"_Resolved_, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of public lands remaining unsold within each State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a certain period the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the _minimum_ price. And, also, whether the office of Surveyor-General, and some of the land offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the public interest." There is no reason to believe that, in bringing forward this resolution, Mr. Foot acted in concert with any other member of the Senate. When it came up for consideration the next day, the mover stated that he had been induced to offer the resolution from having at the last session examined the report of the Commissioner of the Land Office, from which it appeared that the quantity of land remaining unsold at the _minimum_ price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre exceeded seventy-two millions of acres; while it appeared from the commissioner's report at this session, that the annual demand was not likely to exceed a million of acres at present, although of course it might be expected somewhat to increase with the growth of the population. This resolution, though one of inquiry only, was resisted. It was represented by Mr. Benton of Missouri as a resolution to inquire into the expediency of committing a great injury upon the new States of the West. Mr. Holmes of Maine supported the resolution, as one of inquiry into an important subject. Mr. Foot disclaimed every purpose unfriendly to the West, and at the close of the conversation (in which Mr. Webster took no part), it was agreed that the consideration of the resolution should be postponed to the 11th of January, and made the special order of the day for that day. In this manner, it often happens that a resolution of inquiry on a business question of no urgent importance, intended to have no political bearing, and brought forward without concert with others by an individual, becomes by delay the theme of impassioned debates for weeks and months, to the serious obstruction of the real business of Congress. In the present case, it must be admitted that the loss of the public time thus occasioned was amply made up, by the importance of the speech which has given celebrity to the debate.