The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1846-08-22

lJuuSHent-he burial OF the whole IN d polltlca.
grave, from which there TO be no resurrection
And now we are called upon to pay them as hay.
ing purchased off the dead articles of the treaties OF
llIo. Near hfty years have elapsed since the ORR
GIN OF these clairs, aud Congress has ever been
found before TO assume them. Reports from COM
nttees IN their favor nothing the parliamentary
rule requires subjects 10 be referred TO friendly COM
mttees; and these claims, TO my certain knowledge,
have always had the benefit Of that rule But no
Congress has ever before sanctioned them; and il 10
clear impeachment of the justice of ancestors
for us TO assume now what they would not counte-
nance. The fact is, they knew all about these
claims, and we know nothing Of them; they knew
the principles Of the social compact had been COM
| Piled with, and we of this day have forgot those
principles they knew they had expended ten or
twenty times as much TO protect redress these
| claimants as the claims were WORTH and if the
claimants had called upon them to pay, they would
i have called for reimbursement Of the money ex-
pended in their pursuit
i 10 Mr.. JetfersOn's time, when the treasury was
overlooking, and Congress called upon TO find some
use for the surplus money, no man thought Of pay
ING these claims. They were too we'll understood
then 10 De paid SincS then, the treasury has been
again dlstended with a surplus still Congress would
not give any part Of 1t TO these old claims Now
when we are In all the expenses Of foreign war
when loans and treasury notes are already resorted
TO to meet our daily expenses, now, for the first
time, these claims to be paid and our ancestors
implicitly told that they were not honest enough to
pay their own debts, when they had the money!
and did not know what TO do with it and that we
must pay for them, although have not the money
and don't know where TO get III
The mode of paying constitutes a new and valid
objection TO this bill: they are qusrtered upon the
pubic lands-a dissertation which cannot be
thought Of without the deepest humiliation, indie.
pendenty of the great and positive evils resulting
from It. The national domain is a great and noble
fund.- coded by the States to the Union for the
benefit Of the Union, and very properly pledged by
our ancestors to the sacred purpose Of dscharging
the debt Of the revolution. A pledge for that
sacred purpose was worthy Of the national domain
and consistent with the object Of the donors; but to
pledge II TO private lndiyduals-to pledge it to spec
uators and insurers-to men who gave five cents IN
the dollar for obsolete claims-and 10 those for
whose benefit we bore all the burdens Of the Adams
administration: this, indeed is too bad, and is
degradation and dissertation Of the national domain
never before witnessed in any country, and filling
the mind with humiliation and shame What ma
uon ever before pledged its public lands to private
| claimants and speculatorsi But humiliation and
shame are not the worst consequences resulting from
this new and Notifying pledge. Positive evils TO
the public treasury, and TO the new States, nevl-
tably result from it. In the first place. it leads to
the admission Of unjust and improper claims. Many
will pay in land that will not pay in money,
man will sometimes give horse in satisfaction Of an
old and dubious debt, towards which he would not
advance dollar In moCey. This ia the case now.
These very claims have been above forty years So
Letting moneyed payment, and could never obtain
it. Now they get a bill for payment in land What
is this but saying that bad claims, which caGnot
be paid IN money, may be paid in and2 And
where is this to end? Upwards Of ten thousand
old claims are now before Congress, and the num-
Der increasing necessarily. Upon the same prin-
eiple that you pay in land, you pay all in
land; and the national domain will be swallowed
up by dubious, or desperate claims, for which no
money would be given. Yet land brings money;
and the treasury is much stripped Of its means
by losing the land revenue before it is collected as
paying it out after it is collected. The lands are
the second branch of the national revenue the
customs stand frst-the lands next: yet this great
branch Of the national revenue, by the principle OF
this bill, would become diverted from the nation
to individuals; and all our vast establishment of
surveyors ana commissioners-of registers and re.
ceivers-and of the whole General Land Office in
this city-would degenerate into species of private
agents, paid by the public, to administer the land
system for the benefit of individuals, Great as this
evil would be, another of different character rises
up to match and overmatch it, and that is, the new
interest which would be raised up to consider the
lands its own, and TO control all legislation in rea
ton to them, and that with view to the interest Of
the new owners. Already we have seen fatal in
stance of this control IN the House of Representatives
cannot speak of motives, but can name fact.
The graduation bill-for twenty years demanded by
the unanimous voice of the new States, with the
permanent prospective presumption clause in it, and
now passing trumphantly along by the aid Of their
increased representation in the two houses of Con-
gress, and arrived, in fact at the very last stage of
legislation, and just ready to become a law-this
great and blessed measure, thus so long and
IDENTIFY DESIRED and thus the point of being grant
ed, with the noble pre-empton clause in it) was
knocked on the head, and thrown under the table,
the moment this Internal bill passed the Housed
This the first fruit Of quarterng an army of pri
vate claimants on the national domain; but unless
this veto message of President Polk had come, ind
unless the people sustain him in it, far far from the
last will it be- The ten thousand claimants will club
| together, ten thousand more will spring up to join
them. All will consider the public lands as their
own spoil; and while the people of the new States
at home attending to their own business, this
myriad of claimants will be here, like the locusts of
Egypt, eating up their substance, influencing the
members, swerving them from their duty to their
constituents, and devourng the public lands with
antiquated and groundess claims, which could find
favor in the earlier and better da ys of the repub
lie. Then farewell--not long, bat forever-to all
just legislation in relation to the public lands. Fare.
well, not merely to the graduation bill, and to the
permanent prospective pre-emption bill, but to every
bill which looks to the welfare of the States
the interest of their inhabitants the future sale
| disposition, or management ofthese lands.
One of the great objections--and serious obec-
ton it waso the bills for distributing the proceeds
Of the public lands was this very fact ofthe new in
terest it would create to control the legislation Of
|
quen mischief which would accrue to the new States
from that control. Everybody felt that it would
be degradation and an injury to these States; but
how much less the degradation, and how much
less the mischief, to have the old States for their
masters, instead of these spectators in old dead
| claims! asa ..
Lamentable is the facility with which obsolete
claims revived and passed. Congress is
now daily importuned with claims Of forty, fifty,
sixty, and seventy years old. No number Of re-
| rel raiec Iop
does no good. They are presented again and
again, and from year to year, with new and accu-
mulated proof each time while, on the side Of the
| United States, testimony is daily being lost; and
those members Of Congress and Of the government,
who know anything about them, are either dying
off, retiring from the public service At last they
become irresistible, from accumulated proof on one
hand, and ignorance on the other; and often It hap
pens that new members become Jealous and furious
advocates for Anticipated claims, which, in the time
of their predecessors, would not have borne the
slightest examination, and Of which they know
| nothing but from interested and pdrte views,