1853.] 32D CONG.....2D SESS. APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE. Great Britain shall agree with the Government of the United States that the people of the United States shall enjoy unmolested, the same rights to take fish of every kind in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the coasts and shores of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton, New Brunswick and Prince Edward's Island, and of any and all other the British possessions in North America, and in all the bays, gulfs, creeks, and waters, or places of the sea, bordering on and adjacent to the British possessions in North America, and to dress, cure, and dry the same on the coasts and shores of any part of the British possessions in North America, as are or shall, from time to time, hereafter be enjoyed by subjects of Great Britain, subject, however, to the rights of the proprietors or possessors of the ground where said fish may be dressed, cured, or dried; and whenever the Government of Great Britain shall agree with the Government of the United States that all leases of fishing rights or privileges, and lands necessary for the enjoyment of the same, made by British subjects to any of the people of the United States, shall have the same force and effect as if made to British subjects; and whenever the Government of Great Britain, with the consent of the Government of the Provinces of Canada and New Brunswick, shall agree with the Government of the United States that the people of the same, in American bottoms, and with boats, rafts, and vessels of every description, may use and navigate the river St. Lawrence, and the river St. John, in New Brunswick, from their sources to the ocean, together with all canals and waters connecting the great northern lakes with the Atlantic ocean through the river St. Lawrence, as the same now are or hereafter may be enjoyed by the subjects of Great Britain, subject only to the charges and regulations which now exist, or shall hereafter be prescribed, for the use and navigation of the same by the inhabitants of the British provinces in North America or other British subjects; and whenever the Government of New Brunswick, with the consent of the Government of Great Britain, shall abolish all export duties on lumber cut on lands within the territory of the United States, and transported down the river St. John and exported thence; and whenever the President of the United States shall issue his proclamation declaring that the articles hereinafter enumerated, being of the growth, production, or manufacture of the United States, are admitted into the British North American provinces by law free of duty;that on and after that day the like articles being of the growth, production, or manufacture of the said British North American provinces, shall be admitted into the United States free of duty, when imported directly from such provinces, so long as the said enumerated articles are admitted into such British North American provinces when imported directly from the United States free of duty, or until otherwise directed by the Government of the United States, to wit: Grains, flour, and breadstuffs of all kinds, seeds, unmanufactured hemp, unmanufactured flax and tow, animals of all kinds, undried fruits, fish of all kinds, dried, smoked, salted, and fresh; meats, salted, smoked, and fresh; hides, sheep pelts, wool, butter, cheese, tallow, lard, horns, manures, ores of all kinds, stone and marble in its crude or worked state, gypsum, ground or unground, ashes, firewood, agricultural implements, including axes; fish oil, broom-corn, bark, unwrought burr-stones, dyestuffs, rice, cotton, unmanufactured tobacco, unrefined sugar. SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever the President of the United States shall issue his proclamation declaring that the Government of Great Britain has agreed with the Government of the United States that round, hewed, and sawed timber of all kinds, and all lumber of every description, the growth and production of the United States when exported directly therefrom to the British West India islands, shall, during the continuance of the reciprocal trade provided for by this act, be admitted into the ports of said islands at no higher duty than shall be imposed in such ports on similar articles when imported into said islands from the British North American provinces, that on and after that day, round, hewed, or sawed timber of all kinds, and all sawed lumber of every description, undressed and unmanufactured in any way, the growth and production of the British North American provinces, when they shall by law admit into their ports free of duty the articles named in the first section of this act as therein provided, shall be admitted into the United States, when imported directly from said provinces, free of duty, so long as similar articles, the growth and production of the United States, shall, when exported from the United States, be admitted free of duty into the ports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or until otherwise directed by the Government of the United States; and when any duty is or shall be charged in the ports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland upon such articles so as aforesaid imported directly from the United States, the same duty shall be charged upon round, hewed, or sawed timber of all kinds, and all sawed lumber of every description, undressed and unmanufactured in any way, when imported from said provinces directly into the ports of the United States. February 23, 1853. Mr. TUCK resumed: Mr. Speaker, I had nearly concluded my remarks, when I was arrested by the expiration of the morning hour on yesterday. At the close of the last session of Congress, in accordance with my convictions of duty, I published a speech upon the subject of the fisheries and reciprocity with the British Provinces. In that speech set forth at length my views upon this subject, and I do not, therefore, feel inclined to occupy the whole of the hour to which I am entitled under the rule, but knowing the feeling of the House, and their indisposition at this late period of the session to listen to any discussion at length upon any subject, I will conclude with a few additional remarks. The Homestead Bill-Mr. Adams. I have heard an objection made to this bill, reported by the Committee on Commerce, because of its supposed injurious effects upon the agricultural interests of the North and West; particularly with regard to the article of flour. Now, upon this subject I invite the attention of the House for one minute. Sir, I will state one fact, which I think will inevitably remove the objections that any of the friends of the flour interest can possibly entertain to this bill. It is supposed, that if we have reciprocal trade with the British Provinces, they will raise a surplus of wheat, and send it to the United States overland. Now, sir, is this fact covered by the statistics of the country, and from the reports of the Treasury Department? We find in the report of the Committee on Commerce, upon this matter of reciprocity, the statement "that the lower colonies, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and New'foundland, have been among the best customers ' of American breadstuffs. The market which they have afforded is equal to that of Brazil. Our exports of breadstuffs to these colonies in 1852 amounted to $1,659,285, and to Brazil $1,655,558.' I state the further fact, that we pay a duty upon this flour which we have exported to these Provinces, varying from twenty-five to seventy-five cents per barrel. Now I would ask gentlemen ifit can possibly prejudice the interest of the wheat-growing portion of this country to have reciprocal free trade with these Provinces, when we now, in spite of the duty, export so largely to these Provinces? All fear on this subject must be removed by the statement of this one fact, that Brazil is a very important consumer of