GOVERNOR WALKER'S INAUGURAL Address. 335 views will be found in my reports of the 8th of December, 1847, and 9th of December, 1848, as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States: "The recommendation contained in my last report for the establishment of ports of entry in Oregon, and the extension there of our revenue laws, is again respectfully presented to the consideration of Congress, together with donations of farms to settlers and emigrants, and the grant of a school section in the centre of every quarter of a township, which would bring the school-house within a point not exceeding a mile and a half in distance from the most remote inhabitants of such quarter township." And again: * * "My last report recommended the grant of one section of land for schools in every quarter township in Oregon. * * * * Congress, to some extent, adopted this recommendation by granting two school sections in each township, instead of one, for education in Oregon; but it is respectfully suggested that even thus extended the grant is still inadequate in amount, whilst the location is inconvenient, and too remote for a school which all can attend. The subject is again presented to the attention of Congress, with the recommendation that it shall be extended to California and New Mexico, and also to all the other new states and territories containing the public domain." Acting upon the first of these recommendations, but not carrying them fully into effect, Congress doubled the schoolsection grants-an advance upon the former system. But, in my judgment, the benefits intended will never be fully realized until four school sections, instead of two, are granted in every township, locating the school section in the centre of every quarter township; thus, by only doubling the school sections, causing every section of the public domain in the new states to adjoin a school section, which would add immensely to the value of the public lands, whilst at the same time, affording an adequate fund not only for the establishment of common schools in every township, but of high schools, normal schools, and free academies, which, together with the five-per-cent. fund and university grant before referred to, would place Kansas in a few years, in point of science and education, in the front rank of the states of the American Union and of the world. This is a subject always regarded by me with intense interest, inasmuch as my highest hope of the perpetuity of our Union, and of the continued success of self-government, is based upon the progressive education and enlightenment of the people, enabling them fully to comprehend their own true interests, the incalculable advantages of our Union, the exemption from the power of demagogues, the control of sectional passions and prejudice, the progress of the arts and sciences, and the accumulation of knowledge, which is every day more and more becoming real power, and which will advance so much the great interests of our whole country. These noble grants for schools and education in some of the new states have not produced all the advantages designed, for want of adequate checks and guards against improvident legislation; but I trust that the convention, by a distinct constitutional provision, will surround these lands with such guarantees, legislative, executive, judicial, and popular, as to require the combined action of the whole under the authority of the legislature in the administration of a fund so sacred. It will be observed that these school sections and the fiveper-cent. fund, or their equivalent, have always been made good to the new states by Congress, whether the lands were sold in trust, for Indians, or otherwise. Upon looking at the location of Kansas, equidistant from north to south, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, I find, that, within reasonable boundaries, she would be the central state of the American Union. On the north lies the Nebraska territory, soon to become a state; on the south the great and fertile Southwestern Indian Territory, soon, I hope, to become a state also. To the boundary of Kansas run nearly all the railroads of Missouri, whilst westward, northward, and southward, these routes continued through Kansas would connect her directly with Puget Sound, the mouth of the Oregon river, and San Francisco. The southern boundary of Kansas is but five hundred miles from the Gulf of Mexico, and the same railroad through the great Southwestern Indian Territory and Texas would connect her with New Orleans, with Galveston, with all the roads of Arkansas, and through Texas to San Francisco, and other points upon the Pacific; northward and eastward our lines would connect with the roads of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota, and the lakes of the north. It is the people of Kansas who, in forming their state constitution, are to declare the terms on which they propose to enter the Union. Congress cannot compel the people of a GOVERNOR WALKER'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 337 territory to enter the Union as a state, or change, without their consent, the constitution framed by the people. Congress, it is true, may for constitutional reasons refuse admission, but the state alone, in forming her constitution, can prescribe the terms on which she will enter the Union. This power of the people of a territory in forming a state constitution is one of vital importance, especially in the states carved out of the public domain. Nearly all the lands of Kansas are public lands, and most of them are occupied by Indian tribes. These lands are the property of the federal government, but their right is exclusively that of a proprietor, carrying with it no political power. Although the states cannot tax the constitutional functions of the federal government, they may assess its real estate within the limits of the state. Thus, although a state cannot tax the federal mint or custom-houses, yet it may tax the ground on which they stand, unless exempted by state authority. Such is the well-settled doctrine of the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1838 Judge McLean, of the Supreme Court of the United States, made the following deci sion: "It is true the United States held the proprietary right