on it, which is immense, will destroy it, and the work will have to be done over again next year.

The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CLAY] tells us that he thinks the country through which this road passes, in Indiana and Illinois, is rather thinly settled; that it is a long distance between houses on some parts of the road. I will not undertake to say how the facts are as regards the road in Illinois; the Senators from that State will doubtless inform us; but I assure the Senator from Kentucky that every acre of public land along the road in Indiana has been purchased from the United States. The country is densely populated; the farms, although not quite so extensive as they are in Kentucky, are much more numerous, and villages are springing up at short intervals all along the road.

That Senator has also been pleased to allude to the support given to the present administration by the friends of the bill now before us; and he says that the States southwest of the Ohio wanted a branch of this road, which was denied them; and calls upon the friends of the national road to do even-handed justice to the States south as well as to those north of the Ohio. Sir, if that gentleman will look at the journals, I think he will find that several friends of this national road voted for the bill to which he alludes, (the Maysville and Lexington road bill;) if it did not become a law, it was no fault of theirs.

With regard (said Mr. T.) to my feeble support of this or any other administration, I can only be influenced by the Executive as by other public men. I go with them just so far and no farther than they pursue that course which I think sustains the honor and the interest of my country. I look to the wishes of a majority of my constituents, and to my own judgment of what is right and wrong, for the rule of my conduct here, and not to the will of a Chief Magistrate, or of any other individual, public or private. I care not who is President of the United States. If he administers the Government agreeably to the constitution and laws, he has a right to expect my support, and upon no other terms.

We have been told, during the discussion of this bill, that the great system of internal improvement by the general Government has been suspended. Sir, this is no fault of the friends of the national road; it is owing, as I believe, to a change in public opinion. Public sentiment in regard to internal improvement by the general Government is not now what it was in 1825. In that year an appropriation was made to prosecute surveys with a view to the construction of roads and canals in different quarters of the Union. The United States engineers went to work; civil engineers were employed to assist them, and surveys were extensively made for the purpose of ascertaining the practicability of a number of roads and canals. In 1828 a great political conflict terminated, that brought a new party into power in this country. The veto of the President on the Maysville and Lexington road bill, and his message returning it to the House in 1830, set the people to reflecting upon the subject of internal improvement on their own resources, by the States, or by incorporated companies. Before that time, but three States (New York the first one, stimulated and led on by her Clinton) had embarked extensively in improvement; Pennsylvania and Ohio had followed the example; in no other quarter was any thing of note going on. What, I would ask, is the fact in 1836? Why, sir, many States are making large appropriations for constructing roads, railroads, and canals. The people look this way no longer for aid, unless it be to the improving of our rivers; and this is withheld from some rivers, the Wabash for instance, to my utter astonishment, and to the serious injury of a large portion of the Northwest.

The Senator objects to a new proposition, as he calls

[FEB. 26, 1836..

it, in this bill, for a bridge over the Wabash at Terre Haute, and tells us that the Ohio is not bridged where this road crosses it; nor was the United States called upon to bridge the Muskingum at Zanesville. Now, sir, I do not remember that any proposition for a bridge across the Ohio at Wheeling was ever submitted to Congress. I am confident that I have not opposed it, nor will I now give a pledge to support it, if the proposition be made hereafter.

A bridge had been constructed over the Muskingum, at Zanesville, before the Cumberland road reached that place. The Scioto and White rivers have bridges constructed over them at the expense of the United States. This proposition to bridge the Wabash is not new to the Senate. A bill passed this body three years ago, containing an appropriation for that object. It was an amendment made by the Senate to a bill from the House of Representatives; and the House, for reasons which [ will not trouble the Senate by relating at this time, refused to concur in the amendment of the Senate. It was near the close of the session, and fearing that the bill would be lost between the two Houses in the hurry and bustle always unavoidable on the last day, the Sen. ate receded from its amendment, that the bill, which contained an appropriation for continuing the road, might become a law. An opinion was entertained by some that a bridge could not be constructed over the Wabash at Terre Haute, without materially interrupt ing the navigation of the river. This, if true, would have been a sufficient reason why the work should not be constructed, as one fourth of the people of Indiana, and a large portion of Illinois, are interested in the nav igation of the stream above that place. To remove all doubts upon the subject, the Secretary of War was instructed by a resolution of the Senate to cause an examination to be made of the contemplated site for the bridge, and to report the facts, together with a plan and estimate of the cost of the work, to be laid before Congress. This report has been received, printed, and laid on our tables, and is satisfactory evidence that the bridge will be constructed on a plan which will not ob struct the navigation of the river. One item of appro priation in the bill on your table is to provide materials, and to construct the work in accordance with the plan submitted. The erection of this bridge is less impor tant to Indiana than it is to the States west of her. The point where the national road crosses the Wabash is within nine miles of the eastern boundary of Illinois.

