The spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1840-1844, 1841-02-19
From the Washington Globe
PASSAGE OF THE PRE-EMPTION BILL.
Defeat of The Distribution Scheme.

Defeat Of The Distribution Scheme.
Our Congressional columns show the result Of
the long debate on the subject Of the public lands.
Every hour that the question was urged, showed
more and more distinctly the dangerous tendency
Of MIR Clay's new bids TO purchase, TO the support
Of his ambitious views, the indebted States. II
was evidently working TO the result in which the
high protective tariff, conuived by him to bride
the manufacturing States, had well nigh ternna-
ted. Duties laid for the support of Government,
no matter how high nor how oppressive, would
never have goaded the patriotic South into hos
tile feeling towards the Government But the en-
couragement Of the industry of one section by the
utter prostralion Of another, threatened the most
fatal consequences to the country.
The great question of the disposition of the pub
lie lands is fraught with similar dangers; if it ever
shall appear that the rising prosperity of the new
States is to be sacrificed to the sinister ambition Of
any man-to the interests of British ockOhbers,
the cupdily Of ths spectators in the old States,
who have fortunes depending upon their power Of
bostering up and turning TO account the credit Of
Government for their own advantage. The new
States, we are sure, will never revolt so long as
they see the General Government disposing Of the
public lands according to the Constitution, as a
common fund for the benefit Of the Uaitel States.
They feel satisfied that the representatives of the
nation can never, while aching on their own re-
sponsibty, in the administration of this great cs-
tate, do otherwise than foster the rising generations
promoting the growth of the new States at the
same time that they take care of the interests Of
the old, Blu, he moment that Congress surrenders
ils parental duty and distributes the lands among
the States for the express purpose of surrcndering
them to foreign creditors in settling stock-lobblng
accounts, from that moment trouble may be ex-
pected from the States in whose borders the pub
lie domain lies, They will be apt 10 consider that
Congress, in abandoning its constitutional duty,
surf renders all righ,fu control, and they may pro-
baby insist, that in resignng its authority derived
from compacls and the Constitution, to an alien
power, their own sovereign tile States must
come in to exclude what they might possibly con-
slider an usurpation. To this point Mr. Clay might
drive the new States ms the only means TO prevent
private monopoly of their soil, and the consequent
repression of their improvement and population;
and in this way he might renew the quarrel in
another quarter, which disturbed and threatened
the American Union so long under the operation of
his first American system. His ungovernabIe anu
biton has kept the nation in turmoil for the last
twenty Yeas, and would now embark it again on
"a new sea of troubles" We are happy TO be-
leve, however, from the vote given to-day, that
his se.llsh schemes of mercenary innovation are
likely to be crushed this time in embryo.