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Relief to Land Purchasers.

JANUARY, 1821.

have been, by a short-lived prosperity, which, though depending wholly upon temporary causes, too many believed would be permanent, and too few supposed would end so soon, it is hardly to be supposed that our free representative Government should have been totally exempt from the influence of the general delusion, or that it should not have participated in it, and even given rise to a portion of it.

lic-a Republic founded on the affections of the people; flowing from them as the great fountain of power-instituted solely for their happiness, and, consequently, ever ready to administer, from the purest motives, a just relief to their sufferings. This Government, sir, depends for its successful operations on the affections of the people. They can never have affection for a Government which they cannot respect. And what respect can be felt for a Government which, professing to do an act of In all such Governments as ours, the people and grace, founds that act on a cold calculation of a Government must necessarily, to a certain extent, return of profit? Charity is certainly one of at least, reciprocally act upon and influence each the most amiable of virtues; yet, what would be other; and therefore, in intimating the opinion thought of that charity which should be bestowed that the Government itself did contribute to the on an arithmetical estimate of usurious interest? delusion which misled our fellow-citizens into exConsiderations of this sort, Mr. President, are, in cessive purchase of public lands, I do not wish to my opinion, unworthy of the grave and enlight- be understood as imputing any blame or censure ened deliberations of this Senate. I will not urge whatever, but merely as speaking of things as they them. I cannot rely on them. No, sir, any meas- actually have been; and as, from the intimate conure of relief which may be afforded by the Nation-nexion between the people and Government, they al Legislature, should bear the general stamp of an must necessarily have been. act of grace to the individuals interested; it should The long convulsions in Europe, which grew also be a measure of wise and just policy in rela- out of the French Revolution, by furnishing us tion to the Union. I am no advocate, Mr. Pres- with a ready and most extraordinary market for ident, for the romantic and ostentatious display of our produce, and by the advantages which they generosity on the part of this Government; and afforded to our navigation and commerce, had prothis case would not receive the support of my poor duced such unparalleled prosperity that the whole abilities, did I not believe that relief is necessary to nation had become so intoxicated with its ephemprevent real, extensive, eminent, and, in my opin-eral success as to overlook the causes from whence ion, at least, unmerited suffering. The debt is of its prosperity sprung, and upon which its continusuch magnitude, that, in point of fact, it cannot ance depended. possibly be paid in the present state of affairs. Had the people of the West incurred this debt by any imprudence peculiar to themselves, they might have had no claims to your sympathy. But there was no peculiar imprudence in this case. It was no malady confined to that country. It was the general mania that raged universally throughout the land; and, even if the fever was hotter there, it was only because the pabulum which fed it was more copious and tempting.

That these people have erred, miscalculated, and purchased public land greatly beyond their ability to pay for it, is evident enough from the enormous sum which, from the Message of the President of the United States, referred to by the gentleman who has just resumed his seat, (Mr. THOMAS,) it appears that they now owe on that account. But, taking into view the frailties and imperfections of human nature, the want of sufficient foresight, which is the common lot of man, and the illusions of hope, which too easily cheat us into the belief of the practicability of that which we wish to accomplish, the case makes a strong appeal to our compassion. There are, indeed, also, some circumstances in this case, with a part of which the Government has been so intimately connected as ought not only to prevent it from regarding those people with the sternness of stoic indifference, and leaving them to all the unmitigated consequences of the errors into which they have been betrayed, but loudly appeal to the sympathies, clemency, and magnanimity, and even the justice of the National Legislature, and demand the utmost alleviation which it can reasonably grant.

Infatuated as all classes of our fellow-citizens

The late war, so far from abating in the least degree the fallacious calculations that were but too generally indulged, produced a train of events which inspired new and more extravagant hopes and expectations, the causes of which I will endeavor briefly to explain.

