In this way I might proceed with all the Land States individually; but enough is done to repel the charges against them, and to elucidate a _peculiar equity_. On the one side, they have received little, very little, from the nation,--while, on the other side, the nation, by strong considerations of equity, is largely indebted to them. This obligation of itself constitutes an equitable fund, to which the Land States may properly resort for assistance in works of internal improvement; and Congress will show an indifference to reasonable demands, should it fail to deal with them munificently,--in some sort, according to the simple measure of advantage which the nation has already so largely enjoyed at their hands. Against these clear and well-supported merits, the old States present small claims to consideration. They have waived no right of taxation over lands within their acknowledged jurisdiction; they have made no valuable concession; they have yielded up no costly franchise. It remains, then, that, with candor and justice, they should recognize the superior--I will not say exclusive--claims of the States within whose borders and under the protection of whose laws the national domain is found. * * * * * Thus much for what I have to say in favor of this bill, on the ground of _justice_ to the States in which the lands lie. If this argument did not seem sufficiently conclusive to render any further discussion superfluous, at least from me, I might go forward, and show that the true interests of the whole country--of every State in the Union, as of Iowa itself--are happily coincident with this claim of justice. The State of Iowa, though distant and still sparsely settled, is known to contain the materials of boundless prosperity. The northern part may wear some of the rigid features of New England, but the middle and southern portion has a surface of great fertility, and in its bosom coal to an incalculable amount,--more, it is supposed, than all to be found in England and the whole European Continent. With these remarkable capacities, which, however, it shares with Illinois and Indiana and with the northern part of Missouri, it will be able to subsist a large population and to support manufactories on the most extensive scale. Its fields will naturally wave with golden harvests, while its inexhaustible stores of coal will quicken every form of human industry, and will furnish an incalculable motive-power to all its multiplying machinery and workshops. If in the reports of Science, now authenticated by a careful and admirable geological survey of this region,[86] we may read the future development, I had almost said the destiny, of States, according to natural laws, which I believe, then it would be difficult to exaggerate what we may expect from Iowa.