The miners' express. (Dubuque, Iowa) 1849-1854, 1852-12-22
ownership Of such property gave rise in The

II =
! if such operations are to succeed as are now
- progress. Nearly an hundred millions of acr
!, has lrst been thrown among spectators by Il
n soldiers lard Warrants before that is more tbs
"a halt devoured, the fell spiri. demands al
10 other huge feast, in the B II which you hr
81 before me if successful in that, ihey will tai
=. - the whole at the next swallow. Fifty SIX NIL
ne ions of acres, equal TO seventy-two millions
as dollars, to be thrown into the old State
"a which, added to the (near) fifty millions "
10 rfm1ining of the soldiers warrants, viii amour
- to one hundred and seven millions of dollars
= all to be IN the hands of spectators and con
= sttuting them, according TO the computation c
o the general land oicr) monopolizers of the Ian
g sales for twenly-six years. 1t Is the duty Q
every upright man in the United States to on
pose this enormous inquity, and the duty o
every new State to demonstrate against it an
u you have rendered great service to the coun
try by bringing the subject before it.
The public will b. taken by surprise by you
letter, the manner in VIII CHI the Bill was passed
through the House of Representatives, undo
i, the gag of the previous question having s.iiet
: all discussion, and concealed all view of it from
= = the mass of the people. 1t fragrant abuse
/. OF the "Preosons question TO apply it in thai
, way and its apple ion and success implies an
: understanding outside of the House to force the
bill through without giving the country chance
t. know it, or its iniquities to be exposed. The
sprecsous question was only invented to put
an end to intermnable and useless debate here
, it was applied to prevent all debate, and that
upon measure of the greatest possible conse-
quence, and evidently upon concert, and to save
it from the exposure which honesty and patriot
ism would have given it.
To seduce the new States into this fatal meas
ure. they are offered pttance to themselves,
and on the most unequal terms. For example;
yourd own State which has already, perhaps
received larger federal grants than any other
State, is to get three millions of acres without
deduction of the amount she has received 9th
er new States are to receive the same, subject
to deduction. This is clearly an attempt to
| seduce Iowa, and deach her from the other new
| States to whose system she belongs. This
favor to the new States-this slice to themsel-
yes off of themselves before they are swallow
ed up by the old States-s on the principle of
| the favor which was granted to the man on
whom the lot fell TO be killed and eaten in the
starving ship at sea; and who was ailo wed to
eat slice off Of himself before his body was
cut up among his companions. Ii is an insult.
ing cheat to the new States depriving them of
their five per centum the sale of the lands if
sold by the United States, and which would
amount TO near four millions of Notwithstanding
their railroad grants down to the minimum of
the land scrip, (say 90 to SO cents, sand send
ing their citizens to spectators fer % to
buy land, instead of buying from the Federal |
Government; and paying these spectators
some years hence FIVE or ten dollars acre after
they had mon opolized the scrip at 20 or 80
cents.
The distribution to the old States is made |
upon the basis of 10000 acres to the constiiu |
ency of each member, which, if fairly divided, |
would only come, to two acres apiece But il /
will not be fairly divided. 1t is TO be made into |
assignable scrip and in that form will be moth
ing but SO much s.pabulum to the stock jo55;ng |
herd. Spectators will monopolize it, getting |
laws passed in the Slate Legislatures to suit
themselves, then combining to sink the price till
all is bought up, then combining to raise is ten
or twenty fold to the cultvators Dreadful
would be the scenes of corruption to which il
would give rise in the State Legislatures and
of which the old Yazoo fraud was but faint
example. Surely If this scheme goes on there
ought to be a limtion On the ssignability clause
Ia limitation which would prevent any mem
Der of Congress, or OF State Legislature, or
any of their relations within the leyltical de-
grees of prohibited marriages, from becoming
assigncss of any scrip on which they had voted.
This would help to guard, in a slight degree,
the purity of legislation.
You have well and forcbly, touched many of
the iniquites of this scheme to explore them
all would require weeks of fearless debate in
Congress. Your letter, and the statement from
the general land office, ought TO be universally
repuhlished. can add but little to til EN- in this
brief letter of reply.
consider it a clear breach of the compac:s
with the States, thus to make SPECTATORS
the sole sellers of the public lands for twenty
six years | might say, forever. for if this
amount of patatum goes to- the jobbe-s, they will
s,on have the remainder. Armed with the
additional power which this splunder would
give then, they would quickly take the remain
der. 1t is only the first step in any crime or
enorlnity which costs the difficulty That first
step taken, The rest follows, of course. Tha
{near) one hundred millions of acres of soldiers
or rather spectators warrants, is the incentive,
and the motive power TO this new scheme /; if it
is successful, 1t becomes the incentive aud the
motive power fnc tie surrender of all the rest
of the public lands to miIlionary Wall street
jobbers. Already these spectators nearly
masters of Congress LEGISLATION in relation 10
the public lands, and besides their own schemes
of plunder, and besides aiyng themselves with
every other scheme of plumber, place their pet0
upon every land bill for the benefit of the peo
pie or the States-upon railroad bills, homestead,
and all.
Every part of this scheme is ubiquitous, and
its details, with respect to the cid States, seem
to oe founded in tota! ignorance of their his
tory in relation to the public lands, total dis
regard OF justice among them. Thus New
York and Pennsylvia, which gave lands to
the federal governm mt, receive three or four
times as much as Viginia aud the other south
ern States, which were the real donors: Mass
achusetts and Maine, which kept their public
lands and sold them for their own benefit, share
equally with those who gave and Connecticut,
which had reserve OF two millions OF acres in
the State of Ohio, is subjected to part of that
deduction which is imposed on all the new States
pit Iowa. These are iniquities which JUS,
legislation would avoid, but which plumber leg
islation embraces as means of creating an in
terest strong enough to carry the measure
through. Certainly if Congress going to
abdicate its "trust' over the public lands, and
give them away; there are classes Of States {
which are entitled toprefereuce in the donation:
first Virginia and the oibeg Southern States {
which gave the lands; and secondly: the new
States, whose labor and improvements have
given them value. But there is nothing which
can justify Congress in this abdication Of itsv1
sstrust'-in this corruption it would introduce
into Congress and the State legisatures---in this
.emission of seventy-two millions of paper
money scrip to pamper speculation, and subject
rho -euliivator to Wall street extortion.
W!sen | was in Congress | opposed ali
schemes of distribution OF land or money
whether in the form of soldiers bounties, OF
surplus revenue, or the land money itself after |
the sales. My plan to take all the dspos-
able means to pay off the public debt, and re-
duce the expenditures to the most economical
amount abolishag duties on articles not made
at home, nor, coming in competition with our
industry and leaving as much money as pos
sible in the pockets of the people, as the safest
and cheapest of all treasures. and whence the
government, when needing il, could obtain all
the necessary supply in the form of loans and
taxes. Thus was my plan then, and is now
And with respect to the public lands, the dan
ger of their being sqaandered, and the best
means of dsposing orthem, gave my opinion
in speech to my constituents few weeks ago,
and of which enclose an extract.
The Romans, in the better days of the Re-
public, encouraged their young men to the at
tack Of great abuses and great criminals and by
that means long preserved the purity OF the gov
eminent If a little of what we hear of legis- |
lative corruption in our Congress, (and Of the |
conduct of agents and jobbers,) be true, there
is crying need for our young men to initiate the |
conduct of the young Romans in the earlier
ages Of the Republic, and to entitle themselves
to the gratatude.of their country in arresting |