political rights of American-born citizens, and then stopping short when you are only asked to allow them to occupy and cultivate the wild lands of the West. If they are are fit to vote and hold office, I hardly think we shall be seriously damaged by allowing them to mingle their labor with the soil which we allow them to govern. If they do any part of the voting, I am for getting as much work out of them as possible; and if they have a fancy for cultivating the soil, I am clear for letting them do it.

I think there is a manifest propriety, when you have admitted a man to political rights, that you should provide for him in some way a home; and that, too, at the cheapest rate at which it can be supplied. What is your interest, sir; what is manifestly your interest towards these people whom you have allowed, by your legislation, to vote in Kansas and Nebraska; and, I believe, in all the other territories? It is to settle them down, to make them permanent inhabitants of the country, to stop their roving disposition, to get them out of your cities and towns, and identify them as early as possible with the soil. That, I believe, is our true policy. If I could have had my way, I never would have admitted these people to political rights until they had been here long enough to learn something of our laws, long enough to learn and study and understand our Constitution; but the policy of the country, as marked out by the two branches of the legislature, and sanctioned by the President, has been different. It has been to admit them to all the rights of citizenship, so far as voting and holding office in these territories are concerned. Now, I am not going to stop short and say to a man, "though you may have the same right to vote as a native-born citizen; though you have the same right to hold office as a native-born citizen, you shall not have the same right to occupy the land; though you may govern, you shall not occupy the soil." I see no propriety in this--no reason for it. Why, sir, I would rather any sort of a foreigner should occupy a quarter section of land than it should be occupied by a wolf or a bear. I would rather that any sort of a foreigner, who would cultivate it, should occupy it, than a savage. And this upon the principle which I have already stated, that his labor is just as valuable as though it were the labor of a native-born citizen. It is worth as much, and the products of it will sell for as much in the market, and go as far in subsisting the country. According to the bill, you do not give him a title until he is a citizen, and made so according to the laws of the land. When he is made a citizen, then, I say, not only in reference to this, but in reference to all other rights, I am for putting him upon a footing with natives-born.

It is said many of these emigrants are bad men; doubtless, this is true. But will he be made a better man by keeping him in a city or town? The best thing that can be done with a bad man is to put him to work, and, as long as you can keep him at it, he will be out of mischief.

Upon the broad principle that one man's labor is as good as another's in raising corn, wheat, cotton, rice, or tobacco, I am willing to see every foreigner go to work on the public lands. When he becomes a citizen in the regular way, I would admit him to all the rights of a citizen, political as well as others. I would not give him the title until he became a citizen; but if he wanted to work the land, I would tell him to go ahead. It would make a better man of him; and when he came to

be a citizen, he would love the land all the more in which he had mingled his sweat.

You committed a grievous fault when you authorized foreigners to vote and govern the country. You cannot atone for it by refusing them the right to work the land which they govern.

NOTE. By reference to page 573, another speech of Mr. Brown on the same subject, in connection with the Minnesota Bill, will be found.

GRADUATION BILL.

REMARKS IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JULY 20, 1854, ON THE GRADUATION BILL OF MR. HUNTER OF VIRGINIA.

MR. PRESIDENT: The proposition of the senator from Virginia presents, in my opinion, the most stupendous land scheme that has ever been presented to the American Congress. It proposes, by one single stroke, to give up the authority of this government, over about one billion five hundred million acres of land.

Mr. CLAY. If the states will accept.

Mr. BROWN. My friend from Alabama suggests "if the states will accept." That is a suggestion which it is scarcely worth making, because we know they will accept. When you have passed this bill, the authority of Congress over the public lands will be extinct in the states. I believe the territories are excluded. Now, sir, in deference to the opinion of my friends on this floor, being a new state man, coming from a state which is to derive benefits from the passage of this proposition, I shall vote for it; but here on this evening, at six o'clock, I protest, that if any evil is to come of it, it must be charged to my friends and not to myself. I have had no opportunity of investigating in detail a great scheme like this, the most magnificent and the most stupendous that has ever been brought before Congress; a scheme which it ought to take months and months to deliberate upon.