our fiour, and yet we export, as I have before mentioned, more flour to these Provinces annually than we do to the whole of Brazil. The gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. CLINGMAN] has proposed an amendment to this bill, the design of which is, as I understand it, to open the coasting trade of the whole country to British competition. I do not understand the amendment exactly, but I suppose that to be the purport of his proposition. Now I would ask the gentleman from North Carolina if he would favor such a proposition as this, unless Great Britain will admit us to a free competition in her coasting trade? Mr. CLINGMAN. Such are the terms of my amendment. Mr. TUCK. The gentleman would not, and no man who sympathizes with the interests of his country, would hazard his reputation by making and supporting such a proposition here. But the gentleman has no reason to believe that England would admit us to a competition in their coasting trade on the coast of England. We have no proposition of that kind from the British Govern ment. This matter of reciprocal trade is one thing, and the opening of the coasting trade is another. When it is necessary to consider this latter subject, let the gentleman be heard upon it; let him then bring forward his proposition and argue it with his usual ability, and let the judgment of the House be taken upon it; but I ask the gentleman not to bring it forward now. Now, I wish to say one word in relation to the lumber trade. I beg leave to differ with the gentleman from Maine in regard to the prejudicial effects which this bill may have upon the lumber interest. The lumber interests are amply provided for in this bill. How? The head waters of the river St. John are in the land belonging to Maine, and there is around those head waters a large lumber interest. The lumber cannot now be taken out of that river through the Provinces, without paying a duty. There is a provision in that bill that the duty shall be abolished. That is one of the advantages which this bill affords to the lumber interest; and the gentleman from Maine will observe that in the second section of the bill there are other provisions for the security of that interest, among which is one that provides that lumber shall be admitted into the ports of the West Indies duty free. Now, I contend that it is demonstrable satisfactorily to the mind of every man from every part of the country, that this bill cannot operate to their prejudice, but will be as generally useful to all interests as any bill that can be brought before the country; and take it in the long run, the gen 199 SENATE. tleman's constituents-those lumber dealers-will be better off by the passage of this bill. And, after the lapse of a few years, when this lumber will have been cut off from the Maine lands, the gentleman's constituents will empower him, or his constituents will come here and contend as ably for reciprocity as he now does against it. It is true that this bill is not as perfect as I should like it in some particulars, and I have been almost tempted to offer an amendment to the bill providing that coal and iron castings shall be included. It would be decidedly beneficial to my constituents, and to New England generally, if such provisions were incorporated into the bill. But I wish to call the attention of the wakeful Representatives from the State of Pennsylvania, tu the fact, that if in following out the indefinite fears which haunt their imagination, they, by their opposition, defeat this bill, probably another Congress will not pass by without having a reciprocity adopted, including coal and iron free. If sir, this bill should now fail, and it should be my fortune again to occupy a place upon this floor, I should sustain a bill which provides for a more comprehensive reciprocity. I wish to make one remark in reference to my own views upon the subject of protection. I believe that protection is a temporary policy. I have never believed that it would be a permanent policy. But there is no need of protection between two countries lying side by side, in which the labor of one is equally expensive as the labor of the other, and in which money in one is equally abundant as in the other. There is no need of our protecting ourselves against Canada. There is no need of our protecting ourselves against any country that lies coterminous to us upon this continent. And sir, I would give my support to-day for a great system which should deserve the name of an American system of free trade in respect to countries that lie adjacent to us. But we cannot adopt that policy in reference to the countries of Europe where labor and money is cheap, and I am happy to know that there are no gentlemen in the country who argue, with any great appearance of seriousness, for such a policy. THE HOMESTEAD BILL. SPEECH OF HON. SPEPHEN ADAMS, OF MISSISSIPPI, IN THE SENATE, February 24, 1853, Against an amendment proposed by Mr. WALKER to the Pacific Railroad bill, as containing all the principles of the Homestead bill. Mr. ADAMS said: Mr. President, the amendment under consideration, proposing, as it does, a disposition of the public lands, I shall avail myself of the liberty it affords to give my views on the various propositions pending before the Senate, for the disposition of the public domain. I shall first consider the bill which has acquired the bill," a term which gives it a popularity throughtitle, by common consent, of the "homestead out the land that no other could confer. Perhaps there is no name, save that of wife, children, or friends, that is hallowed by so many endearing forms a common platform on which the affections associations as that of the family homestead. It of all-the rich and the poor, the old and the young, meet as upon a level. Every Senator in this Chamber, yielding to the impulses of his own heart, will testify to the truth of the poet's declaration, that "There is no place like home." Every cottager's heart in this broad land beats responsively to its truth; and as we all take delight in conferring benefits upon the necessitous, I feel confident that every Senator on this floor is disposed to vote for the bill when it shall be taken up, or for some proposition that will embody substantially the great object sought to be attained by it, if he can do so consistently with his duty to the Constitution and the country. I propose, sir, to enter upon a brief examination of our powers over the public domain, and our duty upon the important question of its proper disposition. I assume the position as a postulate, that the public lands have been acquired by the common blood and treasure of all the States of the 32D CONG....2D SESS. Union-that the citizens of each State have a common interest in the fund, and that Congress is the trustee, charged with the duty of disposing of the lands in such manner as shall best promote the interests of all, without doing injustice to any. The power of Congress over the public domain differs materially from its power over money in the Treasury. If the best interests of the cestui que trust will be promoted by it, it is not only the right of Congress, but it is its duty to give the lands away. But we have not the power to collect money in the form of taxes to give away, for the conclusive reason that the Constitution has not conferred the taxing power for any such purpose, and we cannot appropriate money when collected and in the Treasury for any other object than that for which we were authorized to collect it. With this view of the power and duty of Congress over the subject, I proceed to consider the merits of the bill. The object sought to be attained by the bill is, that every head of a family shall have and enjoy one hundred and sixty acres of the public land upon his or her making the application in due form, taking an oath that he or she is the head of a family, and not the owner of any estate in lands, and with the additional requirement that the applicant