under the act of cession, and also the right of sovereignty until the state government was established; but the mere proprietary right, if it exist, gives no right of sovereignty. The United States may own land within a state, but political jurisdiction does not follow this ownership. Where jurisdiction is necessary, as for forts and arsenals, a cession of it is obtained from the state. Even the lands of the United States within the state are exempted from taxation by compact." By the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, so justly favorable to the rights and interest of the new states, especially those formed out of the territory acquired, like Kansas, since the adoption of the constitution, it is clear that the ownership of the public lands of such territory is viewed by the court exclusively as a proprietary right, carrying with it no political power or right of eminent domain, and affecting in no way the exercise of any of the sovereign attributes of state authority. When Kansas becomes a state, with all the attributes of state sovereignty coextensive with her limits, among these must be the taxing power, which is an inherent element of state authority. I do not dispute the title of the government to the public lands of Kansas, but I do say that this right is that of an owner only, and that, when Kansas becomes a state, the public lands are subject to taxation by state authority, like those of any individual proprietor, unless that power is relinquished by the state in the ordinance, assuming the form of a compact, by which the state is admitted into the Union. This relinquishment of the taxing power as to the public lands, so important to the general government, and which has heretofore been exacted by Congress on their own terms from all the new states, is deeply injurious to the state, depriving her almost entirely of the principal recourse of a new state by taxation to support her government. Now that this question is conclusively settled by the Supreme Court of the United States, as a consequence of their recent decision, it is proper for the state, in making this relinquishment of the right to tax the public lands, to annex the conditions on which she consents to such exemption. This should be done in the constitution upon terms just to Kansas and to the federal government. Should Kansas relinquish the right of taxing the public lands for equivalent, she should, in my judgment, although sustained by irresistible conclusions from the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and sound constitutional views of state rights, place the question in its strongest form, by asking nothing more than has been granted to the other new states, including the grants for education, railroads, &c. She will thus give the highest proof that she is not governed by sordid views, and that she means to exact nothing from Congress that is unjust or unusual. I cannot too earnestly impress upon you the necessity of removing the slavery agitation from the halls of Congress and presidential conflicts. It is conceded that Congress has no power to interfere with slavery in the states where it exists; and if it can now be established, as is clearly the doctrine of the constitution, that Congress has no authority to interfere with the people of a territory on this subject, in forming at state constitution, the question must be removed from cougressional and presidential elections. This is the principle affirmed by Congress in the act organizing this territory, ratified by the people of the United States in the recent election, and maintained by the late decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. If this principle can be carried into successful operation in Kansas-that her GOVERNOR WALKER'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 339 people shall determine what shall be her social institutionsthe slavery question must be withdrawn from the halls of Congress, and from our presidential conflicts, and the safety of the Union be placed beyond all peril; whereas, if the principle should be defeated here, the slavery agitation must be renewed in all elections throughout the country, with increasing bitterness, until it shall eventually overthrow the government. It is this agitation which, to European powers, presents the only hope of subverting our free institutions, and, as a consequence, destroying the principle of self-government throughout the world. It is this hope that has already inflicted deep injury upon our country, exciting monarchical or despotic interference with our domestic as well as foreign affairs, and inducing their interposition, not only in our elections, but in diplomatic intercourse, to arrest our progress, to limit our influence and power, depriving us of great advantages in peaceful territorial expansion, as well as in trade with the nations of the world. Indeed, when I reflect upon the hostile position of the European press during the recent election, and their exulting predictions of the dissolution of our Union as a consequence of the triumph of a sectional candidate, I cannot doubt that the peaceful and permanent establishment of these principles, now being subjected to their final test in Kansas, will terminate European opposition to all those measures, which must so much increase our commerce, furnish new markets for our products and fabrics, and by conservative, peaceful progress, carry our flag and the empire of our constitution into new and adjacent regions indispensable as a part of the Union to our welfare and security, adding coffee, sugar, and other articles to our staple exports, whilst greatly reducing their price to the con sumer. Nor is it only in our foreign intercourse that peace will be preserved and our prosperity advanced by the accepted fact of the permanence of our government, based upon the peaceful settlement of this question in Kansas, but at home the same sentiment will awaken renewed confidence in the stability of our institutions, give a new impulse to all our industry, and carry us onward in a career of progress and prosperity exceeding even our most sanguine expectations; a new movement of European capital will flow in upon us for permanent investment, and a new exodus of the European masses, aided by the |