In the prosecution of the war, the exigencies of the Government became so pressing that it found itself reduced to the expediency of borrowing large sums of money of the local banks, which it was well known they could not lend without suspending specie payments. And, although the value of bank notes in general must depend upon their convertibility into specie, yet, seeing that the war could not be prosecuted with effect without those loans, public opinion, co-operating with the Government, so far sanctioned the consequent suspensions of specie payments that few men would venture to refuse to take the paper of these banks, lest they should be denounced as enemies to their country. The Government used it to support the war and pay its debts. Public creditors were obliged to receive it, and, to render it as current as possible, it was made receivable in the land offices -all of which circumstances combined to give to it the character of a fair representative of so much real coin. And thus were those banks tempted and seduced to issue a most unexampled and unjustifiable profusion of paper, from which exorbitant profits were made, that generated a spirit of banking which operated like a contagion, and produced a vast multiplication of such institutionssome of which were fortunate enough to have their paper also made receivable in payment for public lands.

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These banks were anxious to loan money. The facilities with which it could be obtained could not fail to allure the enterprising citizens of this free and aspiring Republic into almost every species of active adventure and bold speculation, as well as many of them into inconsiderate extravagance. And hence there were many borrowers, and finally an issue of paper so greatly exceeding the whole amount of the current coin of the United States as to beget an infatuation little if any thing short of that which was produced in France and England about a century ago by the memora-pending measures which recent and melancholy ble Mississippi and South-Sea schemes.

In addition to this monstrous augmentation of our circulating medium, a large number of claims for land on the northwest side of the Ohio, which had been recognised by the Old Congress in 1787, had been converted into certificates, which, as well as the Mississippi stock, were made receivable in payment for public lands-thereby increasing the facilities of paying for, and the temptation | to buy, those lands.

It was during this tide of visionary prosperity, which innocent credulity fondly hoped would never ebb, that the most of those purchases were made; and indeed the delusion continued so long, that the hopes and expectations of the most sanguine seemed to acquire strong confirmation of their fancied practicability.

did displays of eloquence which this or any other country can boast, to demonstrate that this Government either had or ought to have delegated power to accomplish this great national object. And yet not one of those keen-sighted politicians and distinguished orators could have imagined that at this early day we should not only be without a single cent to appropriate to such purposes; but that the state of our Treasury should be relied upon as affording the most powerful argument for overthrowing valuable institutions and susexperience has evinced to be necessary for our future protection.

The miscalculations and indiscretions of the purchasers of public land, therefore, are not to be wondered at. Even that able statesman, who now so honorably to himself, and so advantageously to his country, fills the first station in the Government, after visiting the Western country, considered the purchase of public land at the minimum price so advantageous to the purchasers, and so injurious to the public interest, that he felt it his duty to recommend to Congress an augmentation of the price. In consequence of which an immense quantity of public land was immediately purchased, with the firm belief that the measure recommended by the President would be adopted. At length, however, those splendid and bewitching Nor was this infatuation confined to the pur-visions began to disappear. The paper in circulachasers of public land, nor to the ignorant, uninformed, and inconsiderate part of the community. It affected all classes of society, and even the Government itself. It gave to every species of property a fictitious value; produced an entire revolution in the manners and habits of our fellow-citizens; substituted in the place of that republican simplicity which had heretofore characterized us, all the extravagant pomp and pageantry of Royalty itself; and gave birth to a multitude of the wildest projects and most visionary speculations.

Our means were thought adequate to accomplish all that the imagination could suggest, or that art could execute, to minister to the comforts, convenience, interest, or pride, of individuals; or to the improvement, embellishment, and aggrandizement, of our country; and of all the various improvements, adventures, or undertakings, by individuals or corporations, which distinguish those times, nothing was attempted but upon the most magnificent scale.