shall occupy and cultivate the same for five consecutive years; that after all these requisites shall have been complied with, a patent shall issue. These are the leading features of the bill. Mr. President, I am by no means certain that it would not be a money-making operation, having in view its effects on imposts, to give to actual settlers the public lands, in preference to the present mode of selling them at $1 25 per acre. Bear in mind that the Government has adopted the principle of raising revenue for its support almost exclusively from duties on imports. Then go with me to the dwelling of the poor man, who feels that he is but a tenant at will either of the Government or of a wealthy speculator. Observe that man toiling for years upon a rented farm; he pays one third of the proceeds of his labor to his landlord, and nine years out of ten he secures but a scanty subsistence for his family. His improvements, repairs, and cultivation of the soil, are carried on from year to year to meet present wants. Not knowing what a day may bring forth, his labors look not to the future for their fruition. But, sir, let some fortunate turn in his affairs occur, so that he is enabled to secure a freehold in his own right, and you will see him work with a new energy. His improvements are made with a view to permanence, knowing that he, and those who are most dear to him, will reap the benefits of his labors in years to come. His farm is enlarged, his property improves, he begins to count the years when his orchard will yield its various fruits, his garden blooms, his children are educated, he has artificial wants which he knew not before, he is able to purchase and pay for imported goods, and by these means the receipts in your Treasury are swelled far beyond his contribution of two hundred dollars for his one hundred and sixty acres of land, which when once paid, he never pays again. As many of the Senators from the older States are not personally acquainted with the characters of those who are intended to be the beneficiaries of this bill, and with the privations they are compelled to endure, I shall be pardoned for adverting briefly to them. In the first place, your lands are absolutely worthless in the wilderness, until the pioneer prepares the way for others. By his enterprise and labor he makes the settlement attractive, and your contiguous lands valuable. This fact itself entitles him to the favorable consideration of his Government. But when you add to this, that our complex yet model Government is maintained and supported by the confidence and affection of the people, we see that it is the highest duty of the Government, no less than its true policy, to afford every facility for its citizens to become freeholders, because by having an interest in the soil, you increase their interest in the Government. I have witnessed scenes at land sales that convinced me of the love of the settler to his house. I have seen men attend such sales who had encountered all the toils, hardships, and privations of a frontier life; who, knowing the Government price, had managed, by pinching economy, to save barely The Homestead Bill—Mr. Adams. enough to pay for the quarter section on which they had erected their humble hut, cleared and fenced a small field. If the speculator should bid one dollar above the Government price, their homestead was swept away, and their wives and children left without a shelter to protect them from the pelting storm. I have witnessed the settler as the crier, proceeding in numerical order, approached his tract; I have gazed upon his anxious countenance giving expression to alternate hopes and fears, while his heart beat responsively to his alarm and apprehension. And as his home was struck down to him, I have witnessed the glow of joy with which his countenance was lit up, as he turned from the stand and retraced his steps, to convey the good news to his expectant wife and children, that his improvement had become the family homestead. They only can appreciate such a picture and realize its truth, who have felt the sting of poverty, and witnessed the scenes I have attempted to describe. And, sir, it is no fancy sketch that I have presented to your view, but one of the sober realities of everyday frontier life. Nay more, sir, the settler is honest, kind-hearted, and hospitable. If the stranger or weary traveler calls on him, he is "taken in," not in any doubtful sense, but with cheerfulness and a hearty welcome, which more than compensates for his homely fare. He never forgets a favor, either from an individual or the Government. I recollect an occasion at a land sale, of being requested by some settlers to bid off their lands for them. I did so. Some years afterwards I was canvassing for the office of circuit judge. On approaching a certain neighborhood, I met a man with whom I was unacquainted, but when I made myself and the object of my visit known, he remarked that I need not go into his neighborhood seeking votes; that they had learned that I was a candidate; that they remembered me as having aided some of the settlers in purchasing their homes, and that they all intended to vote for me. I did not lose a vote at that box. I allude to this incident, in passing, to prove the truth of my remark, that these people are never ungrateful. Sir, I have not overstated the attachment of the settler to his homestead. If misfortune overtakes him, he will surrender all his other property before his homestead. A lady will yield to her husband's creditors her carriage, and other valuables almost without a murmur, but when you come to take the homestead, that spot which has become endeared to her by so many associations, the deep-drawn sigh and the unbidden tear attest the strong hold it has upon the human heart. Mr. President, I cordially approve the object of this bill, and appreciate the anxiety of its friends for its passage, and I think I shall not fall behind them in any proper effort to make glad the hearts of the poor. But neither this, nor any other object good in itself, should be attained at the expense of justice. I have some objections to the bill, which I shall proceed to state. In the first place, it is not founded on the proper basis. I respectfully submit, that the correct principle for the disposition of this trust fund, is to sell it to actual settlers at cost. Let us so dispose of it as to provoke no complaints from the old States, that they have paid for these lands, and the new States have reaped the benefits of them. Graduate the price according to their value by such a scale as will restore to the Treasury every dollar of the cost of acquisition, survey, sale, and incidental expenses; but let not the Government turn land speculator. Every principle of good policy and generosity, as well as justice to your citizens, forbid it. I acknowledge the plausibility of the claim of the old States to a portion of the proceeds of sales of the public lands. But sir, it seems to me that if the people of those States will reflect upon the privations and toils of the early settlers in the new States in making the lands valuable--if they will recollect that these settlers are their children, (for the new States are composed of emigrants from the old,) they will come to the conclusion to which I have arrived, that the lands should not be sold on speculation. There is something abhorrent to every generous mind in the idea of this Federal Government speculating upon the homesteads of her citizens, and that class of her citizens, too, who have the strongest claim upon her paternal regard and fostering care. "The adventurous and hardy population of the West, besides contributing their equal share of taxation under our impost system, have, in the progress of our Government, for the lands they occupy paid into the Treasury a large proportion of $40,000,000, and of the revenue received therefrom but a small part has been expended among them. When, to the disadvantage of