The gentleman alluded to a report of the late secretary of the treasury, which, according to his reading or construction of it, recommended what he calls the tariff policy, or a branch of that policy; that is, the restraining of emigration to the west, for the purpose of keeping hands at home, to carry on the manufactures. I think sir, that the gentleman misapprehended the meaning of the secretary in the interpretation given to his remarks. I understand him only as saying, that since the low price of lands at the west acts as a constant and standing bounty to agriculture, it is, on that account the more reasonable, to provide encouragement for manufactures. But, sir, even if the secretary, observation were to he understood as the gentleman understands it it would not be a sentiment borrowed from any New England source.—Whether it be right or wrong, it does not originate in that quarter.
In the course of these remarks, Mr. President, I have spoken of the supposed desire, on.the part of the Atlantic states to check, or at least not to hasten, western emigration, as a narrow policy. Perhaps I ought to have qualified the expression, because, sir, I am now about to quote the opinions of one, to whom I would impute no thing narrow. I am now about to refer you to the language of a gentleman of much and deserved distinction, now a member of the other house, and occupying a prominent situation there. The gentleman, sir is from South, Carolina. In 1825, a debate arose in the house of representatives, on the subject of the western road. It happened to me to take some part in that debate, I was answered by the honorible gentleman to whom I have alluded, and I replied. May I be pardoned sir, If I read part of this debate.
"The gentleman from Massachusetts has urged," said Mr. McDuffey., "as one leading reason why the government should make roads to the west, that these roads have a tendency to settle the public lands; that they increase the inducement to settlement, and that this is a national object. Sir, I differ entirely from his views on the subject. I think that the public lands are settling quite fast enough; that our people need want no stimulus to urge them thither; but want rather a check, at least on that artificial tendency to western settlement, which we have created by our own laws.
"That gentleman says that the great object of government, with respect to those lands, is not to make them a source of revenue, but to get them settled. What would have been thought of this argument in the old thirteen states? It amounts to this, that those states are to offer a bonus of their own impoverishment, to create a vortex to swallow up our floating population. Look sir, at the present aspect of the southern states. In no part of Europe will you see the same indications of decay. Deserted villages—houses falling to ruin—impoverished lands thrown out of cultivation. Sir, I believe that if the public lands had never been sold, the aggregate amount of the net total wealth would have been greater at this moment. Our population, if concentrated in the old states, and not ground down by tariffs, would have been more prosperous and more wealthy. But every inducement has been held out to them to settle in the west, until our population has become sparse, and then the effects of this sparseness are now to be counteracted by another artificlal system. Sir, I say if there is any object worthy the attention of this government, it is a plan which shall limit the sale of the public lands. It those lands were sold according to their real value, be it so. But while the government continues as it now does, to give them away, they will draw the population of the older states and still farther increase the effect which is already distressingly felt and which must go to diminish the value of all those states possess. And this, sir, is held out to us as a motive for granting the present appropriation. I would not, indeed, prevent the formation of roads on these considerations but I certainly would not encourage it. Sir, there is an additional item in the account of the benefits which this government has conferred on the western states. It is the sale of the public lands at the minimum price. At this moment we are selling to the people of the west, lands at one dollar and twenty-five cents, which are worth fifteen, and which would sell at that price if the markets were not glutted."
"Mr Webster observed, in reply, that the gentleman from South Carolina had mistaken him, if he supposed that it was his wish so to hasten the sales of the public lands, as to throw them into the hands of purchasers who would sell again. His idea only went as far as this; that the price should be fixed as low as as not to prevent the settlement of the lands yet not so low as to prompt speculators to purchase. Mr. W. observed that he could not at all concur with the gentleman from South Carolina, in wishing to restrain the laboring classes of population in the eastern states from going to any part of our territory, where they could better their condition; nor did he suppose such an idea was any where entertained. The observations of the gentleman had opened to him new views of policy on the subject, and he thought he now could perceive why some of our states continued to have such bad roads; it must be for purpose of preventing people from going out of them. The gentleman from South Carolina supposes; that if our population had been confined to the old thirteen states, the aggregate wealth of the country would have been greater than it now is. But sir, it is an error, that the increase of the aggregate of the national wealth, is the object chiefly to be pursued by government. The distribution of the national wealth is an object quite as important as its increase. He was not surprised that the old states, not increasing in population so fast as was expected (for he believed nothing like a decrease was pretended) should be an idea by no means agreeable to gentlemen from those states. We are all reluctant in submitting to the loss of relative importance—but this was nothing more than the the natural condition of a country densely populated in one part, and possessing in another a vast tract of unsettled lands. The plan of the gentleman went to reverse the order of nature, vainly expecting to retain men within a small and comparatively unproductive territory "who have all the world before them whose to choose". For his own part he was in favor of letting population take its own course; he should experience no feeling of mortification if any of his constituents liked better to settle on the Kansas or the Arkansas,or the lord knows where, within our territory; let them go,and be happier if they could. The gentleman says, our aggregate of wealth would have been greater if our population had been restrained within the limit of the old states, but does he not consider population to be wealth?, And has not this been increased by the aettlement of a new and fertile country? Such a country present the most alluring of all prospects to a young and laboring man; it gives him a freehold—it offers to him weight and respectability in society; and above all, it presents to him a prospect of a permanent provision for his children. Sir, these are inducements which never were resisted, and never will be; and were the whole extent of country filled with population up to the Rocky Mountains, these inducements would carry that population forward to the shores of the Pacific ocean. Sir, it is in vain to talk; individuals will seek their own good, and not any artificial aggregate of the national wealth—a young, enterprising and hardy agriculturalist can conceive of nothing better to him than plety of good, cheap land."
Sir, with the reading of these extracts I leave the subject. The senate will bear me witness that I am not accustomed to allude to local opinions, nor to compare nor contrast different portions of the country. I have often suffered things to pass which I might properly enough have considered as deserving a remark, without any observation. But I have felt it my, duty on this occasion to vindicate the state I represent from charges and imputations on her public character and conduct, which I know to be undeserved and unfounded—If advanced elsewhere, they might be passed, perhaps, without notice. But whatever is said here, is supposed to be entitled to public regard, and to deserve public attention—it derives importance and dignity from the place where it is uttered. As a true representative of the state which has sent me here, it is my duty, and a duty which I shall fulfill, to place her history and her conduct, her honor and her character, in their just and proper light, so often as I think an attack is made upon her, so respectable as to deserve to be repelled.
Mr. W. concluded by moving the indefinite postponement of the resolution.
END OF VOLUME THIRTY-SEVEN