The excessive importations of foreign goods that were made immediately succeeding the peace, and which have proved so ruinous to those who were concerned in them, had so greatly augmented the public revenue, that it was deemed expedient to abolish all internal taxation. The greatest difficulty that seemed to present itself, even to our wisest politicians, was to devise ways and means of disposing of the vast sums which it was supposed would overflow the national coffers. And hence, among other things, was that rage for internal improvements which, agitating the nation from North to South and from East to West, put in requisition the highest order of talents, and produced the most powerful arguments and splen

tion, no longer supported by the exigencies of the Government, began to lose its credit, and much of it ceased to answer the purposes of a circulating medium; to supply the want of which was one of the most powerful arguments for the establishment of the Bank of the United States, whose operations soon annihilated many of the local banks, and crippled and prostrated the balance, to the incalculable injury of those who had been induced to rely upon them, by the credit and currency which the Government itself had given to their notes. And thus, after using those banks for the payment of its debts, and seducing our fellowcitizens to rely upon them for the payment of theirs, the Government became instrumental in accelerating the overthrow and ruin of those institutions, to which they had principally exposed themselves by the very loans which they had made to the Government.

The Bank of the United States was, however, relied upon as the great panacea that was to restore to healthful vigor our expiring prosperity. Wise men contended, and good ones sincerely believed, that it would effectually remedy evils that were in themselves incurable, and which nothing but time, with the utmost industry, prudence, and economy, could even alleviate. But if it has not verified all the predictions of its enemies, it has certainly so far disappointed the hopes, expectations, and promises of its most reasonable and intelligent friends; for, notwithstanding all the promised amelioration of our condition by this expedient, it most unquestionably aggravated the distress and embarrassments of the whole Western country, at least by prematurely destroying, with rash and inconsiderate hostility, the local

currency, without substituting any adequate medium in its place.

The circulating medium of the Union was soon reduced from one hundred and ten to forty-five millions of dollars, of which residue the Western country neither did nor could participate, in proportion either to its numbers or its wants, as must be evident from the immense sums which have been drawn from it on account of public lands; from the balance of trade, as proved by the rate of exchange having been constantly against it, and from the disproportionate expenditure of public money in the Atlantic States.

JANUARY, 1821.

credit and currency which it gave to their notes, under such circumstances, are justly to be attributed that undue multiplication of banks, and that superabundant issue of paper which have caused the distress that afflicts and the ruin that threatens our suffering fellow-citizens.

Mr. E. dilated upon the conduct of the Government in relation to those banks, and declared that he did verily believe that, but for the loans which it had made from them, and its consequent conduct, we should have escaped the fatal consequences which we all now so sincerely deplore, and which, though they were doubtless not designed, might have been foreseen, because they are the natural consequences of the conduct of the Government, for which it could have no apology except that which is to be found in its necessities at that particular period.

Mr. President, said Mr. E., France and England did not hesitate, in the cases referred to, to extend to their subjects the most prompt and effectual relief that was practicable. Have you less sympathy for the sufferings of your free and patri

Money, therefore, with us, became scarce, and within the last two years has almost entirely disappeared. No sound currency remains. Every species of property has lost its value. The products of agriculture have ceased to reward the labor employed in growing them. Commerce languishes. Our manufactures have gone to decay; and nothing is now to be seen but the hopeless despair and ruin which these portentous vicissitudes have occasioned. And hence it is that we have heard so much of the various efforts of sev-otic fellow-citizens? Will you hesitate to relieve eral of the most respectable State Legislatures to relieve the embarrassments, alleviate the distress, and avert the ruin, that threatens to overwhelm their fellow-citizens. And, although we may not approve of all the expedients that have been resorted to for that purpose, yet the disposition which they manifest is worthy of our imitation, and ought to be most seriously regarded by us as proof that public sentiment demands of us the utmost relief which it is in our power, consistently with our duty, to extend to a suffering community.

