WASHINGTON, _June 22, 1860_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
I return with my objections to the Senate, in which it originated, the
bill entitled "An act to secure homesteads to actual settlers on the
public domain, and for other purposes," presented to me on the 20th
instant.
This bill gives to every citizen of the United States "who is the head
of a family," and to every person of foreign birth residing in the
country who has declared his intention to become a citizen, though he
may not be the head of a family, the privilege of appropriating to
himself 160 acres of Government land, of settling and residing upon it
for five years; and should his residence continue until the end of this
period, he shall then receive a patent on the payment of 25 cents per
acre, or one-fifth of the present Government price. During this period
the land is protected from all the debts of the settler.
This bill also contains a cession to the States of all the public lands
within their respective limits "which have been subject to sale at
private entry, and which remain unsold after the lapse of thirty years."
This provision embraces a present donation to the States of 12,229,731
acres, and will from time to time transfer to them large bodies of such
lands which from peculiar circumstances may not be absorbed by private
purchase and settlement.
To the actual settler this bill does not make an absolute donation,
but the price is so small that it can scarcely be called a sale. It is
nominally 25 cents per acre, but considering this is not to be paid
until the end of five years, it is in fact reduced to about 18 cents per
acre, or one-seventh of the present minimum price of the public lands.
In regard to the States, it is an absolute and unqualified gift.
1. This state of the facts raises the question whether Congress, under
the Constitution, has the power to give away the public lands either to
States or individuals. On this question I expressed a decided opinion
in my message to the House of Representatives of the 24th February,
1859, returning the agricultural-college bill. This opinion remains
unchanged. The argument then used applies as a constitutional objection
with greater force to the present bill. _There_ it had the plea of
consideration, growing out of a specific beneficial purpose; _here_
it is an absolute gratuity to the States, without the pretext of
consideration. I am compelled for want of time in these the last
hours of the session to quote largely from this message.
I presume the general proposition will be admitted that Congress does
not possess the power to make donations of money already in the
Treasury, raised by taxes on the people, either to States or
individuals.
But it is contended that the public lands are placed upon a different
footing from money raised by taxation and that the proceeds arising from
their sale are not subject to the limitations of the Constitution, but
may be appropriated or given away by Congress, at its own discretion,
to States, corporations, or individuals for any purpose they may deem
expedient.
The advocates of this bill attempt to sustain their position upon the
language of the second clause of the third section of the fourth article
of the Constitution, which declares that "the Congress shall have power
to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting
the territory or other property belonging to the United States." They
contend that by a fair interpretation of the words "dispose of" in this
clause Congress possesses the power to make this gift of public lands to
the States for purposes of education.
It would require clear and strong evidence to induce the belief that the
framers of the Constitution, after having limited the powers of Congress
to certain precise and specific objects, intended by employing the words
"dispose of" to give that body unlimited power over the vast public
domain. It would be a strange anomaly indeed to have created two
funds--the one by taxation, confined to the execution of the enumerated
powers delegated to Congress, and the other from the public lands,
applicable to all subjects, foreign and domestic, which Congress might
designate; that this fund should be "disposed of," not to pay the debts
of the United States, nor "to raise and support armies," nor "to provide
and maintain a navy," nor to accomplish any one of the other great
objects enumerated in the Constitution, but be diverted from them to
pay the debts of the States, to educate their people, and to carry into
effect any other measure of their domestic policy. This would be to
confer upon Congress a vast and irresponsible authority utterly at war
with the well-known jealousy of Federal power which prevailed at the
formation of the Constitution. The natural intendment would be that
as the Constitution confined Congress to well-defined specific powers,
the funds placed at their command, whether in land or money, should be
appropriated to the performance of the duties corresponding with these
powers. If not, a Government has been created with all its other powers
carefully limited, but without any limitation in respect to the public
lands.
But I can not so read the words "dispose of" as to make them embrace
the idea of "giving away." The true meaning of words is always to be
ascertained by the subject to which they are applied and the known
general intent of the lawgiver. Congress is a trustee under the
Constitution for the people of the United States to "dispose of" their
public lands, and I think I may venture to assert with confidence that
no case can be found in which a trustee in the position of Congress has
been authorized to "_dispose of_" property by its owner where it has
been held that these words authorized such trustee to give away the
fund intrusted to his care. No trustee, when called upon to account for
the disposition of the property placed under his management before any
judicial tribunal, would venture to present such a plea in his defense.