their situation in this respect, we add the consideration that it is their labor alone which gives real value to the lands, and that the proceeds arising from their sale are distributed chiefly among States which had not originally any claim to them, and which have enjoyed the undivided emolument arising from the sale of their own lands, it cannot be expected that the new States will remain longer contented with the present policy after the payment of the public debt. To avert the consequences which may be apprehended from this cause, to put an end forever to all partial and interested legislation on this subject, and to afford to every American citizen of enterprise the opportunity of securing an independent frechold, it seems o me, therefore, best to abandon the idea of raising a future tevenue out of the public lands." This statement of facts made by President Jackson in his annual message is, to my mind, unanswerable, and I now propose to adopt his recommendation. Twenty years after its delivery I find it to be as true in fact and sound in principle as it was on the day it was read to the two Houses of Congress. I shall at the proper time move to strike out from the enacting clause of the bill and insert the following as a substitute: That all of the public lands of the United States shall be subject to sale and entry at one dollar per acre, and any portion which shall have been in market for five years or upwards, prior to the time of application to enter the same under the provisions of this act, and still remaining unsold, shall be subject to sale at the price of seventy five cents per acre; and all the lands of the United States that shall have been in market for ten years or upwards, as aforesaid, and still remaining unsold, shall be subject to sale at fifty cents per acre; and all of the lands of the United States that shall have been in market for fifteen years or upwards, as aforesaid, and still remaining unsold, shall be subject to sale at twenty five cents per acre; and all of the lands of the United States that shall have been in market for twenty years and upwards, as aforesaid, and still remaining unsold, shall he subject to sale at ten cents per acre; and all lands of the United States that shall have been in market for twenty-five years or more, shall be subject to sale at five cents per acre: Provided, This section shall not be so construed as to extend to lands reserved to the United States, in acts granting land to States for railroad or other internal improvements, or to mineral lands held at over one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That upon every reduction in price, under the provisions of this act, the occupant and settler upon the lands shall have the right of preemption at such graduated price, upon the same terms, conditions, restrictions, and limitations upon which the publie lands of the United States are now subject to the right of preemption, until the next graduation or reduction shall take place; and if not so purchased, shall again be subject to right of preemption for twelve mouths as before, and so on from time to time, as reductions take place: Provided, That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to interfere with any right which has or may accrue by virtue of any act granting preemption to actual settlers upon public lands. SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That any person applying to enter any of the aforesaid lands under the provisions of the eighth and ninth sections of this act, shall be required to make affidavit before the register or receiver of the proper land office, that he or she enters the same for bis or her own use, and for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, or for the use of an adjoining farm or plantation, owned or occupied by him or herself, and together with said entry, he or she has not acquired from the United States, under the provisions of this act, more than three hundred and twenty acres according to the established surveys; and if any person or persons taking such oath or affidavit shall swear falsely in the premises, he or she shall be subject to all the pains and penalties of perjury: Provided, That any person entitled to a preemption shall be authorized to enter forty acres of the public land, to include the dwelling-house, at ten cents per acre." Mr. President, in the amendment which I shall propose, I have preserved the principle set forth in General Jackson's message. If it possesses any merit it is due to his memory, not to me. The graduation proposed will certainly reimburse the Treasury. I think it will rather exceed it. But it is impossible to arrive at any certainty either as to the amount of the expenditures or the receipts 32D CONG.....2D SESS. under a graduation system, such as I propose. We know, however, that the receipts into the Treasury from the sales of the public domain amounted to upwards of one hundred and thirtyone millions of dollars in 1847, and now amounts to near one hundred and forty millions. We know, too, that the sales of the lands ceded by the Chickasaws, where alone the graduation principle has been tested, and the price of the land reduced to twelve-and-a-half cents per acre, has resulted in bringing into the Treasury a larger sum than the sales in the same extent of territory anywhere else has done. Sir, the practical operations of the graduation system in the Chickasaw cession has often been the subject of discussion in both ends of this Capitol, and until the system becomes general, and its beneficent influence is made to spread over your whole public domain, it will continue to be adduc d as triumphant proof that it is the true principle for the disposition of the public lands. It is owing to this system that the Chickasaw counties in Mississippi have become so densely populated. Thousands of men, poor, no doubt, but happy, contented, and prosperous, are now scattered over those counties, whose homestead have cost them but twenty dollars. For that sum of money they have been enabled to purchase one hundred and sixty acres of land—not rich land, it is true-but having ten or twenty acres of fair cultivable soil, on which they are now supporting their families. Search the habitable globe, and I defy you to find a country where a man is in the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, that opens such facilities to your citizens for becoming freeholders, as the Chickasaw counties have for many years presented, in consequence of the system of graduation in the price of those lands. The Homestead Bill-Mr. Adams. surveyed and brought into market, every tract SENATE. The States. Another party, greater in numbers, resisted the policy, and appealed to the people upon it. Their opposition to it was ingrafted upon their platform of principles, and was sustained by the popular verdict. There it stands yet, with the seal of the people reversing the policy of distribution. It cannot be denied that this bill just alluded to, violates the spirit and intent of that feature in the platform of principles to which I have referred. It is substantially the distribution system, In this way, and for these reasons, the Gov- but in a much more objectionable form. ernment has extorted millions from her citizens. Whig party proposed to divide the proceeds. The I trust no one desires to see it longer continued. Bennett bill proposes a division of the lands, My proposition is a more liberal one to the set- thereby making freeholders of the old States and tler than any that has been heretofore made. tenants of the new. The soil of a sovereign State Since the origin of our land system, public senti- is proposed to be owned and controlled by thirty ment has undergone a great change with regard other States; the land to be leased, rented, or sold to the true policy of disposing of the lands. The for the highest possible price, according to the first plan was to sell the lands to the highest bid- whim or caprice of the