Surely every Western Senator knows that, unless we bridge the Wabash, the United States mail cannot pass that river when the ice is floating, but will be arrested in its progress to the States and Territories west, and that all travel and communication between them and the east will be liable to constant interruptions for a portion of the winter. This would produce a state of things exceedingly embarrassing to a very large portion of the Western country.

The Senator objects to the amount intended to be appropriated by this bill; says it is too large. He tells us that we were satisfied in by-gone days with far smaller appropriations; and he tells us that, although he does it with great reluctance, yet he is compelled, by his sense of public duty, to move to reduce the amount to what it was last year. It is true, sir, that when the treasury was drained to the last dollar, with the war debt unpaid, and a limited commerce, we were satisfied with a comparatively small appropriation. But it should be remembered that, at the time referred to by the honorable gentleman, our population was far less than it is now. Our settlements were then confined to the regions of country bordering on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The last seven years has wrought a wonderful change in our condition, population, and business.

The heaviest population at the present time is to be found in counties back from the Ohio, in the centre and north parts of the States through which this road runs. I have reason to regret the loss of the able and efficient support which that honorable Senator has given this measure in by-gone days. Separating from him on a vote for internal improvements is like parting with an old friend; but the best of friends, they say, must part; and we will continue the national road without his aid, if he will not stick to us, though I can scarcely bring myself to believe that he will abandon his old favorite, the Cumberland road. I am an advocate for the energetic prosecution of this work. In two or three years I hope to see it finished through Indiana. The States west of her will have an equal claim to be heard-a claim that I, for one, will ever be willing to recognise. The Senator has always been distinguished for marching boldly up to his object, and was not prepared to find him advocating the propriety or expediency of tardy operations on the national road. We now possess most ample means, and, in my judgment, we should prosecute the work to Missouri vigorously before we pause.

Something was said by the gentleman in reference to the population of the States southwest and those northwest of the Ohio river. By the census of 1830 it appears that there was a small fraction in favor of the Southwestern States; but it will hardly be contended that, at this time, there is not a greater population in four States northwest of the Ohio river than in five Southwestern States, including Kentucky and Tennes

see.

Should the Southwestern States desire to apply their road fund to the construction of a branch of the Cumberland road through Kentucky and Tennessee, I should raise no objection; but if they decline to apply it to that object, it cannot be pleaded in bar of our right to apply ours to the national road leading to and through the Northwestern States, this being the legitimate object for which the fund was provided, by the agreement between the general Government and the new States.

I am aware that some gentlemen oppose appropriations for this work, because they consider it a gratuity to the people of the new States. This is a mistaken idea of the facts of the case. The sums appropriated for this object will be replaced in your treasury from sales of the public lands within these States. Again, sir, it should be borne in mind that the Cumberland road is the great leading route for the far West, through the centre of the States northwest of the Ohio, over which the mail for six States and Territories must be transported. During the winter season our rivers are locked up with ice, and communication between the coast and the interior must be suspended for one fourth of the year, unless this work is completed. Our ability to do so will keep pace with the increase of population, and as the tide of purchasers of the public lands flows westward. Money expended to improve the navigation of rivers, or to construct roads in that portion of our country, when the United States are the owners of the soil, will not, I trust, be set down against the people who purchase and improve the public lands where such works are executed. I can demonstrate to the satisfaction of any one who will sit down with me and make the calculation, that grants of land and money to these objects have been equally beneficial to the treasury of the Government.