Mr. President, said Mr. E., the records of history furnish no instances of an infatuation so universal, with consequences so much to be deplored, as that which has pervaded our own country, unless they are to be found in the famous Mississippi and South Sea schemes, to which I have already alluded, and which were not more disastrous to the people of France and England than would be the situation of the debtors for public land, if, with all their other engagements to pay money, the Government should continue to hold them bound to pay the prodigious sum of near twenty-three millions of dollars, which they now owe, or lose all the instalments that they have already paid.

It is true, sir, that those cases are not precisely analogous to our own, but they are not without some traits of similitude, for the agency and influence of Government is visible in all of them; and the evils produced in each case primarily resulted from the countenance afforded by Government to incorporated companies, by using them for the payment of public debts, and giving to them a credit which they never otherwise could have acquired. And, although our Government was not, like those of France and England, directly interested in and connected with those moneyed corporations by whose aid it paid its debts, yet there cannot be a doubt that, to the loans which it made from them, to the countenance it afforded to their suspension of specie payments, and to the

them when the most that is asked of you is to forbear to take advantage of the indiscretions into which they have been decoyed? To relinquish a mere speculation, which a liberal-minded individual would not hesitate to cancel under similar circumstances?

Mr. President, were the debtors for public lands entirely free from all other embarrassments, it is evident that so small a portion of the community must be utterly unable, in the present state of affairs, to pay the enormous sum which they now owe the Government; a sum that exceeds onehalf of the whole amount of the circulating medium of the United States, and is constantly increasing by the accumulation of interest. But, sir, the same causes that have embarrassed others have most certainly equally operated upon them; and there is no part of your population, who, in proportion to their means of payment, have probably contracted a greater mass of other engagement-none whose situation required a greater expenditure of money, as must be obvious to all those who will reflect upon the cost of moving to and making improvements in a new country; the length of time that is necessary to render farms productive, and the necessity, in the mean time, of purchasing every article of husbandry, clothing, and subsistence, with cash.

Besides a great variety of other debts, which the temporary success of themselves, or others, in land speculations, seduced many of those persons to contract, in the vain hope of discharging them with the profits which they expected to realize from the land purchasers, a vast proportion of them are doubtless still indebted to banks or individuals for the very money with which they paid the first instalments upon those lands, whilst, in addition to all the other causes which have contributed to produce their inability to fulfil their engagements, you have depreciated their lands, and destroyed all hopes of resource from the sale of them, by reducing the price of the residue of

JANUARY, 1821.

Relief to Land Purchasers.

SENATE.

that part of your own which you have purchased to their navigation and commerce-objects of of the Indians, amounting to one hundred and great national importance, which the Western seventy-two millions of acres, to one dollar and people have not been backward in assisting to twenty-five cents an acre; and immediately bring-cherish and to protect. ing into competition with them upwards of fiftyfour millions of acres, that are now actually surveyed and in the market; which are events that could not have been foreseen, and certainly were not anticipated by those debtors.

They have, moreover, seen, with great satisfaction, in some recent measures, a pledge of those liberal feelings towards them, which has allayed all former fears, and forbids the belief that any motive of hostility or jealousy could, in the least degree, influence your decision on the present occasion; and I flatter myself that there is no gentleman of this honorable Senate who, under any circumstances, could find so much cruelty in his heart as to be willing to take from those people even eight millions of dollars, and at the same time keep all the lands for which those dollars were given, together with all the improvements that have been made upon the lands. No, sir; humanity, justice, and sound policy, equally forbid it.

