should be glad to see the appropriation made; though he should prefer
it if the reserved sections were not enhanced in price. He repeated, he
should be glad to have such appropriations made, even though the reserved
sections should be enhanced in price. He did not wish to be understood
as concurring in any intimation that they would refuse to receive such an
appropriation of alternate sections of land because a condition enhancing
the price of the reserved sections should be attached thereto. He believed
his position would now be understood: if not, he feared he should not be
able to make himself understood.

But, before he took his seat, he would remark that the Senate during the
present session had passed a bill making appropriations of land on that
principle for the benefit of the State in which he resided the State
of Illinois. The alternate sections were to be given for the purpose of
constructing roads, and the reserved sections were to be enhanced in value
in consequence. When that bill came here for the action of this House--it
had been received, and was now before the Committee on Public Lands--he
desired much to see it passed as it was, if it could be put in no more
favorable form for the State of Illinois. When it should be before this
House, if any member from a section of the Union in which these lands
did not lie, whose interest might be less than that which he felt, should
propose a reduction of the price of the reserved sections to $1.25, he
should be much obliged; but he did not think it would be well for those
who came from the section of the Union in which the lands lay to do
so.--He wished it, then, to be understood that he did not join in the
warfare against the principle which had engaged the minds of some members
of Congress who were favorable to the improvements in the western country.
There was a good deal of force, he admitted, in what fell from the
chairman of the Committee on Territories. It might be that there was no
precise justice in raising the price of the reserved sections to $2.50 per
acre. It might be proper that the price should be enhanced to some extent,
though not to double the usual price; but he should be glad to have such
an appropriation with the reserved sections at $2.50; he should be better
pleased to have the price of those sections at something less; and he
should be still better pleased to have them without any enhancement at
all.

There was one portion of the argument o