proprietor. Perhaps the der, giving the occupant no preference by pre-Senators from Maine could tell us something of emption or otherwise, and fixing the minimum price at two dollars per acre. This policy was pursued till 1820, when it yielded to a more just and liberal one, by which the price was reduced to $1 25 per acre, and secured a right of preemption to the actual settler upon payment of that sum. Much of your lands have been in market at that price for thirty years, and remain unsold, for the obvious reason that it is not worth the price you ask for it, and I might safely add, never will be, unless in the progress of railroad improvements, a demand should arise in speciallyfavored districts of country. The man who would hold his rich and poor, valuable and valueless lands at the same inflexible price, would be considered a very unwise land operator. What would be unwise in an individual, seeking to increase his own gains, is surely still more so in the Govern-ereign State, to a corporation without its limits. ment, which does not or should not seek to replenish its Treasury at the expense of the best class of its citizens. As the price was reduced from $2 to $1 25 thir be reduced to $1 per acre, and then graduated as Sir, I think my proposition has many advantages over the House bill. In the first place, it does no injustice to any State or individual in the United States. In the next, it does full justice to a meritorious class of our citizens, and I believe, if the sense of those who are intended to be bene-ty-three years ago, it is quite time that it should fited by the act were taken upon the subject, a large majority of them would prefer my amendment to the original bill. The bill gives to the man who has no land one hundred and sixty acres, while his neighbor, who by his industry may have secured a tract of forty acres, is excluded from its benefits because he is not a landless man in the common parlance of the day, and must pay $150 to increase his tract to the size of that of his more fortunate neighbor. It is only necessary to state the objection for every one to see its force. Again: the bill requires the party to reside on the land for five consecutive years before he can become entitled to his patent. This feature of the bill is very objectionable to many persons. While perhaps every man who settles a tract of new land, fully expects to occupy it continuously for five years, yet it is very repugnant to him to take it clogged with such a condition. He wishes to be at liberty to sell out and settle a new place, should his location prove unhealthy or the neighborhood not be agreeable to him, or for any other cause that suits his fancy. He would greatly prefer paying the price I propose, with the privilege of selling at pleasure, rather than have his land given to him embarrassed with the restrictions of the bill. And more especially is this true, when his homestead can only be obtained by the oath of insolvency. Sir, I have always had an unconquerable aversion to the insolvent debtor's oath. It is galling enough to the just pride of an unfortunate man to be compelled to admit his poverty to creditors, and those who are yet more keenly to suffer by it-wife and children; but it is cruel to compel or require him to go before an officer of the law and swear to it. Many proud-spirited men who would be entitled to the provisions of this act, would refuse it on such terms. The graduation principle was recommended by President Polk, advocated by Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Walker, passed at different times by this body, and has been sustained by such unanswerable arguments in this and the other branch of Congress, to say nothing of its practical advantages where it has been tested, that I deem it useless to consume the time of the Senate in offering further arguments of my own, or in repeating those of others, in its support. Every Senator is aware of the fact, that when a new country is Mr. President, it must be obvious to all who have closely observed the indications of public opinion, that something must be done with the public lands; some radical change in our policy with regard to their disposition must be made. You have an overflowing Treasury, arising from duties on imports amply sufficient to meet the most extravagant wants of the Government. We have, therefore, no excuse for persevering in the policy of selling these lands at a profit; no just reason for refusing to act liberally with the settler. I am confident that if this subject could be fully understood, and fairly presented to the American people, and their wishes could be expressed thereon at the polls, that nine-tenths of them would say with General Jackson, sell for such sum as will reimbuse the Treasury, but not on speculation. And if the other sex, man's better half, were consulted, their vote would be unanimous. I have said, and repeat, that something must be done. It will be recollected that we have on our calendar a bill passed by the House, known as the Bennett bill, which provides for a distribution of the lands among the States. There was a time in our political history when a great party in this country passed an act for the distribution of the proceeds of sales of the public lands among the the practical effects. We have heard much said from time to time on the subject of State sovereignty and Federal encroachments; but, in my humble judgment, there never has been a proposition introduced into either branch of Congress since the adoption of the Constitution, which involves a more outrageous violation of the just rights of the States, than the bill to which I have alluded. I have ever been opposed to the doctrine of nullification; but, sir, if any law passed by Congress would justify such resistance, it would be this. For the same reason, opposed another bill on your calendar, known as Miss Dix's bill. No one appreciates more highly than I do the motives of that most benevolent lady and public benefactress; but I can never consent to make a donation of lands within a sov I When this is done, you retard the settlement of the country, corrupt the morals of the people, depress the energies, and violate the sovereignty of the State. Congress has in several instances donated alternate sections of the public land to aid in the construction of railroads. This was right and proper, because the lands penetrated by those improvements are thereby enhanced in value, sought after and sold, and the reserved lands sell for more than the whole would have done without the improvement. I am not informed how it is in other States, but the greater portion of the lands granted to the Mobile and Ohio railroad, as well as those reserved to the Government, were not worth one cent per acre, and never would have sold for even that, without the improvement; but with it, they will be valuable. Beside this, the State of Mississippi has already paid into your Treasury immense profits on the entire cost of the lands sold within that State. If I have not greatly deceived myself, Mr. President, I have shown that if the amendment I propose should be adopted, strict justice will be done to every interest concerned, yet so tempered with mercy that it will be acceptable to this great nation; that it will reimburse the Treasury every dollar expended in the acquisition, survey, and sale of the lands; that it will relieve the Government from the odious character of land speculator upon its own citizens; that it will augment the revenues of the Government by the increased prosperity of our citizens, it being the consumer of goods who pays the duties; and that it will be really more acceptable to those who are intended to be its beneficiaries than the original bill. It will be carrying out the humane recommendation of President Jackson, made twenty years ago. It is substantially the homestead bill without its objectionable features. It will benefit a much larger class of citizens. It will preserve the