-five years would amount to $72,490,475, being the apparent value
of this immunity from taxation already enjoyed by the United States;
or, if we call the annual tax two cents an acre, instead of one cent,
we have nothing less than $144,980,950, of which the United States may
now be regarded as trustees in _equity_ for the benefit of the Land
States.
Against this large sum I may be reminded of reservations and grants
by the nation to the different States. These, when examined, do not
materially interfere with the result. From the official returns of the
Land Office, January, 1849,[85] we learn the precise extent of these
reservations and grants down to that period. Here is the exhibit:--
Acres.
Common Schools 10,807,958
Universities 823,950
Seat of Government 50,860
Salines 422,325
Deaf and Dumb Asylums 45,440
Internal Improvements 8,474,473
----------
20,625,006
[85] Exec. Doc., 30th Cong. 2d Sess., H.R. No. 12, Table 10, p. 260.
This is all. In the whole aggregate only a little more than twenty
millions of acres have been granted to these States. The value of
this sum-total, if deducted from the estimated value of the franchise
enjoyed by the nation, will still leave a very large balance to the
credit of the Land States. Estimating the land at $1.25 an acre, all
the reservations and grants will amount to no more than $25,781,257.
Deducting this sum from $72,490,475, we have $46,709,218 to the credit
of the Land States; or, if we place the tax at two cents an acre, more
than double this sum.
This result leaves the nation so largely in debt to the Land States
that it becomes of small importance to scan closely the character of
these grants and reservations, to determine whether in large part they
are not already satisfied by specific considerations on the part of
the States. But the stress, which, in the course of this debate, is
laid upon this bounty, leads me to go further. From an examination of
the Acts of Congress by which the Land States were admitted into the
Union it appears that a large portion of these reservations and grants
was made on the express condition that the lands sold by the United
States, under the jurisdiction of the States, _should remain exempt
from any State tax for the space of five years after the sale_. This
condition is particularly applicable to the appropriations for common
schools, universities, seats of government, and salines, amounting to
12,105,093 acres. It is also particularly applicable to another item,
not mentioned before, which is known as the five per cent fund, from
the proceeds of the public lands, for the benefit of roads and canals,
amounting in the whole to $5,242,069. These appropriations, being made
on specific conditions, faithfully performed by the States down to this
day, are properly excluded from our calculations. And this is an answer
to the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. UNDERWOOD], who dwelt so
energetically on these appropriations, without seeming to be aware of
the conditions on which they were granted.
That I may make this more intelligible, let me refer to the act for the
admission of Indiana. After setting forth the five reservations and
grants already mentioned, it proceeds:--
"_And provided always_, That the five foregoing provisions herein
offered are on the conditions that the convention of the said State
shall provide by an ordinance, irrevocable without the consent
of the United States, that every and each tract of land sold by
the United States, from and after the first day of December next,
shall be and remain exempt from any tax laid by order or under any
authority of the State, whether for State, county, or township,
or any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years from and
after the day of sale."
This clause does not stand by itself in the acts admitting the more
recent States, but is mixed with other conditions. I will not believe,
however, that any discrimination can be made between particular
Land States, on the ground of difference in conditions properly
attributable to accidental circumstances. The provision just quoted is
found substantially in the acts for the admission of Ohio, Missouri,
Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. So far as these States
are concerned, it is a complete consideration, in the nature of
satisfaction, for reservations and grants enjoyed by them. It also
helps to illustrate the value of the _permanent immunity_ from taxation
belonging to the United States, by exhibiting concessions made by the
United States to assure this franchise for certain moderate quantities
of land during the brief space of five years only.
After the constant charges of squandering the public lands and of
partiality to the Land States, I think all will be astonished at
the small amount on the debtor side, in the great account between
the States and the Nation. This consists of grants for internal
improvements, in the whole reaching to only 8,474,473 acres, which, at
$1.25 an acre, will be $10,593,091. If this sum be deducted from the
estimated value of the immunity already enjoyed by the United States,
we shall still have _upwards of_ $60,000,000 _surrendered by the Land
States to the nation_; or, if we call the annual tax two cents an acre,
more than double this sum.
In these estimates I group together all the Land States. But, taking
separate States, we find the same proportionate result. For instance,
there is Ohio, with 16,770,984 acres proclaimed for sale down to
January 1, 1849. Adopting the basis already employed, and assuming that
these lands continued in the possession of the United States an average
period of twenty-five years after being surveyed and proclaimed, and
that the land tax was one cent an acre, we have $4,192,746 as the value
of the immunity from taxation already enjoyed by the United States in
Ohio. From this may be deducted the value of 1,181,134 acres, being
grants to this State for internal improvements, at $1.25 per acre,
equal to $1,476,417, leaving upwards of two millions--nearly three
millions--of dollars yielded by this State to the nation.
