Des Moines courier. ([Ottumwa] Iowa) 1848-1854, 1851-03-14
Defeat Of tho Land BiIIs.

A dispatch from Washington informs
lis of the defeat of the land bills making
grants of lands TO the Pacific Railroad
Company and TO the Hannibal and ST..
Joseph Railroad Company. mo grants
of lands" says the dispatch, ''passed
this session." We can well believe it.
more reckless and unprincipied set of
political demagogues and trickslers were
never assembled together, than were to
DE found in the last Congress. The
Senatorial branch was the salvation of
the country, and even there, there was
an amount of treason TO the Consultation
which had well nigh over,hrown the
Union. The House passed the Compro-
mise measures under compulsion, and
because of the outward pressure of an
excited constituency. 10 credit for
more than this they are not entitled
Politically and morally. they were corr
rupt, and this would seem TO be the o.
piniou OF the people, for there is every
probability that three fourths of the next
House of Representatives will be COM
posed of new members. A whole batch
of desperate politicians have had leave
to quit, and TO go into private life, after
doing a vast deal of harm, and no good,
to the harmon and the union of the Re-
public; and in the elections yet to take
place, ii is to be hoped that still greater
expurgation will take place. ..0.. ....
The dispatches which we publish this
morning tell something of what was
done, but not much OF that which was
left undone. The River and Harbor
Biil--a measure in which the people of
the great Valley of the Mississippi were
more deeply interested than in any other
before Congress-was killed in the Sen
ate, and we suspect by western Senator'S,
in the list of candidates for the Presiden-
cy. With them, the commerce, the
prosperity, and the lives Of one half of
the population of the Republic, were as
nothing compared with the pallry am
bltion which led them to suppose that a
few votes might be lost by vote in IA
vor OF this important bill. But a day of
reckoning is al hand, and their accounts
will receive a full and aot very sa,isfac-
tory settlement. When we receive en-
authentic report Of the proceedings Of
the Senate we shall take care 10 lay it
before the people, so that when the Pres
ldentlal election comes up we shall be
able TO point TO our friends as well as
our enemies. The "noise and confusion"
in the Senate was not so great as to pre-
vent us from making this decision.
II was not enough to defeat this bill,
but our State stood SO poorly in the es-
TEEN Of members of Congress, that al
though millions of acres OF land had
been given ~ other States for enterprises
of less merit, and not an acre to our own.
they refused to pass the bills granting
donations of land to the Pacific Railroad
and to the Hannibal and St. Joseph Rail-
road. How this was done is not yet
known; but We apprehend, that the OPP
position of our own members to the bills,
the iniudicious and exclusive course of
policy adopted by them-had not little
TO do with il. What else could be ex-
pec:ed, when four out of five Of the
Representatives of Missouri failed to
vote for the River and IIarbor bill-,wo
of them voting against it-although no
State in the Union was so much inter-
ested in its passage as our own. OF
this matter, too, when the mails arrive,
we shall inform our readers.
Except the Postage bill, no measure
o. any general importance has become
a law at the presen, session, and nothing
but the universal demand for this law
secured it so much favor. The appro-
pria,ion bills, with the exception Of the
Fertilization bill, were passed. and
resolution was also passed making the
whole batch of Land Warrants created
by act of the last Congress. assignable.
.-g .- Mo. Republican.