Now the lands held by the United States do not belong to _instruments and means_ necessary and proper to execute the sovereign powers of the nation. In this respect they clearly differ from fortifications, arsenals, and navy-yards. They are strictly in the nature of _private property_ belonging to the nation and situated within the jurisdiction of States. In excusing them from taxation, our fathers acted unquestionably according to the suggestions of prudence, but also under the influence of precedent, derived _at that time_ from the prerogatives of the British Crown. It was an early prerogative, transmitted from feudal days, when all taxes were in the nature of aids and subsidies to the monarch, that the property of the Crown, of every nature, should be exempt from taxation. _But mark the change._ This ancient feudal principle is not now the law of England. By the statute of 39 and 40 George III., chap. 88, passed thirteen years after the Ordinance of 1787, the lands and tenements purchased by the Crown out of the privy purse or other moneys not appropriated to any public service, or which came to the King from his ancestors or private persons,--in other words, lands and tenements in the nature of _private property_,--are subjected to taxation even while they belong to the Crown. Thus the matter stands. Lands belonging to the nation, which, it seems, even royal prerogative at this day in England cannot save from taxation, are in our country, under express provisions of compact, early established, exempted from this burden. Now, Sir, I make no complaint; I do not suggest any change, nor do I hint any ground of legal title in the States. But I do confidently submit, that in this peculiar, time-honored immunity, originally claimed by the nation, and conceded by the States within which the public lands lie, there is ample ground of equity, under which these States may now appeal to the nation for assistance out of these public lands. When I listen to comparisons discrediting these States by the side of the old States, when I hear it charged that they are constant recipients of the national bounty, and when I catch those sharper terms of condemnation by which they are characterized as "plunderers" and "robbers" and "pirates," I am forced to inquire whether the nation has not already received from these States something more than it has ever bestowed, even in its most liberal moods,--whether, at this moment, the nation is not _equitably_ debtor to these States, and not these States debtors to the nation. II. I am now brought to the _second_ head of this inquiry,--that is, the extent and value of the immunity from taxation, after deducting all reservations and grants to the several States. Authentic documents and facts place these beyond question.