Southern sentinel. [volume] (Plaquemine, Parish of Iberville [La.]) 1848-1858, 1849-10-31
REPORT OF A SPEECH DELIVERED By
COL. R. A. STE WART.
At the residence Of Mrs. Williams, in the Pa
IRISH Of ST. Helena, on the 5h of October, 1910.
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Mr.. HarmansoE in the third place asserts, that
! | have misrepresen!ei AID slaadered him in con.
uection with his swamp bill. Compare Mr..
HIS. different speeches on this bill. and see wfe-
Their he does rot SANDER himself, as well as his
bill. In his speech delivered in Baton Rouge
on the 9th of July and reported in the Demo
cratic Advocate, he said: "He next came to the
domestic interests of the State. For three
years he had striven to accomplish the Swamp
Bill, in order to have the waste lands ceded to
the State. Adverted to the injustice of Gene
raj Government pocketing the funds arising
from the sale Of these lands when the people
were sorely taxed for the building of i~evees,
which, had served to reclaim 100000 acres. He
had met with the most violent opposition in the
House and Senate, and after constant strug-
Cling under most discouraging circumstances
he t%riumphed. The Bill ,oassed, the state has
gained eight or ten millions of acres of public
lands which in a few years are bound to be the
most valuable lands in the state; and it will not
cost twenty thousand dollars to reclaim these
lands" The estimate, of the number of acres,
made by Mr.. H. in this speech, is greatly at va
rance with that made by him in Congress, re-
ported in the Congressional Globe of 1S49.
page 500, wherein he estimates the number of
acres to be covered by his swamp bill at two
million two hundred thousand; making a ba-
lance in favor of his Baton Rouge estimate of
seven millions eight hundred thousand. The
report Of commissioner Young fixes the num-
Der of acres covered by the bill at two millions
two hundred and sixty-six thousand and seven
ty-five acres; found on page 249 of the report;
and this estimate is confirmed by the United
States Surveyor General, p. T. Landry. These
reports served Mr.. H. for authority in Congress,
as will be seen by referring to his speech on the
passage Of the bill, at page 500 Of the Con-
gressional Globe Of l849, where he says
"The report Of the commissioner Of the Gener-
al land office stated, that there were two mil
lions and two hundred thousand acres of swamp
land now in Louisiana, and he (Mr. H.) believes
that one million acres Of these lands could be
reclaimed. It would require FIVE millions of
dollars to accomplish this work, and the state
Of Louisiana was obliged to do this work, be-
cause it was required by the health of the coun-
try. All this great body of land the surveyors
of the general government had ascertained to
be unfit for cultivation, and Of course wholly
useless" But they were too restrictive for the
liberal atmosphere of Baton Rouge, where poll
teal winds were swelling his electioneering
canvass. There, he throws aside these faithful
his companions and guides amid his
three years struggle, and telling you that he
is quite surprised at your credulity in believing
what he saidin Congress, runs his acquisitions,
from two millions two hundred thousand up
to eight or ten millions; and reduces the esti-
mated cost Of draining the land from five mil
lions Of dollars down to twenty thousand. In
Congress it required fue millions to redeem
t,uo millions and two hundred thousand acres;
in Baton Rouge it requires only tueaty thou
redeem eight or len millions of acres
But his liberality in increasing the fruits of his
'three years labor" hadn't reached its climax in
Baton Rouge even; for on getting up in jack
son, the picturesque scenery of its pine clad
hills and purling streams, seems to have inspir-
ed him with an additional degree of romantic
liberality, and there he says he has got for the
state t,0enty-tDo millions of acres! / reckon
hs would have been quite as much surprised if