justice and policy to give away the public lands altogether, as a mere
matter of gratuity, I am asked by the honorable gentleman on what ground
it is that I consent to vote them away in particular instances. How, he
inquires, do I reconcile with these professed sentiments, my support of
measures appropriating portions of the lands to particular roads,
particular canals, particular rivers, and particular institutions of
education in the West? This leads, Sir, to the real and wide difference
in political opinion between the honorable gentleman and myself. On my
part, I look upon all these objects as connected with the common good,
fairly embraced in its object and its terms; he, on the contrary, deems
them all, if good at all, only local good. This is our difference. The
interrogatory which he proceeded to put at once explains this
difference. "What interest," asks he, "has South Carolina in a canal in
Ohio?" Sir, this very question is full of significance. It develops the
gentleman's whole political system; and its answer expounds mine. Here
we differ. I look upon a road over the Alleghanies, a canal round the
falls of the Ohio, or a canal or railway from the Atlantic to the
Western waters, as being an object large and extensive enough to be
fairly said to be for the common benefit. The gentleman thinks
otherwise, and this is the key to his construction of the powers of the
government. He may well ask what interest has South Carolina in a canal
in Ohio. On his system, it is true, she has no interest. On that system,
Ohio and Carolina are different governments, and different countries;
connected here, it is true, by some slight and ill-defined bond of
union, but in all main respects separate and diverse. On that system,
Carolina has no more interest in a canal in Ohio than in Mexico. The
gentleman, therefore, only follows out his own principles; he does no
more than arrive at the natural conclusions of his own doctrines; he
only announces the true results of that creed which he has adopted
himself, and would persuade others to adopt, when he thus declares that
South Carolina has no interest in a public work in Ohio.

Sir, we narrow-minded people of New England do not reason thus. Our
_notion_ of things is entirely different. We look upon the States, not
as separated, but as united. We love to dwell on that union, and on the
mutual happiness which it has so much promoted, and the common renown
which it has so greatly cont