The true meaning of these words is clearly stated by Chief Justice Taney
in delivering the opinion of the court (19 Howard, p. 436). He says in
reference to this clause of the Constitution: "It begins its enumeration
of powers by that of disposing; in other words, making sale of the lands
or raising money from them, which, as we have already said, was the main
object of the cession (from the States), and which is the first thing
provided for in the article." It is unnecessary to refer to the history
of the times to establish the known fact that this statement of the
Chief Justice is perfectly well founded. That it never was intended by
the framers of the Constitution that these lands should be given away
by Congress is manifest from the concluding portion of the same clause.
By it Congress has power not only "to dispose of" the territory, but of
the "other property of the United States." In the language of the Chief
Justice (p. 437): "And the same power of making needful rules respecting
the territory is in precisely the same language applied to the other
property of the United States, associating the power over the territory
in this respect with the power over movable or personal property; that
is, the ships, arms, or munitions of war, which then belonged in common
to the State sovereignties."
The question is still clearer in regard to the public lands in the
States and Territories within the Louisiana and Florida purchases. These
lands were paid for out of the public Treasury from money raised by
taxation. Now if Congress had no power to appropriate the money with
which these lands were purchased, is it not clear that the power over
the lands is equally limited? The mere conversion of this money into
land could not confer upon Congress new power over the disposition
of land which they had not possessed over money. If it could, then a
trustee, by changing the character of the fund intrusted to his care for
special objects from money into land, might give the land away or devote
it to any purpose he thought proper, however foreign from the trust.
The inference is irresistible that this land partakes of the very same
character with the money paid for it, and can be devoted to no objects
different from those to which the money could have been devoted. If
this were not the case, then by the purchase of a new territory from a
foreign government out of the public Treasury Congress could enlarge
their own powers and appropriate the proceeds of the sales of the land
thus purchased, at their own discretion, to other and far different
objects from what they could have applied the purchase money which had
been raised by taxation.
2. It will prove unequal and unjust in its operation among the actual
settlers themselves.
The first settlers of a new country are a most meritorious class. They
brave the dangers of savage warfare, suffer the privations of a frontier
life, and with the hand of toil bring the wilderness into cultivation.
The "old settlers," as they are everywhere called, are public
benefactors. This class have all paid for their lands the Government
price, or $1.25 per acre. They have constructed roads, established
schools, and laid the foundation of prosperous commonwealths. Is it
just, is it equal, that after they have accomplished all this by their
labor new settlers should come in among them and receive their farms at
the price of 25 or 18 cents per acre? Surely the old settlers, as a
class, are entitled to at least equal benefits with the new. If you give
the new settlers their land for a comparatively nominal price, upon
every principle of equality and justice you will be obliged to refund
out of the common Treasury the difference which the old have paid above
the new settlers for their land.
3. This bill will do great injustice to the old soldiers who have
received land warrants for their services in fighting the battles of
their country. It will greatly reduce the market value of these
warrants. Already their value has sunk for 160-acre warrants to 67 cents
per acre under an apprehension that such a measure as this might become
a law. What price would they command when any head of a family may take
possession of a quarter section of land and not pay for it until the end
of five years, and then at the rate of only 25 cents per acre? The
magnitude of the interest to be affected will appear in the fact that
there are outstanding unsatisfied land warrants reaching back to the
last war with Great Britain, and even Revolutionary times, amounting
in round numbers to seven and a half millions of acres.
4. This bill will prove unequal and unjust in its operation, because
from its nature it is confined to one class of our people. It is a boon
exclusively conferred upon the cultivators of the soil. Whilst it is
cheerfully admitted that these are the most numerous and useful class
of our fellow-citizens and eminently deserve all the advantages which
our laws have already extended to them, yet there should be no new
legislation which would operate to the injury or embarrassment of the
large body of respectable artisans and laborers. The mechanic who
emigrates to the West and pursues his calling must labor long before
he can purchase a quarter section of land, whilst the tiller of the
soil who accompanies him obtains a farm at once by the bounty of the
Government. The numerous body of mechanics in our large cities can not,
even by emigrating to the West, take advantage of the provisions of this
bill without entering upon a new occupation for which their habits of
life have rendered them unfit.
5. This bill is unjust to the old States of the Union in many respects;
and amongst these States, so far as the public lands are concerned, we
may enumerate every State east of the Mississippi with the exception of
Wisconsin and a portion of Minnesota.