Take another State,--Missouri. It appears that down to January, 1849,
39,635,609 acres had been proclaimed for sale in this State. Assuming
again the basis already employed, we have $9,908,902 as the value
of the immunity from taxation already enjoyed by the United States
in Missouri. From this may be deducted the value of 500,000 acres,
granted for internal improvements, which, at $1.25 an acre, amounts to
$625,000, leaving upwards of nine millions of dollars thus yielded by
this State to the nation.
In this way I might proceed with all the Land States individually; but
enough is done to repel the charges against them, and to elucidate a
_peculiar equity_. On the one side, they have received little, very
little, from the nation,--while, on the other side, the nation, by
strong considerations of equity, is largely indebted to them. This
obligation of itself constitutes an equitable fund, to which the
Land States may properly resort for assistance in works of internal
improvement; and Congress will show an indifference to reasonable
demands, should it fail to deal with them munificently,--in some sort,
according to the simple measure of advantage which the nation has
already so largely enjoyed at their hands.
Against these clear and well-supported merits, the old States present
small claims to consideration. They have waived no right of taxation
over lands within their acknowledged jurisdiction; they have made no
valuable concession; they have yielded up no costly franchise. It
remains, then, that, with candor and justice, they should recognize the
superior--I will not say exclusive--claims of the States within whose
borders and under the protection of whose laws the national domain is
found.
* * * * *
Thus much for what I have to say in favor of this bill, on the ground
of _justice_ to the States in which the lands lie. If this argument
did not seem sufficiently conclusive to render any further discussion
superfluous, at least from me, I might go forward, and show that the
true interests of the whole country--of every State in the Union, as of
Iowa itself--are happily coincident with this claim of justice.
The State of Iowa, though distant and still sparsely settled, is known
to contain the materials of boundless prosperity. The northern part
may wear some of the rigid features of New England, but the middle
and southern portion has a surface of great fertility, and in its
bosom coal to an incalculable amount,--more, it is supposed, than all
to be found in England and the whole European Continent. With these
remarkable capacities, which, however, it shares with Illinois and
Indiana and with the northern part of Missouri, it will be able to
subsist a large population and to support manufactories on the most
extensive scale. Its fields will naturally wave with golden harvests,
while its inexhaustible stores of coal will quicken every form of
human industry, and will furnish an incalculable motive-power to all
its multiplying machinery and workshops. If in the reports of Science,
now authenticated by a careful and admirable geological survey of this
region,[86] we may read the future development, I had almost said the
destiny, of States, according to natural laws, which I believe, then it
would be difficult to exaggerate what we may expect from Iowa.
[86] Report of a Geological Survey of Wisconsin, Iowa, and
Minnesota, and incidentally of a Portion of Nebraska Territory,
made under Instructions from the United States Treasury Department,
by David Dale Owen, United States Geologist. Philadelphia, 1852.
But all resources will be vain and valueless without human
intelligence, skill, and exertion. These will change the face of the
country, opening forests, ploughing fields, working mines, building
roads, establishing schools, planting churches, administering justice.
To carry such blessings into every part of this new region is now
an especial duty. Of course all who have property in this State,
particularly all landholders, according to their means, must contribute
to the improvements and institutions by which its welfare is advanced.
This general principle seems to be clear. It is only when we come to
its application that there can be any question.
It will be observed that here is no suggestion of legal right on the
part of the Land States, or of legal obligation on the part of the
nation. Nor is there any suggestion that our fathers, when by formal
compact they placed this immunity beyond question, failed to act
justly; nor again is there any suggestion that this immunity should
be repealed. It is simply assumed as an existing fact, which has been
of value to the nation, and therefore constitutes an equitable ground
of obligation on the part of the nation in favor of the Land States.
Lord Bacon defines equity as the "general conscience of the realm"; and
it is to this "general conscience" of the republic that the parties
interested in this obligation must look for its recognition.
And now the question is directly presented, whether the Great
Landholder, persevering in this system, will leave to the small
landholders by his side the further labor of building railroads, by
which his own magnificent domain will be largely enhanced, without
contribution thereto. The very statement of the question seems to be
sufficient. Reason declares, with unhesitating voice, that, whatever
may be the legal immunities of the Great Landholder, he cannot, in
equity, be above his neighbors, and that he should contribute to these
works in some proportion according to the extent of the benefit and
the immunities enjoyed. To ascertain this proportion precisely may be
difficult; but the obligation is clear and obvious.
It is on the ground of this obligation that the bill now before
the Senate is most strongly commended. It is said, I know, that by
the grant of alternate sections for the purpose of railroads the
remaining sections are so far enhanced in value that the nation loses
nothing by the grant,--so that it may enjoy the rare privilege of
bestowing without losing, of squandering, if you please, without
any diminution of its means. Though this consideration is not
unimportant, yet I do not dwell upon it, because it is so entirely
subordinate to that derived from the positive obligation of the Great
Landholder on unanswerable grounds of justice. I say confidently
on unanswerable grounds of justice, because nothing can render the
rules of justice in such a case less obligatory upon the Government
than upon a private individual. If the latter, according to all the
laws of good neighborhood, would be bound to help such a work, then
is the Government bound. To decline this duty, to shirk this obvious
obligation, is to behave as no private citizen could behave without the
imputation of meanness. Thus strongly may I put the case, without fear
of contradiction.
