Semi-weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1852-1853, 1853-05-28
THE PUBLIC LANDS.

The Wing leaders in this State are just now
afflicted with return of their old concern and
anxiety on the subject of the public lands. This
shadow of an issue is all that is left them some
of them desire to get to Congress, and hence this
concern and the displays of eloquence and patriot
ism which are now being made over this shadow
1t is a well known fact, that the Federal or
Wing party, as represented by its leading men,
has steadily opposed from the foundation of the
government the acquisition of territory or OF public
lands They took ground, in Jeferson's day, against
the purchase of louisiana and exerted all their IN
fiuence to prevent that purchase. They declared
that the climate was sickly, and that the territory
itself was worthess-that it could be fenced i'll
only with alligators and inhabited only by Creole
French. They pursued the same course Ill relation
to Texas; and more recently, they made the pro-
posed acquisition of California the subject OF any
quantity of remonstrances and OF melancholy fore
holdings. Some of them gave it as their opinion,
in Congress, that it was not worth dollar, while
Others actually voted to withdraw our troops III
disgrace and abandon the war; and i'll this State
we were told, by leading members OF that par
ty, that it was of no value than an old pencil
case, and would be, if acquired, the cause Of real
injury to our prosperity as people. 1t would be
useless to dwell upon the facy of these predictions
Every body now sees and feels that, in this matter,
the Democrats were right and the Federalists
wrong.
1t is thus perceived and perceived most truly, that
the country owes to Democratic policy the extern
sion of the area of free institutions and the conse
quent acquisition of public lands. If the opposite
policy had prevailed, the mouth of the Mississippi
would still have been in the possession of an Euro
pean power, or would have been acquired only
the result of war, into which circumstances must
have forced the country-Texas would have been
a Republic in name, but the dependency, in fact,
of England-and California would have been, in
all probability, also under the control of that pow
err In other words, if the policy uniformly advo-
Gated by the federal or Wing leaders had received
the sanction of the people, we should not only
have lost all these vast territories commanding
as they do the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific
shores-but slavery would have been circumscribed,
and the production of cotton and sugar, far as
we are concerned, would have been arrested and
finally cut off; and millions of gold now pouring
in week by week, from California, would have
flowed in steady streams into British pockets, Brit
ish commercial houses, and British Banks.
The federal leaders have, therefore, never contri
buted either by word or vote to the acquisition of
public lands; and yet every two or three years
they come forward and raise a clamor over these
lands and make the most extravagant promises to
the people as to what they will do with the pro-
cceds, provided they will only elect them to Con-
gress. Can it be possible that any portion of the
people can again be deceived by the predictions
and professions of these politicians
We may have more to say on this subject in flu
ture numbers.