The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1857-07-31
DEMOCRACY AND DISTRIBUTION,

The Charleston Evening News, the strait
est of strict constructionists, q Democrat of
the State Rights School, has some observa-
tons on the Land Question, based upon other
IDEAS and breathing other sentiments, than
the absurd ones which have weighed down
the columns Of the Democratic press in this
State, during this canvass. After giving a
bsief history Of the Land Policy, the News
says:
The old democracy refused to divide and
distribute it among the States, and now the
new Democracy, on an opposite and incon-
gruous sectional tact, urge its distribution
among the new States to he exclusion of the
old-violate the principle of opposition to
dis,gibution, and deny the justice of a fair d..
vision! Millions on millions of acres have
been of late years given away by Congress,
not only for internal improvements, but a
Wholesale donation to the new States of all
in their limits, and those limits fixed at areas
many times as large as the usual size of the
ola States. With these lands, the new States
have paid debts, constructed railroads, built
colleges, schools, public buildings, &c; while
in the old, these have 20 be obtained from the
hard earnings and labors Of their people.
All goes swimming gly-the North glOries in
the consequent extension of frersoil, the fruc.
tifying fuilness of the tariff, and in the end
less appropriations her localities have obtain
ed from the Treasury for every sort Of i'm
provement-the West glories in its rapid
progress, its amassed fortunes, its splendid
constructions, its giant rising power. Yet
where is the tenancy in common-the inheri.
tance of the South, and where its fruition to
her! Vast bodies of the public domain were
ceded by her old States for the common
brneft-where has been her proporiionate
benefit in return? Has the tariff been re-
moved from her shoulders, have the public
lands been used for her Improvement, has the
treasury been avished for her security and
adornment, and rave her party politicians
been unsuborned, for her good and peace?-
Her inheritance has been sold for n mess OF
political pottage, and the stranger, and the
alien, and the aboIitionist, tread the soil
which her sovereignties once owned, and
which her generosities failed to make sacred
from the violence of the fanatic, the wiles oi
the demagogue, and the enmity of the i'm
ported radical. Abolition and alien suffrage
now sways over it domination, pointed to
her destruction.
Is this all-is the evil no more than de-
privation of the South of nearly all advanta-
ges from the public lands as property' No
no! They are brought in ns political ele-
menis and forces, in the form of Territories
and States, and with view to circnmscrbe
her limits and power, and to destroy her in
st,tutions.
The halls Of Congress are incessantly lob.
bied for appropriations of lands, in the name
of special internal improvems nts, but in reali.
ty for the benefit Of spectators; and these
barefaced attempts are rendered successful by
hr:bes in the form of shares or money. And
these squanderings and practices are coun.
tenunced by the very politicians, who scorr
| the claims of Tennessee and South Caroinl
to anv share of them, although sovereign
owners. with others, of the property.
Would not South Carolina find great rele
IN her debts, and aid in her efforts for i'm
provement, from grant and disposition of
d 'rt of the unoccupied public domain? The
question both as to right and advantage de-
serves her serious consideration.