ositions were well
calculated to promote these great results. A grant of land to each
township for free schools, and of the salt springs to the State, which
were within its limits, for the use of its citizens, with 5 per cent of
the money to be raised from the sale of lands within the State for the
construction of roads between the original States and the new State, and
of other roads within the State, indicated a spirit not to be mistaken,
nor could it fail to produce a corresponding effect in the bosoms of
those to whom it was addressed. For these considerations the sole return
required of the convention was that the new State should not tax the
public lands which might be sold by the United States within it for the
term of five years after they should be sold. As the value of these
lands would be enhanced by this exemption from taxes for that term, and
from which the new State would derive its proportionable benefit, and
as it would also promote the rapid sale of those lands, and with it
the augmentation of its own population, it can not be doubted, had this
exemption been suggested unaccompanied by any propositions of particular
advantage, that the convention would, in consideration of the relation
which had before existed between the parties, and was about to be so
much improved, most willingly have acceded to it and without regarding
it as an onerous condition.

Since, then, it appears that the whole of the money to be employed in
making this road was to be raised from the sale of the public lands, and
which would still belong to the United States, although no mention had
been made of them in the compact, it follows that the application of the
money to that purpose stands upon the same ground as if such compact had
not been made, and in consequence that the example in favor of the right
of appropriation is in no manner affected by it.

The same rule of construction of the right of appropriation has been
observed and the same liberal policy pursued toward the other new
States, with certain modifications adapted to the situation of each,
which were adopted with the State of Ohio. As, however, the reasoning
which is applicable to the compact with Ohio in relation to the right
of appropriation, in which light only I have adverted to it, is equally
applicable to the several compacts with the other new States, I deem it
unnecessary to take a particular notice of them.

It is proper to observe that the money which was