A terrible evil, truly,
to the Illinois farmer, who never wore, nor ever expects to wear, a
single yard of British goods in his whole life. Another of their reasons
is that by the passage and continuance of Mr. Clay's bill, we prevent
the passage of a bill which would give us more. This, if it were sound
in itself, is waging destructive war with the former position; for if
Mr. Clay's bill impoverishes the treasury too much, what shall be said
of one that impoverishes it still more? But it is not sound in itself.
It is not true that Mr. Clay's bill prevents the passage of one more
favorable to us of the new States. Considering the strength and opposite
interest of the old States, the wonder is that they ever permitted one
to pass so favorable as Mr. Clay's. The last twenty-odd years' efforts
to reduce the price of the lands, and to pass graduation bills and
cession bills, prove the assertion to be true; and if there were no
experience in support of it, the reason itself is plain. The States
in which none, or few, of the public lands lie, and those consequently
interested against parting with them except for the best price, are
the majority; and a moment's reflection will show that they must ever
continue the majority, because by the time one of the original new
States (Ohio, for example) becomes populous and gets weight in Congress,
the public lands in her limits are so nearly sold out that in every
point material to this question she becomes an old State. She does not
wish the price reduced, because there is none left for her citizens
to buy; she does not wish them ceded to the States in which they lie,
because they no longer lie in her limits, and she will get nothing
by the cession. In the nature of things, the States interested in
the reduction of price, in graduation, in cession, and in all similar
projects, never can be the majority. Nor is there reason to hope that
any of them can ever succeed as a Democratic party measure, because we
have heretofore seen that party in full power, year after year,
with many of their leaders making loud professions in favor of these
projects, and yet doing nothing. What reason, then, is there to believe
they will hereafter do better? In every light in which we can view this
question, it amounts simply to this: Shall we accept our share of the
proceeds under Mr. Clay's bill, or shall we rather reject that and get
nothing?

The fifth resolution recommends that a Whig candidate for Co