In the United States Senate Journal, of 31st March, 1836, will be found the following entry: 'Agreeable to notice, Mr. Walker asked and obtained leave to bring in a bill to reduce and graduate the price of the public lands in favor of actual settlers only, to provide a standing preemption law, to authorize the sale and entry of all the public lands in forty acre lots, &c. On motion by Mr. Calhoun, that this bill be referred to the Committee on Public Lands, ayes 19, nays 25. On motion by Mr. Walker, ordered that this bill be referred to a select committee of five, to be appointed by the Vice-President. Mr. Walker (chairman), Ewing of Ohio, Linn, Prentiss and Ewing of Illinois, are appointed the committee.' And now, that we may understand the motive of the hostile motion made by Mr. Calhoun, I make the following extract from Gales & Beaton's _Congressional Register_, vol. xii., part 1, page 1027, March 31, 1836, containing the debate, on this bill: 'Mr. Walker asked and obtained leave to introduce a bill to reduce and graduate the price of public lands to actual settlers only, &c. The bill having been read twice, Mr. Walker moved that it be referred to a committee of five. Mr. Calhoun opposed the bill, and moved a reference to the Committee on Public Lands. Mr. Walker rose and said: * * 'He had heard with regret the actual settlers denounced in the Senate as squatters, as if that were a term of reproach. Our glorious Anglo-Saxon ancestry, the pilgrims who landed on Plymouth rock, the early settlers at Jamestown, were squatters. They settled this continent with less pretension to title than the settlers on the public lands. Daniel Boone was a squatter; Christopher Columbus was a squatter.