or quality, they must remain unsalable for an
indefinite period unless the price at which they may be purchased shall
be reduced. To place a price upon them above their real value is not
only to prevent their sale, and thereby deprive the Treasury of any
income from that source, but is unjust to the States in which they lie,
because it retards their growth and increase of population, and because
they have no power to levy a tax upon them as upon other lands within
their limits, held by other proprietors than the United States, for the
support of their local governments.

The beneficial effects of the graduation principle have been realized by
some of the States owning the lands within their limits in which it has
been adopted. They have been demonstrated also by the United States
acting as the trustee of the Chickasaw tribe of Indians in the sale of
their lands lying within the States of Mississippi and Alabama. The
Chickasaw lands, which would not command in the market the minimum price
established by the laws of the United States for the sale of their
lands, were, in pursuance of the treaty of 1834 with that tribe,
subsequently offered for sale at graduated and reduced rates for limited
periods. The result was that large quantities of these lands were
purchased which would otherwise have remained unsold. The lands were
disposed of at their real value, and many persons of limited means were
enabled to purchase small tracts, upon which they have settled with
their families. That similar results would be produced by the adoption
of the graduation policy by the United States in all the States in which
they are the owners of large bodies of lands which have been long in the
market can not be doubted. It can not be a sound policy to withhold
large quantities of the public lands from the use and occupation of our
citizens by fixing upon them prices which experience has shown they will
not command. On the contrary, it is a wise policy to afford facilities
to our citizens to become the owners at low and moderate rates of
freeholds of their own instead of being the tenants and dependents of
others. If it be apprehended that these lands if reduced in price would
be secured in large quantities by speculators or capitalists, the sales
may be restricted in limited quantities to actual settlers or persons
purchasing for purposes of cultivation.

In my last annual message I submitted for the consideration of Congress
the present sys