The influence of roads and canals in enhancing the value of the public
domain through which they pass is well illustrated by experience. Take
the Illinois and Michigan Canal, for which alternate sections of land
were granted by the United States. Many years ago, as I understand, all
the reserved sections on this line were sold, while in other districts
of Illinois, where there has been no similar improvement, large
quantities of land still continue unsold. Indeed, of the whole national
domain in Illinois, amounting to upwards of thirty-five millions of
acres, only fifteen millions had been sold in January, 1849.[87]
[87] Exec. Doc., 30th Cong. 2d Sess., H.R. No. 12, Table 6, p. 255.
Take another instance. The Chicago and Rock Island Railroad--of which
one of the proposed roads in Iowa will be an extension--has given
an impulse to sales throughout a wide region. The County of Henry,
through which it passes, is one of the largest and least populous in
Illinois. In this county the lands had been in the market for nearly
thirty years, and recent sales had not reached a thousand acres a
year. But in the very year after this road was surveyed fifty thousand
acres of public land were sold in this county, being more than all the
land sold in the remainder of the district. Again, I am told, that,
after the bill now pending passed the Senate, at the last Congress,
public attention, in anticipation of the promised improvement, was
attracted to the neighborhood of Davenport, the eastern terminus of
the proposed road, and the public domain, not only at this place, but
in the adjoining counties, at once found a market. Though the sales
had already been considerable, they were in a single year more than
doubled, amounting to upwards of eighty thousand acres.
It will readily occur to all that the whole country must gain by the
increased value of the lands still retained and benefited by the
proposed road. But this advantage, though not unimportant, is trivial
by the side of the grander gains, commercial, political, social, and
moral, which must accrue from the opening of a new communication, by
which the territory beyond the Mississippi is brought into connection
with the Atlantic seaboard, and the distant post of Council Bluffs
becomes a suburb of Washington. It would be difficult to exaggerate
the influence of roads as means of civilization. This, at least, may
be said: Where roads are not, civilization cannot be; and civilization
advances as roads are extended. By roads religion and knowledge
are diffused,--intercourse of all kinds is promoted,--producer,
manufacturer, and consumer are all brought nearer together,--commerce
is quickened,--markets are created,--property, wherever touched by
these lines, as by a magic rod, is changed into new values,--and the
great current of travel, like that stream of classic fable, or one of
the rivers in our own California, hurries in a channel of golden sand.
The roads, together with the laws, of ancient Rome are now better
remembered than her victories. The Flaminian and Appian Ways, once trod
by such great destinies, still remain as beneficent representatives
of ancient grandeur. Under God, the road and the schoolmaster are
two chief agents of human improvement. The education begun by the
schoolmaster is expanded, liberalized, and completed by intercourse
with the world; and this intercourse finds new opportunities and
inducements in every road that is built.
Our country has already been active in this work. Through a remarkable
line of steam communications, chiefly by railroad, its whole population
is now, or will be shortly, brought close to the borders of Iowa.
Cities of the Southern seaboard, Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile, are
already stretching their lines in this direction, soon to be completed
conductors,--while the traveller from all the principal points of
the Northern seaboard, from Portland, Boston, Providence, New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, now passes without impediment
to this remote region, traversing a territory of unexampled resources,
at once magazine and granary, the largest coal-field and at the same
time the largest corn-field of the known globe, winding his way among
churches and school-houses, among forests and gardens, by villages,
towns, and cities, along the sea, along rivers and lakes, with a speed
which may recall the gallop of the ghostly horseman in the ballad:--
"Fled past on right and left how fast
Each forest, grove, and bower!
On right and left fled past how fast
Each city, town, and tower!
"Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode,
Splash! splash! along the sea."
On the banks of the Mississippi he is now arrested. The proposed road
in Iowa will bear the adventurer yet further, to the banks of the
Missouri; and this remote giant stream, mightiest of the earth, leaping
from its sources in the Rocky Mountains, will be clasped with the
Atlantic in the same iron bracelet. In all this I see not only further
opportunities for commerce, but a new extension to civilization and
increased strength to our National Union.
A heathen poet, while picturing the Golden Age, perversely indicates
the absence of long roads as creditable to that imaginary period in
contrast with his own. "How well," exclaims the youthful Tibullus,
"they lived while Saturn ruled,--_before the earth was opened by long
ways_!"
"Quam bene Saturno vivebant rege, priusquam
Tellus _in longas est patefacta vias_!"[88]
But the true Golden Age is before, not behind; and one of its tokens
will be the opening of those _long ways_, by which villages, towns,
counties, states, provinces, nations, are all to be associated and knit
together in a fellowship that can never be broken.
[88] Eleg. Lib. I. iii. 35, 36.
* * * * *