A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 5, part 4: James Buchanan
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 5, part 4: James Buchanan
Buchanan, James, 1791-1868; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
The question is still clearer in regard to the public lands in the
States and Territories within the Louisiana and Florida purchases. These
lands were paid for out of the public Treasury from money raised by
taxation. Now if Congress had no power to appropriate the money with
which these lands were purchased, is it not clear that the power over
the lands is equally limited? The mere conversion of this money into
land could not confer upon Congress new power over the disposition
of land which they had not possessed over money. If it could, then a
trustee, by changing the character of the fund intrusted to his care for
special objects from money into land, might give the land away or devote
it to any purpose he thought proper, however foreign from the trust.
The inference is irresistible that this land partakes of the very same
character with the money paid for it, and can be devoted to no objects
different from those to which the money could have been devoted. If
this were not the case, then by the purchase of a new territory from a
foreign government out of the public Treasury Congress could enlarge
their own powers and appropriate the proceeds of the sales of the land
thus purchased, at their own discretion, to other and far different
objects from what they could have applied the purchase money which had
been raised by taxation.
2. It will prove unequal and unjust in its operation among the actual
settlers themselves.
The first settlers of a new country are a most meritorious class. They
brave the dangers of savage warfare, suffer the privations of a frontier
life, and with the hand of toil bring the wilderness into cultivation.
The "old settlers," as they are everywhere called, are public
benefactors. This class have all paid for their lands the Government
price, or $1.25 per acre. They have constructed roads, established
schools, and laid the foundation of prosperous commonwealths. Is it
just, is it equal, that after they have accomplished all this by their
labor new settlers should come in among them and receive their farms at
the price of 25 or 18 cents per acre? Surely the old settlers, as a
class, are entitled to at least equal benefits with the new. If you give
the new settlers their land for a comparatively nominal price, upon
every principle of equality and justice you will be obliged to refund
out of the common Treasury the difference which the old have paid above
the new settlers for their land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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