aracter within the States.
That principle I can not be mistaken in supposing has received the
unequivocal sanction of the American people, and all subsequent
reflection has but satisfied me more thoroughly that the interests of
our people and the purity of our Government, if not its existence,
depend on its observance. The public lands are the common property of
the United States, and the moneys arising from their sales are a part of
the public revenue. This bill proposes to raise from and appropriate a
portion of this public revenue to certain States, providing expressly
that it shall "_be applied to objects of internal improvement or
education within those States_," and then proceeds to appropriate the
balance to all the States, with the declaration that it shall be applied
"_to such purposes as the legislatures of the said respective States
shall deem proper_." The former appropriation is expressly for internal
improvements or education, without qualification as to the kind of
improvements, and therefore in express violation of the principle
maintained in my objections to the turnpike-road bill above referred
to. The latter appropriation is more broad, and gives the money to be
applied to any local purpose whatsoever. It will not be denied that
under the provisions of the bill a portion of the money might have been
applied to making the very road to which the bill of 1830 had reference,
and must of course come within the scope of the same principle. If the
money of the United States can not be applied to local purposes _through
its own agents_, as little can it be permitted to be thus expended
_through the agency of the State governments_.

It has been supposed that with all the reductions in our revenue which
could be speedily effected by Congress without injury to the substantial
interests of the country there might be for some years to come a surplus
of moneys in the Treasury, and that there was in principle no objection
to returning them to the people by whom they were paid. As the literal
accomplishment of such an object is obviously impracticable, it was
thought admissible, as the nearest approximation to it, to hand them
over to the State governments, the more immediate representatives of
the people, to be by them applied to the benefit of those to whom they
properly belonged. The principle and the object were to return to the
people an unavoidable surplus of revenue which might have been paid by
them under a