selfrespect of those who are to enjoy its benefits, and will not be opposed by the people of the old States or the new. These, in my judgment, are sufficient reasons for the adoption of my amendment. Before concluding, I will invite the attention of the Senate to a significant fact connected with this question. Since this bill has been pending in this body, many petitions have been presented praying its passage; but, so far as I recollect, not one petition has been introduced here from any point south of Philadelphia or west of Cincinnati, except Arkansas. Why is this? How comes it, that the people from the land States as they are called, are not asking the passage of this bill? 32D CONG....2D SESS. The reason is to be found in the fact, that the people of those States do not desire the lands upon the terms proposed, and that these petitions originate in cities crowded to excess. Mr. WALKER. I have introduced several petitions in favor of the passage of the bill-one from the Senator's own State. Mr. ADAMS. I had not noticed the introduction of the petitions referred to by my friend from Wisconsin. So many were introduced from Boston and New York, the others escaped my notice. Sir, we of the West and Southwest desire nothing by way of charity at the hands of the Government. We desire to purchase your public lands, but we want them at reasonable prices. Grant us this, and by our industry we will become independent, self-sustaining freeholders, and enrich the National Treasury. THE HOMESTEAD BILL. SPEECH OF HON. A. C. DODGE, IN THE SENATE, February 24, 1853, The Homestead Bill-Mr. Dodge, of Iowa. lobby or special delegates to meet Senators and SENATE. such as we could wish-for it contains hateful restrictions coupled with onerous conditions-but yet much that is good, and above all, an acknowledgment of the homestead principle. Therefore I hope the honorable Senator will not interpose objection to the bill, but rather aid its passage through the Senate. Mr. President, there are few subjects-I think no other of more interest to our nation and people than that introduced incidentally by the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin, [Mr. WALKER,] and discussed at length by the Senators from Mississippi and Georgia, [Messrs. ADAMS and CHARLTON]-the best disposition of the public lands. I had hoped, but it seems from the course of argument of the Senator from Georgia [Mr. CHARLTON] vainly hoped, that the day had passed by when it was necessary to enter into any formal argument to establish the generally-conceded fact, that the independence, comfort, and wealth of a nation depend more upon its success in agriculture than in any other branch of human industry. It is the farmer who feeds the manufacturer, the artisan, the ship-builder, the beggar, and the king; and yet how little of protection, much less aid, has he ever received from our Government! The despotisms of the Old World, in this respect, contrast most favorably with our Government, considering the day and generation for which they acted. From the discovery of the continent of America they adopted a policy of bountiful munificence in the bestowment of their domains by gratuitous donations of land to those who would settle upon and improve them. It was not on the strength of their armies or navies; not in the rigor or lenity of the administration of their governors-general, intendents, or military commandants; nor in their ability to overcome and subdue the aboriginal inhabitants of the New World, that the European potentates expected to establish their power on this continent. It was a wiser system which governed the policy of the statesmen of England, Spain, and France, beginning on the part of Great Britain, with her commission at the close of the fifteenth century to Cabot, the discoverer of North America, and prosecuted in spirit from that time until now as her provincial policy-pursued also in principle by the other two great Powers since the foundation of their respective land systems on this continent. What were those systems? They were certainly not, in many of their provisions, such as we would adopt at this day. But I think that they were eminently wise and judicious in this, that their tendency was to encourage the settlement of the country by every means which could induce emigration; by gratuitous concessions of immense bodies of the richest lands upon chosen spots, in anticipation that these would be future cities, great commercial points, villages, and the homes of thriving_farmers, and of an active and busy population. These grants were not merely restricted to small parcels for individual accommodation, but frequently of immense extent, designed for the reception of hundreds of families, to whom it could be subdivided Senators, when they speak of the gift made by in small allodial allotments. It has become a fixed the homestead bill, should be reminded that it is principle of the public law, conceded and estab no gift at all. You, who claim the ownership of one lished by the civilized Powers of the world, that billion four hundred millions of acres, stretching the possessory claims of wandering tribes must with slight exceptions from the Balize to the forty-yield to the natural and revealed rights of man, ninth parallel of north latitude, and to the Pacific ocean, are called upon-to do what? To settle those great forests and desert prairies in the West, by saying to the man who may be wearing out his body upon the poor hills of North Carolina, East Tennessee, or elsewhere, and who is obliged to give a large portion of his labor to some landlord, if you go to this distant domain, settle and improve it, you may, after five years' actual residence and cultivation, obtain a patent for the one hundred acres thus occupied and improved. Can that which is so well, so dearly earned, be called a gift? I Mr. DODGE, of Iowa, said: Mr. President, that a discussion upon the merits and principles of the homestead bill should have arisen to-day, and upon the amendment now before the Senate, was most unexpected to me; but the views and opinions I entertain of the measure which has been so bitterly assailed, forbid that I should sit by in silence and permit what has been said to go unanswered. Though unexpected, I am not unprepared, in my feeble way, to defend the bill. Sir, the principle upon which that bill, providing homes for the landless, is based, is one dear to my heart it has grown with my growth, and strengthened with my strength. It was my fortune to have been born upon the west bank of the Mississippi river, and to have lived in Territories upon the extreme frontier, and next to the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, until the State of which I am now a resident became a member of the Union. I have thus been enabled to learn something personally of the dangers, hardships, and difficulties, which are incident to the settlement of the public domain of this country, and which every individ-place whence they came, they named a little town ual who undertakes it has to encounter before he reaches that spot called a homestead, and which I now call upon you, sir, [Mr. BADGER in the chair,] and others from the land of Macon, to help me to secure to the immigrant settler-not my constituent, but your own--who, impelled by all the higher and nobler impulses of our kind, is seeking to better his condition, and that of the wife and children dependent upon him. That eminently wise and practical statesman, (Mr. Macon,) once said that he never saw an emigrant wending his way over the hills of North Carolina towards the valley of the Mississippi, that he did not wish him "God speed;" that he knew the landless poor man, who thus quit the place in which his lot had been cast-your State, if you please, (respectable in everything, and in some respects advantageously situated)—and seeking a home in the rich and fertile West, was on the road which would probably lead to independence and prosperity for