It is a common belief within their limits that the older States of the
Confederacy do not derive their proportionate benefit from the public
lands. This is not a just opinion. It is doubtful whether they could be
rendered more beneficial to these States under any other system than
that which at present exists. Their proceeds go into the common Treasury
to accomplish the objects of the Government, and in this manner all
the States are benefited in just proportion. But to give this common
inheritance away would deprive the old States of their just proportion
of this revenue without holding out any the least corresponding
advantage. Whilst it is our common glory that the new States have become
so prosperous and populous, there is no good reason why the old States
should offer premiums to their own citizens to emigrate from them to the
West. That land of promise presents in itself sufficient allurements to
our young and enterprising citizens without any adventitious aid. The
offer of free farms would probably have a powerful effect in encouraging
emigration, especially from States like Illinois, Tennessee, and
Kentucky, to the west of the Mississippi, and could not fail to reduce
the price of property within their limits. An individual in States thus
situated would not pay its fair value for land when by crossing the
Mississippi he could go upon the public lands and obtain a farm almost
without money and without price.
6. This bill will open one vast field for speculation. Men will not pay
$1.25 for lands when they can purchase them for one-fifth of that price.
Large numbers of actual settlers will be carried out by capitalists upon
agreements to give them half of the land for the improvement of the
other half. This can not be avoided. Secret agreements of this kind will
be numerous. In the entry of graduated lands the experience of the Land
Office justifies this objection.
7. We ought ever to maintain the most perfect equality between native
and naturalized citizens. They are equal, and ought always to remain
equal, before the laws. Our laws welcome foreigners to our shores, and
their rights will ever be respected. Whilst these are the sentiments on
which I have acted through life, it is not, in my opinion, expedient to
proclaim to all the nations of the earth that whoever shall arrive in
this country from a foreign shore and declare his intention to become a
citizen shall receive a farm of 160 acres at a cost of 25 or 20 cents
per acre if he will only reside on it and cultivate it. The invitation
extends to all, and if this bill becomes a law we may have numerous
actual settlers from China and other Eastern nations enjoying its
benefits on the great Pacific Slope. The bill makes a distinction in
favor of such persons over native and naturalized citizens. When applied
to such citizens, it is confined to such as are the heads of families,
but when applicable to persons of foreign birth recently arrived on our
shores there is no such restriction. Such persons need not be the heads
of families provided they have filed a declaration of intention to
become citizens. Perhaps this distinction was an inadvertence, but
it is, nevertheless, a part of the bill.
8. The bill creates an unjust distinction between persons claiming the
benefit of the preemption laws. Whilst it reduces the price of the land
to existing preemptors to 62-1/2 cents per acre and gives them a credit
on this sum for two years from the present date, no matter how long they
may have hitherto enjoyed the land, future preemptors will be compelled
to pay double this price per acre. There is no reason or justice in this
discrimination.
9. The effect of this bill on the public revenue must be apparent to
all. Should it become a law, the reduction of the price of land to
actual settlers to 25 cents per acre, with a credit of five years, and
the reduction of its price to existing preemptors to 62-1/2 cents per
acre, with a credit of two years, will so diminish the sale of other
public lands as to render the expectation of future revenue from that
source, beyond the expenses of survey and management, illusory. The
Secretary of the Interior estimated the revenue from the public lands
for the next fiscal year at $4,000,000, on the presumption that the
present land system would remain unchanged. Should this bill become
a law, he does not believe that $1,000,000 will be derived from this
source.
10. This bill lays the ax at the root of our present admirable land
system. The public land is an inheritance of vast value to us and to
our descendants. It is a resource to which we can resort in the hour of
difficulty and danger. It has been managed heretofore with the greatest
wisdom under existing laws. In this management the rights of actual
settlers have been conciliated with the interests of the Government. The
price to all has been reduced from $2 per acre to $1.25 for fresh lands,
and the claims of actual settlers have been secured by our preemption
laws. Any man can now acquire a title in fee simple to a homestead of
80 acres, at the minimum price of $1.25 per acre, for $100. Should the
present system remain, we shall derive a revenue from the public lands
of $10,000,000 per annum, when the bounty-land warrants are satisfied,
without oppression to any human being. In time of war, when all other
sources of revenue are seriously impaired, this will remain intact.
It may become the best security for public loans hereafter, in times
of difficulty and danger, as it has been heretofore. Why should we
impair or destroy the system at the present moment? What necessity
exists for it?
The people of the United States have advanced with steady but rapid
strides to their present condition of power and prosperity. They have
been guided in their progress by the fixed principle of protecting the
equal rights of all, whether they be rich or poor. No agrarian sentiment
has ever prevailed among them. The honest poor man, by frugality and
industry, can in any part of our country acquire a competence for
himself and his family, and in doing this he feels that he eats the
bread of independence. He desires no charity, either from the Government
or from his neighbors. This bill, which proposes to give him land at an
almost nominal price out of the property of the Government, will go far
to demoralize the people and repress this noble spirit of independence.
It may introduce among us those pernicious social theories which have
proved so disastrous in other countries.