heir systems of education and internal policy, the character of both
Governments will be greatly deteriorated. The representatives of the
States and of the people, feeling a more immediate interest in obtaining
money to lighten the burdens of their constituents than for the
promotion of the more distant objects intrusted to the Federal
Government, will naturally incline to obtain means from the Federal
Government for State purposes. If a question shall arise between an
appropriation of land or money to carry into effect the objects of the
Federal Government and those of the States, their feelings will be
enlisted in favor of the latter. This is human nature; and hence the
necessity of keeping the two Governments entirely distinct. The
preponderance of this home feeling has been manifested by the passage of
the present bill. The establishment of these colleges has prevailed over
the pressing wants of the common Treasury. No nation ever had such an
inheritance as we possess in the public lands. These ought to be managed
with the utmost care, but at the same time with a liberal spirit toward
actual settlers.

In the first year of a war with a powerful naval nation the revenue from
customs must in a great degree cease. A resort to loans will then become
necessary, and these can always be obtained, as our fathers obtained
them, on advantageous terms by pledging the public lands as security.
In this view of the subject it would be wiser to grant money to the
States for domestic purposes than to squander away the public lands
and transfer them in large bodies into the hands of speculators.

A successful struggle on the part of the State governments with the
General Government for the public lands would deprive the latter of
the means of performing its high duties, especially at critical and
dangerous periods. Besides, it would operate with equal detriment to the
best interests of the States. It would remove the most wholesome of all
restraints on legislative bodies--that of being obliged to raise money
by taxation from their constituents--and would lead to extravagance, if
not to corruption. What is obtained easily and without responsibility
will be lavishly expended.

3. This bill, should it become a law, will operate greatly to the injury
of the new States. The progress of settlements and the increase of an
industrious population owning an interest in the soil they cultivate
are the causes which will build them up into gre