As, then, it is absolutely impossible for them to complete their payments for the lands which they have purchased, it follows that, without the relief which Congress alone can afford them, they must forfeit all that they have already paid on that account, which, if no one of them has paid more than one instalment, cannot be less than between seven and eight millions of dollars; for, as has been correctly stated by my colleague, the law required payments for public lands to be divided into four equal instalments, one of which must have been paid down at the time of making each The only real difficulty, therefore, that presents respective purchase, and, therefore, it is impossible itself is, to decide upon the relief which it is exthat those debtors can owe the amount reported pedient and proper to grant. In considering which, to be due, without having paid the sum which I the obvious policy of making it so liberal as to have stated. So, if they have paid two instal-prevent all hopes of advantage from future appliments, the amount liable to forfeiture is precisely cations to Congress upon the subject, ought not equal to that which is due. And, as many of to be overlooked; for experience proves, that where them have paid two or more instalments, there relief in such cases is frequently granted, which can be no doubt that the amount greatly exceeds must always be likely to happen when it has been the minimum which I have mentioned. inadequate in the first instance, it never fails to beget an habitual dependence upon it, which prevents the necessary exertions to make payment, and often creates a state of things that renders it difficult to refuse, and sometimes necessary to grant, further indulgence, than would have been necessary had sufficient liberality been dispensed in the first instance.

But, were the sum to be forfeited, only eight millions of dollars, which, if every one who is able, should complete his payments, is, I am sure, the very least that it could possibly be, it surely cannot be difficult to conceive of the individual distress that would be produced, and the dangerous ferments and commotions that might be excited by such a prodigious sacrifice as the total forfeiture of that amount, being nearly equal to onefifth of our whole circulating medium.

This, however, sir, is an aspect of the case upon which I forbear all further remark, lest I should seem to expect from your fears that which I am very certain would be much more readily yielded to the superior claims upon your humanity and justice. And, indeed, sir, I have no hesitation in saying that, whatever may be your ultimate decision upon the case now under consideration, it will be as likely to be acquiesced in, and submitted to, in the West, as it would be, under similar circumstances, in any other part of the United States; for the people of the Western country, not less patriotic than brave, are second to none in the most devoted attachment to the Union; whose advantage to themselves they duly appreciate, well knowing, among other things, that, with but one single outlet for the products of their country, of such vast extent and unrivalled fertility, they must look to the Atlantic States for that naval protection which, from the peculiarity of their own situation, they are unable to create for themselves. They also believe that their Atlantic brethren, who must become the carriers of their produce, cannot fail to see in their prosperity the best means of increasing their own, by the additional encouragement which it would afford

With this view of the subject, it appears to me that the first great object should be to diminish the debt, which can be accomplished justly in two ways

1st. By permitting purchasers who are unable to pay for the whole of their lands, to relinquish a part of them, upon equitable terms.

2d. By offering just and proper inducements to make prompt payment.

It is the object of the bill now under consideration, to accomplish the first of these measures, by permitting the holders of a plurality of half-quarter sections of land, upon which the whole instalments have not been paid, to relinquish as many entire half-quarter sections as they please, with the privilege of having the money paid thereon applied to their credit, upon such as they may retain.

It is scarcely necessary to remind the Senate, that, as the public lands were required by law to be sold in tracts not exceeding a quarter section in any case, and a half-quarter section in some cases, the sale of each quarter or half-quarter section, as the case may have been, is to be considered as a distinct contract, and therefore the practical effects of the indulgence asked for would be but little, if any thing, more than to enable those unfortunate and distressed public debtors to get rid of so many separate and distinct contracts with the Government as they are unable to comply with, and ad

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Relief to Land Purchasers.

JANUARY, 1821.

not be disguised, that almost all the citizens in some of those States have purchased more land than they can pay for; and, while the fear of losing their lands prevents many from improving them, the desire of others to save as much of the money which they have already advanced as possible, induces them to lay up every cent that they can command for that purpose, and prevents other improvements that would greatly enhance the value of the public lands, and are absolutely necessary to those States.