himself and his children. Sir, let me tell you that the bill which has today met the taunts and jeers of the Senator from Georgia, [Mr. CHARLTON,] who has ridiculed it in both poetry and prose, is a measure long held dear to the hearts of western people-to the tenant and poor man of every State in the Union, who is struggling to make a living by the sweat of his face. These, and such as these it is, who call for this measure. More than twenty-five years ago the Senate passed the bill of the late eminently distinguished Senator from Missouri, (Mr. Benton,) graduating the price of the public lands and making donations to actual settlers, and for that measure the Randolphs and Tazewells of Virginia, and the Macons of North Carolina voted. But, sir, by a resort to that system of legislative tactics and opposition, such as the enemies of this measure seem ever willing to have recourse to, it was defeated. The persons for whose benefit this bill is intended are not here. They have no Let me tell my friends, the Senators from Georgia, [Messrs. CHARLTON and DAWSON,] that I often meet Georgia emigrants in Iowa. His colleague will well remember a numerous family of emigrants, (of the name of Wooddy,) neighbors || and friends of his, who moved from Dahlonega, in Georgia, and were among the very first settlers upon the lands acquired from the confederated tribe of Sacs and Foxes in 1842, in the then Territory of Iowa. The old gentleman was of revolutionary memory, and it was my great pleasure to succeed in getting him a pension for his services in the War of Independence. He had numerous descendants; and as an evidence of their deep attachment for the which they laid off on the public lands, Dahlonega. Could those Georgians, male and female, be brought as witnesses to the bar of this Senate, they would testify that which I do now-that if there are any people on God's footstool who deserve the helping hand of their Government, its those who go into the wilderness to reclaim it to the use of man, who fell the forest, erect the log cabin, and plow that earth in which has lain golden harvests ever since the flood. Let me tell the junior Senator from Georgia that that voice of his, musical with poetry as it is, would fall most unharmoniously upon the ears of those former neighbors and friends of his colleague. think not. which confers on him the privilege of reducing the earth into possession, and of gaining from it his subsistence by the sweat of his brow. I have said that on the part of Great Britain this principle was recognized in the commission to Cabot, conferring the right of discovery and possession, notwithstanding the occupancy of the Indians, and asserting the superiority and priority of absolute right over them of every Christian people. The British charter, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, affirmed the same right; and the first permanent English settlement was under a charter at the beginning of the seventeenth century from the British King to Sir Thomas Gates and his associates, of the sea-coast lands, from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degrees of north latitude, which was shortly afterward followed by an enlarged charter to the adventurers of the city of London for colonizing in Virginia, giving them an absolute proprietary right of several hundred miles of sea-coast, and from sea to sea. The title to these 32D CONG.....2D SESS. lands having been subsequently re-vested in the Crown, a new and more enlarged charter was granted in the year 1620 to the Plymouth company, giving them an absolute right in all the lands between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude. The New England States in a great measure have been settled under this charter, and in like manner might be traced the progress of British policy, by which other English colonies, now integral parts of our Union, were traced out and established-the Crown exercising the granting power in all cases where the proprietary interest had not been conceded. And so, if we glance at the administration of the authorities of France and Spain in Louisiananotwithstanding that Province was settled by emigration from Canada, where the feudal principles and the ancient French noblesse existed, yet the settlers there held their lands, both under the French and Spanish regime, by allodial tenures, or, in our parlance, by absolute fee-simple right. The spirit of the royal authorities was a liberal and magnanimous one to the feeble colonist seeking a home upon a far-distant territory, and excluded from the comforts and luxuries of the parent land. Hence we find that Louis XIV., in whose reign the Province of Louisiana was first settled, exhibited the utmost liberality to those engaged in colonizing the country; and, departing from the feudal exactions and restraints, he fully recognized, first in his charter to Crozat, in 1712, and afterwards in his grant to the Indian Company of the West, in 1717, the principles of allodium, or absolute proprietary rights in the grantees. It might be both interesting and instructive, did the occasion permit, to give the details, and to trace out the practice and progress of the great European colonizing powers on this continent; but suffice it to say, that the history of the past fully establishes the fact, that their policy was conceived and administered in an enlarged and magnanimous spirit. A review, however, of the history of our own system will be more to the point, and will furnish, it seems to me, a strong argument in favor of what is sometimes sneeringly called in this body "progress." It is curious to look back at the earliest law passed by Congress for the sale of the lands of the United States. It provided for their sale in tracts of four thousand acres each; and did not allow the selling of a smaller quantity, except in cases of fractions created by the angles and sinuosities of the rivers. This law, in effect, was a prohibition to the poor man from even purchasing a freehold, and enabled capitalists to become the exclusive proprietors, and to sell the land to the cultivator at exorbitant prices, or else force the latter to be tenants under the former. The views and opinions of many of our statesmen, derived from Great Britain, and which, at that day, were impressed upon them with all the force of education and association, make it not surprising that they should have deemed it advantageous to create a landed aristocracy; but their error may have arisen from accident, or circumstances of which we have not now a just appreciation. It is not, however, uninteresting to take a retrospect of the first awkward attempts at Republican legislation, and to observe how gradually we have shaken off the habits of thought in which we were trained, and how slowly the shackles of prejudice have fallen from around us. The first progressive movement from the original system of selling large tracts, and on credit, was the passage of the act of the 10th of May, 1800, which provided for sales in sections and half sections. This law was certainly one of a most beneficial tendency, and its passage forms an era in the history of this Republic of perhaps greater magnitude and interest than any other in our annals. No other act of the Government has ever borne so immediately upon the settlement, the rapid improvement, and permanent prosperity of the western States. Previous to the year 1820, the United States required two dollars per acreone fourth of which was paid at the time of purchase, and the remainder in three equal annual installments. This mode of selling did not, how ever, work well, and was abandoned in the year last named for the present system and price of $125 per acre. Since then, Congress has, from time to time, modified the system, and reduced, The Homestead Bill-Mr. Dodge, of lowa. with conditions and restrictions, the salable quantity as low as forty acres. Almost every one within the sound of my voice knows how bitterly and vehemently some