The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-07-29

been INSCRIPTIONS enough to have given you
$4,000 for your buildings. You are Demo-
crat, it is true but for all that, the Black Re-
publicans would have given you $4,000 for
your buildings so that looked upon the sale
as, in reality, made for thirty or forty thousand
dollars more than the price naIped'
This is not sense. It is absolute, psltry, I'M
mitigable nonsense, to be got on the modest ex-
pectation of four or five thousand dollars a year.
Nothing is right. Everything is done wrong
And such are the agents employed by the Depart
ment of War to determine the military import
ance of Fort Smelling, and to manage the public
riches sufficient, according to General Jesup, for
the defence of the lives and property along thou
sands of miles of frontier! Scott, Jesup, Persi-
fer F. Smith, passed by, and questions of public
defence put in the safe keeping Of William King
Heiskell 1t may well be supposed that such
counsels might lead to the winter campaign, which
history promises to make immortal, of thousands
of troops left, thousand miles from supplies, to
freeze and starve in the mountains about Fort
Bridger.
OF this extraordinary sale, the modes by which
it was conducted are the most extraordinary.
The Importance of the post and of the reserva-
ton, and of other reservations like it, had often
been matter of consideration in the Department
of War. The means of protecting such large in
terests were not difficult. If practice and prece-
dent were wanting, the suggestions of common
sense at once proposed means of keeping the
public from loss. The gentleman from Virginia
and the gentleman from Kentucky, and various
other gentlemen, seem to think that it was easy
in this instance to form combinations by which
the Government would be defraUded. The word
" combination is alarming. 1t was the perpet-
ual nightmare of Mr.. Heiskell. The gentleman
from Kentucky particularly has referred to the
improvident sale of that part of the Fort Smelling
reservation in the neghborhood of Minneapolis,
Al e u
few years ago at Saltwater. Why, the majority
of the committee has referred to this very act of
improvidence and lawlessness IS reason why
the Secretary of War was bound to unusual eau
ton, in order to prevent the remainder of the
ervatiOn from being sold at sacrifice. But he
will please remember that that portion of the
ervation had already been by law detached from
the Fort Smelling reservation, and added to the
common stock of public lands, giving the right
ofsettlement at once, as upon other public lands
right which is never acknowledged on a mill
tary reservation. In that instance, that very
right of settlement made inducements to cOmb-
nations. In this instance, there was no right of
settlement, and combination was impossible In
deed, the Government title could never be divest-
ed until the public had first received an adequate
price for it.
The concern, therefore, of the gentleman from
Kentucky, about combinations, may be dismissed.
No combination was possible; no combination
was probable. Though asserted by Heiskell and
Eastman, each upon the authority of the other, it
is Indignantly denied by all who had the means
of knowing the public feeling in the vicinity at
the time of the sale.
But, if combinations were threatened, the De-
partment of War furnished examples by which
they could be successfully met Not this only,
but the Department of War furnished the only
safe precedents by which such safes could be con-
Quoted; for the reason that military reservations,
being chosen because they are slightly and vau-
able positions, before being brought to sale are
usually retained by the Government on the verge
of the frontier, until population has crowded
densely around them, and they have become
greatly appreciated in value. Then, it is not rea-
sonable that they should be settled and e-emp-
ted as other public lands and, being thus val
liable, the Government has a profit in their re-
tention, and, in order to secure their full value
great caution and judgment ere necessary in
making the sale
The gentleman from Kentucky TMr BURNETT
has argued that the danger of making combina-
tons in like this is so great, that the only
public safety is to make sales secretly, as in this
instance. If that gentleman in fact respects, as
he pretends to do, the opinions of the Sec
rotary of War, he will find himself at once
in antagonism with that distinguished func-
tionary for, within two days OF the time that
this committee submitted its report to the
House, the Secretary of War; having occasion to
make sale of the Fort Armstrong reservation on
Rock Island, adopted the very recommendations
of the majority of the committee, in utter con-
tempt of the opinions held blythe gentleman
from Kentucky. The advertsem mt will be found
in the Washington Union of ApIA %. 1t will be
seen to be of that date, and sub S;ribed by John
B. Floyd, Secretary of War Tbs advertisement
states that sealed proposals will be received at
the War Department until the 3lst day of May,
for parts of not less than one legal subdivision
of the unsold land of the island of Rock Island
in the State of Illinois, heretofore reserved for
military purposes" The descriptions and areas
of tge unsold tracts for which proposals are in
vite ], are set out by catalogue No parcel of the
desr riptions exceeds fifty acres, and then occur
the blowing specifications of purchase:
Bids will be received until 2 o'clock NJ of
thu 3Ist day Of May, at which hour all then
bel re the Department will be opened
/" )ids will be received for the purchase Of the
Ian IS in gross, for separate parcels as above
de- ribbed; the Department reserving to itself
the light to accept or reject either or both, as
ma be deemed most advantageous to the Gov
erEr,ent.
Proposals should be sealed, and endorsed,
peoposals for the purchase of the island of
Rock Island
Payment to be made in cash to the Assistant
Treasurer at ST. Louis, or to the Treasurer at
ceptdnce of the bids and receipts transmitted
Immediately to this Department"
1t is unpleasant to bring, in this matter, my
good friend from Kentucky in conflict with the
Secretary of War but that distinguished Cabi-
net officer has one memorable instance to justify
his conduct, and convince me that his action now
is right, and that the gentleman from Kentucky
is wrong. When the Fort Dearborn reservation
at Chicago was brought to sale in 1889, Secre-
tary pOinsett DreScribed the same cOursp The
population, within radius of half dozen miles,
was then less than five thousand-not one-sixth
of the population now living in equal vicinity to
Fort Smelling. In that instance, the sale occur
red in the midst of great pecuniary distress In this
instance, speculation feverish, money easy,
and prices extravagant. That full price was not
realized at the sale of the reservation at Fort
Smelling, is due only to carelessness and uncon-
Germ in not making proper provisions for it. In
that instance, less than fifty-fve acres of land
realized to the Government a net profit, exclu-
sive of expenses, exceeding one hundred thou
sand dollars. In the judgment of the gentleman
from Kentucky, it is perhaps a public calamity
that Mr.. Heiskell was not present to manage the
sale of the reservation at Fort Dearborn.
In the sale of Fort Smelling so soon as the
commissioners had determined, against all usage
and propriety, that they would not sell the Fort
Smelling reservation in parcels so as to enable
persons OF small means to buy, as so many de-
sired to do, but one thing remained and that
was, to get the best price. The minority of the
committee rests on the evidence of some wit
nesses that $4,000 was an adequate price
What they have said | esteem of little import
ance, as / am confident it is little worthy of
credit, for the reason, principally, that the wit
nesses had but little means of judgment. Some
of them had never been on the reservation
some of them had only crossed it in a,carriage
drive from St. Paul to St. Anthony; and the