Washington sentinel., 1854-06-06

collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, an
order to pay the debts, and IN order to provide
for the common defence and general welfare" !"
Congress does not provide for the general scet-
fare when it takes charge of local Interest,
whether it be road, school, or an asylum.
Objects that are general and not local may alone
receive the patronage of the government under
the money clause.
The trainers of the Constitution clearly in
tended that the national exchequer should be
supplied by taxes, duties, imposts, and ex-
cises, and as no provision was made for raising
money from the sale of lands, and no purpose
designated to which the money, when raised
from such sales, should be applied, it may be
well questioned whether it was ever contem-
plated that the lands should be sold. Iknow
that the deeds of cession from Virginia and
and other States point to objects for which the
money may be applied, but speak now of the
Constitution, and not of the deeds of cession.
When, however, the lands are sold, and the
money is paid into the treasury, it becomes part
and parcel of one treasury, and can only be
used as money raised from taxes, duties, i'm
posts, and excises NAV be used, an order to
pay the debts, and IN order to provide for the
common defence and general welfare. Before
it is sold, while it is yet land, it may be dis
posed of not alone to pay the debts, and not
alone to provide for the common defence and
general welfare there are no such words in
the land clause Of the Constitution but it may
be disposed of for any purpose not inhibited
by the Constitution. tits one thing to dispose
of the money in order to pay the debts of the
government and it is another thing simply to
dispose of the public lands. / respectfully sub
nit, therefore. that the President is mistaken
in supposing that Congress has the same power
to appropriate money that it has to appropriate
land.
Indeed, the President admits, in the very
next paragraph of the message, that there is
some distinction between property in land and
property in money. Speaking Of the public
domain he says:
g AS property il is distinguished from actual
management sometimes requires that portions of
il be appropriated to local objects, in the States
whe elm it may happen to lie, "a would be by any
prudent proprietor TO enhance the sale value of
his private domain. All such grants of land are,
in fact, a disposal of it for value received"
1t is here distinctly avowed that portion Of
the land may be so applied as to increase the
value of the remainder. In other words, that
a section of land may be given to railroad, if
the gift enhances the value of the adjoining sec
ton. Now, if there is no difference between
appropriating land and appropriating money,
and you may apply thousand acres Of land to
a railroad because you thereby double the value
of another thousand acres, | respectfully in
quire why we may not apply a thousand dollars
in money, if the effect should be to render an
other thousand or the same thousand of double
value Recollect you have the power, accord
ing to the message, to give the lands only, be-
cause the gift increases the value of other lands,
and the President sees no difference between
giving lands and giving money. 1t follows,
therefore, if giving money will have the same
effect in increasing the value of money that
giving land will have in increasing the value of
land, you may give the one or the other as you
please. 1t thus becomes a simple question as
to whether you will invest land or money.
With the same power to appropriate money
as land, the President, dare say, would not
approve bill appropriating money to con-
struct railroad in State, though that road
might make all the land within six miles of it
of double value, and yet he would approve
bill appropriating onehalf the land to the same
road, simply because, the road being construct.
ed, the other half is double in value. BY Civ
ing money and building the road you get double
price for all the land and have the road into
the bargain. By giving land to company
you only get double price for half the land and
have no road The power to give the one be-
ing equal to the power to give the other, it
would seem best to give the money.
1t appears to me- Mr.. President, that we are
likely to be involved in labyrinth Of difficulty
and perplexity, for the simple reason that we
have neglected to observe properly the distinc-
ton which the Constitution itself makes in our
he 10 nd IL
one we may dispose of for purposes which are
not named the other we may dispose of for
purposes which are named, to wit: to pay the
debts and provide for the common defence and
general welfare.
The President, after speaking approvingly of
the land grants heretofore made to the new
States, land for which thank him very cor
dally,) adds, all such grants are in fact a
disposal of it for value received" This brings
me to the consideration of a material point in
this argument Grants have been made, as /
have said, more than once, to roads, canals,
colleges, schools, and other objects of the New
States ? All such grants, we are told, have
been for value received. Value received from
whom? Not from the grantees To them the
grant was naked, unqualified gift; they paid
nothing, did not promise to pay anything, and
did not guarantee that anybody else should
pay anything. They we're gifts in the broadest,
fullest, and most comprehensive sense of the
term. They were lands conveyed in fee simple
to parties who paid nothing. The considera-
ton, the value, if any was ever received, came
from other parties than those to whom you
gave the land. Now, we either had the power
to make these gifts, or we had not. If it exists
in the Constitution, we have it independent of
any consequences or results that may follow
its exercise. The fact that one section Of land
is doubled in value, by giving away another
section, may be very good argument to justi-
fly the use of an actual existing power But,
submit that it does not and cannot bypossibili-
ty supply power that does not already exist.
If have no power to give one section, it is
useless to tell me how much the gift will en-
hance the value of the next section. My an
swer simply is, have no power to give at all.
If have the power, then it may be very well
to urge as an argument to justify the use of it,
that if / give one section make the next one
worth as much as both. HE
If Congress has the power to give lands to
railroad companies, land think it has, it may