Take, for example, a grant of land made eight years since, of near half a million of acres, to aid the State of Indiana in constructing a canal to connect at navigable points the waters of the Wabash with those of Lake Erie. This grant consisted of the one half of five sections on each side of the line of canal. The State ac

[SENATE.

cepted the grant with doubt and hesitation, and by a close vote, after a lengthy discussion in her Legislature. Many leading members of the General Assembly doubted the propriety of accepting the grant, and obligating the State to commence in five years, and finish within twenty, a navigable canal, two hundred miles long, apprehensive that the land would not sell, and that the State would incur a heavy debt to complete the work. But, sir, the grant was accepted, and the State authorized a loan to commence the canal; and soon after we had in good earnest begun this great work, the State's land sold at from $150 to $3 50, and some of it at $50, and as high as $70, per acre. The United States lands that have been offered within several miles of the canal have been sold; even land of an inferior quality, which would have remained the property of the Government for a generation to come, was sold; and more money has been brought into the United States treasury, and in a shorter period of time, than if the whole of these lands had remained the property of the Government, and been offered for sale without the inducement to purchase occasioned by the commencement of the canal by the State.

The construction of the canal and national road in that State, together with the industry and enterprise of the people, has enhanced the value of every acre of public land a hundred per cent. Ten millions of dollars has been realized from this source alone by the general Government within the limits of the State. The United States are still the owners of about 11,000,000 acres in the State, a large proportion of which are fresh lands, and have never been in market. The recent sales at Fort Wayne and Laporte demonstrate, beyond contradiction, that fresh lands will hereafter sell at from two to twenty dollars per acre. The land office at Laporte took in $200,000 for lands sold at private sale during the last two months, as I am informed by a letter from the receiver of public moneys at that office. These sales of public lands, during the winter months, have not been equalled by sales in any other State or Territory since the existence of our Government.

Indiana is about to embark in a general system of internal improvement. She has appropriated ten millions of dollars for the construction of roads, railroads, and canals, at the last session of her Legislature. This has given a fresh impulse to the sales of the public lands in that State. I cannot doubt that all the land fit for culti vation, that is now or which may hereafter be brought into market, will sell within two years.

We are anxious to complete the Cumberland road through our State in three years, and for this purpose ask large appropriations to continue it, and for bridges; next year one half the balance, and the remainder in 1838. We consider that we are entitled to heavy drafts on your treasury whilst our country enjoys unexampled prosperity, and our constituents contribute so largely to fill your coffers.

The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. CRITTENDEN] thinks that we have long since exhausted our two per cent., and he denies the existence of a compact. Here he and myself are at issue. I claim the money on a compact; and, further, if the gentleman will examine the quantity of public land sold and to be sold in the States and Territories, from the eastern boundary of the State of Ohio to the Rocky Mountains, he will find that the two per cent. is over seven millions of dollars; and we have not yet had half that sum applied to this road. He tells us he prefers laying this bill on the table, and that he will, if he can, get his own consent to vote for it. He expresses a kind feeling for the work, and says he would, if he could with propriety, vote with us. We would be gratified with his vote, but prefer taking the question at this time, even if we should be so unfortunate as not to

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be favored with his support.

I expect a favorable deci. sion of the Senate on a measure so important to the Northwestern States and Territories.

Much has been said about different plans of making roads. Of the science of road-making I do not profess to be a competent judge; but the national road is placed under the direction of an able and efficient officer of the corps of United States engineers. He is capable to judge of the best method of construction, and is responsible for the faithful execution of the work. The road is progressing well under this valuable officer. He has his subordinates, with hands and tools enough on the road to finish it through our State within three years. A very large portion of the road is now ready to receive the stone. Every one, however superficially acquainted with road-making, knows that this is the most expensive item of the work. And it will be economy of both time and money to give us the full amount of his estimates for the operations of the present year.