of the ablest and most patriotic statesmen, during nearly the whole of the last quarter of a century, have opposed and fought the passage of laws granting the right of preemption to the pioneer in the purchase of his home. Now, what is the attitude in which our own Government stands to the subject? Why, we hold as a Government to the people the position of a great monopolist land-holder, with an absolute proprietary right in fourteen hundred millions of acres! This magnificent estate is parsimoniously doled out at a fixed price per acre to its own people. By this system, and through the medium of land warrants with which you have so bountifully furnished him, the wealthy speculator is enabled to seize upon immense tracts of country as they are brought into market, whole counties perhaps, and hold them until the stern necessities of an advancing population, and a resistless tide of settlement, enable him to command his own price. Look at the ruinous effects of this, growing out of the monopolist speculations of 1836, when the sales under a bloated paper currency rose up to more than twenty-five millions in a single year, and was followed by disastrous results. The settler became tributary to the capitalist, money was unnaturally diverted from its legitimate channels, individual and public prosperity was checked, and, indeed, for the time, almost hopelessly prostrated. In the commercial changes and revolutions to which, at times, every nation becomes subject, there is nothing so certainly calculated to increase the elements of distress and public and private mischief, as a system having the authority of law, which could countenance such speculation. The whole cost of the public lands to the 1st January, 1850, including their purchase, survey, sale and management, was $74,957,879 38. The aggregate receipts from their sale to the year and month named, was $135,339,093 17. This estimate does not embrace California, Oregon, New Mexico, or Utah. Deduct the aggregate cost from the aggregate receipts, and we have a net balance in favor of the United States of $60,381,213 79. Twenty millions of dollars were paid for Louisiana and Florida. These acquisitions would have been worth more than that amount for their commercial and maritine capacities and advantages, and not including the fee-simple of the soil-they, if you please, retaining it as Texas has. Deduct the amount of their cost, ($20,000,000,) and the actual profit to the Government from the sale of its domain is eighty million dollars and upwards, ($80,381,213 79.) It is proper to make this deduction, for the value of the land in Louisiana and Florida was not the consideration which induced their purchase. The United States, for great national purposes, needed the control of the mouth of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. The same high considerations and wise policy dictated the expediency of our acquiring California, with her unrivaled bay and harbor of San Francisco. As a mere question, then, of dollars and cents, the Government might here be willing to stop, for it has been more than reimbursed. Our prosperity and growth as a nation will, in my opinion, be greatly accelerated by the adoption of a different principle: one that will repudiate the system of doling out the public lands at a certain number of shillings per acre, as a source of revenue and Treasury profit. The new States and the Territories will suffer most by continuing this system, and especially by the passage of measures tending to excite and aggravate it, such as I have before adverted to. The mania of speculation will soon sweep over them like the Sirocco blast, prostrating all within the range of its poisonous and desolating career. These embryo States, so far as regards the public domain, will cease to be the territories of the Union, and become the property of monopolists, possessing their soil, delaying their admission into the Union, and thus shaping their destiny for half a century. Witness the deplorable condition of Ireland; the sad evils of antirentism in New York; of non-resident proprietorship of the Half-breed lands-so called-in Iowa; Lord Murray's possessions in western SENATE. Wisconsin, and numerous other instances of absentee landlordism in other western States and Territories. The settler, only when his necessities demand it, appears at the door of the Government official seeking to purchase a home. He finds that immense tracts, nay whole counties, and almost whole Territories, are thus excluded from actual settlement for an ordinary lifetime, and he is driven further in his pursuit of land, or is forced to become a tenant. Could any system be devised more destructive of equal rights and Republican principles? In vain will we have eschewed the feudal system, with its relation of lord and vassal, if we defeat the homestead bill, and create and continue to issue, as is proposed by numerous mammoth schemes now before us, this paper currency, called land warrants, to be used as it is, to absorb the public domain and regulate the terms of its sale and settlement. Excluding the years 1835 and 1836, the average sales of the public lands from 1796 down to 1847, is about one million and a half of acres per annum. Owing to an increase in the circulating medium, but more especially to the enormous issue of land warrants, the sales amounted to $4,870,067 during the last fiscal year. Of these sales nearly three and a half millions of acres were for bounty land warrants; being an increase over the previous years of nearly a million of acres thus absorbed by these warrants, which I greatly fear are being most extensively used to pass the title from the Government to the speculator. The following letter from the Commissioner of the General Land Office, bears upon this point. GENERAL LAND OFFICE, February 12, 1853. SIR: In answer to your inquiry, I have the honor to state: That the whole amount of lands sold during the years 1844, 1845, 1846, and 1847, was............8,383,326.66 acres. Making a yearly average of.. .........2,095,831.66 acres. The whole number of entries during said period This shows the average of sales for the four years therein named to be about two millions of acres as the maximum quantity required for annual settlement and cultivation. The absence of all artificial causes exciting speculation in the four years enumerated, and the preponderance of forty and eighty-acre entries, show that the great body of the land sold was purchased by those who desired it for homes and improvement. Now, if the Government of the United States really consulted its own interests in a pecuniary point of view, would it not, instead of making the public lands a source of direct annual profit by the sales producing a revenue now of some two or three millions a year, discard that system and throw open this estate to an industrious and energetic population, which would give back in exchange a rich and perpetual stream of wealth, fed by all the elements of a nation's prosperity? But not only in this respect should we consider our duties and obligations. This Government stands in the position of a political parent, whose duty it is to watch over, guard, and protect the interests of every citizen. That duty requires that we should enable every one within the limits washed by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, to secure a farm or homestead for himself and family. That is a generous, nay, just and noble system, which would repudiate this selfish policy of shillings, and look to one which is more in accordance with the genius of our institutions. Let this Congress of the United States come up to the important subject under a proper sense of what is due to our people and our country, and by adopting a measure like this they will rescue from a state wholly unproductive, thousands of square miles; will convert them to the great purposes of life-thus subserving the ends of our being; and will add new stars of equal brilliancy to |