mits of no arbitrary selections, contrary to the subdivisions which Congress itself has created. And, besides the inutility and folly of requiring men to perform impossibilities, the Government, in granting this indulgence, will still be in as good a situation as if those improvident contracts had never been made; for, if it does not get the money most imprudently contracted to be paid for its land, it gets back the land itself, without any deterioration, while the purchasers cannot get a single acre for which they will not have paid the Government a full equivalent; and thus the evils Strong as these considerations recommend and which have their origin in an excess of those con- enjoin the adoption of the measure now under contracts will be most naturally corrected by dimin-sideration as one of necessary and just relief to ishing their number, upon such terms as will leave those debtors, and of wise and correct policy in both parties in as good a situation as they would relation to the Union, there is an additional view have been in if such excess had never existed. of the subject which exhibits claims to relief which This measure is greatly to be preferred to any no court of chancery, were it a case between indiplan of indulgence, whose object is a mere exten-viduals, could refuse to decree and enforce. And sion of the times of payment; for, embarrassed I trust that the high character for good faith and as those debtors now are, in common with the rest honor which this Government has so deservedly of their fellow citizens, by other engagements, acquired at home and abroad is a sufficient pledge and deprived of all resource in the sale of their that it would not in any case disregard those lands, by the conduct of the Government in redu- principles of moral justice which, under precisely cing the price of its own; the entire change in similar circumstances, would be obligatory upon our commercial relations, and the permanent loss individuals. of foreign markets for all, or nearly all, the great staples of our country, leave no ground to hope that they will be able at any future time, whatever indulgence may be granted to them, to pay the amount which they now owe the Government. But, even if they should be able to pay, it is not reasonable to suppose that they will do so, since Congress has made it the interest of a great majority of them to forfeit all that they have already paid, rather than to pay the balance that is due. This is particularly the case with all those who have paid one instalment only; for, supposing them to have purchased at the minimum price, they still have to pay one dollar and fifty cents an acre, with interest, while they can purchase as good or better land of the Government, at one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, without interest; at which price they will be able to repurchase the very lands that may be forfeited when they shall be again offered for sale.

In order to understand correctly the mutual obligations between the Government and those purchasers, in relation to those contracts, reference must be had to the law under which they were made. It may safely be premised that all the terms offered, and inducements held out to the purchasers by the law, when acceded to by them, became, upon every fair principle of legal construction, as well as of moral justice, obligatory upon the Government, and consequently that the latter could not, without a palpable violation of such obligations, deprive those purchasers of any advantages which the positive declarations of the law at the time of contracting promised them, and which may fairly be considered as having constituted a part (and no inconsiderable either) of the inducements to enter into those contracts.

By the law it was explicitly declared that no public land should be sold for a less price than two dollars per acre. The payments were divided Therefore, taking it for granted that the Gov- into four equal instalments-one of which was to ernment would not wish, under the circumstances be paid down at the time of making the purchase. that have been mentioned, like a ruthless, heart- On completing his payments, any purchaser was less sharper, to take advantage of forfeitures which entitled to his patent; but, if he did not choose to its own conduct had rendered it the interest of a pay within five years from the date of his purlarge and meritorious class of citizens to subject chase, the land was to be sold, and all that it might themselves to, and seeing that these contracts sell for above what was due upon it was to be neither can nor will be complied with, there seems returned to the first purchaser. Thus every one to be no reasonable motive to refuse, and the in purchasing had the two alternatives presented strongest inducements to grant, to those debtors to him, either to purchase with a view to obtain the privilege of relinquishing a part of their lands, his patent, or to receive the profits upon his money, upon the terms proposed, whereby the debt would arising from the enhanced value of the land within be diminished. The lands would immediately re- five years. Both alternatives were equally fair vert to the Government, and could be disposed of and legitimate objects of contract, because equally for its benefit, to persons who would improve authorized by it. The latter alternative was doubtthem. The debtors would be relieved from a debt less presented by the Government to promote sales. which, pressing upon them like an incubus, para- Its acceptance therefore by purchasers was a fair lyzes all their energies, and destroys their enter- and authorized speculation, consistent with the prise; and the prosperity of the States in which views of the Government, whose object has always they reside would be greatly promoted-for it can- | been to sell as much land as possible, without any