e, in these and all other respects, I am not only reconciled to a
liberal policy, but espouse it and support it, and have constantly done
so, I still hold the national domain to be the general property of the
country, confined to the care of Congress, and which Congress is
solemnly bound to protect and preserve for the common good.

The benefit derived from the public lands, after all, is, and must be,
in the greatest degree, enjoyed by those who buy them and settle upon
them. The original price paid to government constitutes but a small part
of their actual value. Their immediate rise in value, in the hands of
the settler, gives him competence. He exercises a power of selection
over a vast region of fertile territory, all on sale at the same price,
and that price an exceedingly low one. Selection is no sooner made,
cultivation is no sooner begun, and the first furrow turned, than he
already finds himself a man of property. These are the advantages of
Western emigrants and Western settlers; and they are such, certainly, as
no country on earth ever before afforded to her citizens. This
opportunity of purchase and settlement, this certainty of enhanced
value, these sure means of immediate competence and ultimate
wealth,--all these are the rights and the blessings of the people of the
West, and they have my hearty wishes for their full and perfect
enjoyment.

I desire to see the public lands cultivated and occupied. I desire the
growth and prosperity of the West, and the fullest development of its
vast and extraordinary resources. I wish to bring it near to us, by
every species of useful communication. I see, not without admiration and
amazement, but yet without envy or jealousy, States of recent origin
already containing more people than Massachusetts. These people I know
to be part of ourselves; they have proceeded from the midst of us, and
we may trust that they are not likely to separate themselves, in
interest or in feeling, from their kindred, whom they have left on the
farms and around the hearths of their common fathers.

A liberal policy, a sympathy with its interests, an enlightened and
generous feeling of participation in its prosperity, are due to the
West, and will be met, I doubt not, by a return of sentiments equally
cordial and equally patriotic.

Gentlemen, the general question of revenue is very much connected with
this subject of the public lands, and I will therefore, in a very few
words, express my