Why, sir, the proposition of the senator from Virginia has eleven sections and thirteen provisos. There are thirteen separate and distinct limitations to the granted powers. What they all mean, I say again, as a common county-court lawyer (and I never aspired to any higher reputation), I have had no opportunity of weighing and deliberately considering. I doubt whether there is a senator on this floor, except the senator from Virginia, who has had any opportunity, or, having it, has been able, in this extremely hot weather, to avail himself of that opportunity of weighing and examining this proposition as it ought to be done, considering the magnitude of the interests involved. Other schemes propose to parcel out the public lands in very small quantities; but here you have a great and magnificent scheme which divides out the whole at one single leap.

I feel that I ought to pause and weigh my mind long in the balance whether I ought not to vote against this proposition, at least until I shall have had time to consider it. But, in looking around the cham

ber, I find my friends disposed to go for it. I hope it will turn out well; but I notify you, gentlemen from the South and West, and from the land states particularly, if this turn out to be a political iniquity, I wash my hands of it now. Charge part to the senator from Virginia, and the greater part to the men from the new states.

A great portion of the public lands in the old congressional district which I had the honor to represent, in the other House, and to whose people I am under deep and lasting obligation, are interested in this proposition. They were entitled to buy their lands at $1.25 an acre. Congress granted alternate sections to a railroad running through that district, north and south, and increased the price of the reserved sections to $2.50 an acre. Scarcely a mail comes to me from Mississippi which does not bring some complaint of the gross injustice of that act. Now, sir, when you are reducing the price of the adjoining lands to twentyfive, and even as low as twelve and a half cents an acre, am I to stand here and see those people oppressed by the exaction of $2.50 an acre for their lands? Shall a man who lives within six miles of a railroad be required to pay $2.50 an acre for his land, and he who lives six miles and a quarter from it, be allowed to take his at twelve and a half cents? Within the distance to which the railroad provision applies, I want you to apply your graduation principle. Why should not the reserved sections be graduated as other lands are graduated, if the graduation be right in point of principle? If you are to reduce a quarter section of land outside of the six miles to twelve and a half cents an acre, why shall you not reduce the quarter section inside of the six miles to twenty-five cents an acre? I want to have some sensible reason for that. You have acted upon the principle that the building of a railroad has doubled the price of the land, so as to make it worth $2.50; but you have now come to the conclusion that the lands shall be reduced one-half in value or four-fifths in value. Why shall you not reduce that land as well as the other? I am not asking you to reduce the land within the line of the railroad below the double value; but to reduce it as you reduce the other lands. If you ask twenty-five cents an acre for lands outside of the six miles, then ask fifty cents an acre for land of the same class within the six miles. If you ask but twelve and a half cents outside of it, then ask twenty-five cents inside of it. Let the same scale of graduation apply everywhere.

I cannot consent, sir, that my hardy constituents, the pioneers of the country, those who have lived there, and felt the oppression of your legislation heretofore; who have never received the benefits of your railroad projects; who have only felt your policy in doubling the price of the lands, shall now have their land kept up at twenty times its value. Mark you, you are reducing the land outside of the six miles to twelve and a half cents an acre, but you are keeping the land within the six miles at $2.50 an acre, which makes twenty times as much inside of the six miles as outside of the six miles. I want to know where is the propriety, where is the reason, where is the logic, which will justify conduct like that? I ask, in moving this amendment, that you shall apply the same scale of graduation inside of the six miles, on either side of the railroad, which you apply outside of the six miles. Outside the six miles you sell at twelve and a half cents, inside you

should ask no more than double that sum-since it is on the principle of doubling the minimum that you made the grant.

In reply to Mr. Yulee he said :

:

I think I understand the argument of my friend from Florida perfectly. We have made grants to railroad companies, and have promised that we shall charge double the price for the remaining sections, thereby, as it seems, granting to them that they should sell their sections at $2.50 an acre; in other words, that we would not undersell or force their lands into the market at low prices. Then the whole question is narrowed down to a controversy between the people and the railroad company; and in that controversy, I am free to say, I take the side of the people. I want railroads built. I want railroad companies to prosper; but never shall I stand up here, or elsewhere, and advocate the interests of a railroad company at the expense of my laboring and toiling constituents. If a railroad is to be built by wringing from the pockets of my laboring constituents their hard-earned money, they may remain unbuilt till the latest hour of time, so far as I am concerned. The whole argument of my friend from Florida resolves itself into the point, that because we have entered into some sort of an engagement with a railroad company, we must not undersell them. We must not do it for fear we violate faith; and though we may reduce the price of the public lands in favor of everybody else, yet to those hapless people who reside within six miles of the railroad, we will not make any reduc tion whatever. I am unwilling to sanction any such proposition by my I am willing to aid railroads, but I come here not to represent railroad corporations, or railroad monopolists, but as the representative of that portion of the American people who live in the state from which I come, and to their interest I will be faithful, come what may, and let the railroads go to where they choose.

On the 7th May, 1856, Mr. BROWN spoke on the subject of titles under the Graduation Act, as follows:

I submit the following resolution, and I ask for its immediate consideration:

Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire into and report what legislation is necessary to secure the United States against fraudulent entries under the graduation act, and what is necessary to quiet titles of purchasers under said act.

There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the resolution.

Mr. BROWN. I wish to submit a few words of explanation before the vote is taken on the resolution. The Department of the Interior, through the General Land Office, has issued two or three circulars in reference to entries under the graduation act of August, 1854. Their design is a good one-to protect the government against fraudulent entries under that act. The intention of Congress in passing that law was to secure its benefits to actual settlers on the public lands. Doubtless in some cases speculators have been engaged in making entries, through third persons, for their own benefit, which certainly never was contemplated by the act; but the Land Office has issued circulars, the effect of which has been to disquiet the titles of all who have entered lands under the graduation

act. One circular required all persons who made such entries to come forward within two months and purge their entries of fraud, by making certain additional affidavits, not prescribed by the law, but by the regulations of the department. A second circular extends the period within which they may come forward with additional proof to twelve months. The effect of this upon the bona fide purchaser has been to throw a shade over his title. The law has not forbidden him to sell the land if he has entered it in good faith, for his own use, and not for purposes of speculation; but if he finds it to be to his advantage to sell, he cannot now do so because of the shade thrown over his title by the orders from the department.

While the law did not

I object to these orders for another reason. lay down any rules which should establish fraud in the entry of land, the department has undertaken to lay down a general rule, and to make it apply to all entries, whether good, bad, or indifferent. Every man who has entered land under that act is required, by an order of the department, to come forward in twelve months and do certain things, and in default of doing them he is notified that his entry will be vacated and a patent withheld. Why? Not because all the entries are supposed to be fraudulent; not because one-tenth part of them can, by any possibility, be fraudulent; but because the department has a suspicionprobably a well-grounded suspicion that some entries are fraudulent, it applies this rule to all who have entered under the law. The bona fide purchaser, who has complied in good faith with the requisitions of the law-who has done his whole duty in good faith, is required to do precisely what the man who enters in bad faith and in fraud of the law is called upon to do.

I do not pretend to say what ought to be done; but I do declare that bona fide, honest purchasers ought not to have their titles thus disquieted by suspicion being thrown over them. They ought not to be disturbed in their peaceful and quiet possession of the property which they have purchased, and for which they have paid all that the government demanded of them, and this on a simple order from one of the departments of the government.

I desire that the committee on public lands shall inquire what legislation is necessary to secure the government against fraud. If it be found that the principles embodied in these orders are necessary, let us enact them into law; let Congress pass a law embodying these orders in the form of a congressional enactment, and rescue parties who hold good titles from the disturbance imposed upon them by mere orders from the land department. At the same time, if anything can be done to relieve bona fide, honest purchasers and settlers from the suspicion thrown over their title by the orders from the department, I wish it to done, and done promptly. My constituents are writing to me constantly of the effects which these orders are producing on their titles. They feel insecure. They are put to the trouble sometimes of going considerable distances to make new affidavits at additional cost to secure their title, after they have done everything which the law requires after they have paid their money and received their certificate.

So far as I am concerned, I do not believe that these orders amount to anything. I have no idea that the general land office or the interior department has the right to lay down a general rule by which it will