I hope the final action of the Senate will not be postponed. Should you make the appropriation at an early day, the officer in charge will be able to make his arrangements to prosecute the work vigorously; but if we put it off until the close of a long session of Congress before he is advised what amount will be at his disposal, the spring season for work, which will commence in three or four weeks, will have passed away, and the laborers now on the road will be forced to seek employment elsewhere, and he will not be as well prepared to prosecute the work at the beginning of the fall as he will be on the 1st of April, if the appropriation should pass in March. Gentlemen will see that it is vastly important for us that they decide this matter speedily. If the road is to drag on slowly, under limited appropriations, say so. If to be abandoned, let us know it.

We are

now as well prepared as we expect to be at any future time, to abide the disastrous consequences to our new and rising country. The estimate to continue the work in Ohio, this year, is $320,000. My colleague has withdrawn his proposition to increase it. The estimate to continue the road and for bridges, in Indiana, is $350,000; for Illinois, $191,000; making the round sum of $861,000; a little more than was paid into the treasury for lands sold by the United States within the State of Indiana in January last. This small item, I hope, will not frighten our friends. We can as easily appropriate thousands as hundreds, when we have enough and to spare. We are anxious to obtain appropriations from your overflowing treasury, sufficient to finish the road, and to surrender it to the States through which it passes, that they may keep it in repair, and stop any further drains from the treasury for that object. Let those who use the road contribute to its preservation in all time to come.

East of the Ohio river the road is completed, and given up to the States within which it lies, who have erected toll-gates upon it, and collect toll sufficient to keep it in good repair. Gentlemen from the Southwest, who have business at the seat of the national Government, all ascend the Ohio river to Wheeling, and take the Cumberland road for the Eastern cities. There is not a man in the nation, no matter how hostile he may have been or now is to internal improvement by the general Government, who, whilst comfortably seated in the stage, and viewing the fine bridges and magnificent scenery, as he glides swiftly and smoothly over the majestic Alleghanies, can feel otherwise than proud when he reflects that he is a citizen of the United States, and that this work will for ever stand forth as an unfading monument of the liberality, enterprise, and munificence, of his country.

Mr. CLAY said, as to there being any obligation on the part of the Government, growing out of a compact, to continue this road, there was nothing in it. The fact

[FEB. 26, 1836.

was, there were two funds: the nett proceeds of lands sold in the different States, one of three per cent. for roads in the States, and one of two per cent. for roads leading to them. That two per cent. fund has been exhausted one thousand times, and Government will never be remunerated for the money which has been laid out, and which was based upon that fund. There had been granted already four or five hundred thou sand dollars to each State, and to Ohio eight hundred thousand dollars. We must have some feeling in the matter, and not see the public treasure profusely lavished on the new States, to the injury of the old. Let us fix upon some equitable scheme, whereby the public benefits shall be divided among the whole, and not thus unnaturally restricted to the few. Let the road be carried on in moderation and reason, as it has been heretofore. As to this bridge being, as the Senator from Indiana says, absolutely necessary as a commercial thoroughfare, it is not so. The rivers are the thoroughfares; it is up

or down these channels that our Western commerce is wafted, and the extent of transportation upon our roads is, therefore, but limited. As to the interruption of the mails, they have suffered a delay which has very much inconvenienced the public, from the fact that there was no bridge over the Ohio; and the accommodation to the people, if one was constructed there, would be in proportion to that inconvenience. Indeed, the whole trading, travelling, and emigrating population, would have been greatly benefited by such a work. It is unpleas. ant, painful, in an inexpressible degree, to refuse this appropriation; but feelings of justice to myself and to the country compel me to vote against it. The benefits conferred by this administration have been limited to one side of this great river, and we on the other feel as if we were aliens to our common Government. In jus tice to my character and principles, when appropriations are asked for local purposes in States west of the Ohio, I must, unless they are asked for in moderation, give my vote against them.

Gentlemen are anxious to advance the interests of their particular States. It is natural that they should be so; and their efforts to effect their object redound to their honor. But the road is not yet graduated. Why, then, ask an appropriation for stone now? There will be time enough hereafter. The stone is not going away; it is rather an imperishable material, and will probably remain where it is. Besides, you should give the roads time to settle, to acquire a character, so as to be capable of receiving the metal, as it is technically called. I have the best authority for saying that there is one stretch of one hundred and fifty miles on this road, which cost from ten to sixteen thousand dollars a mile; and that in one instance the stone has to be hauled a distance of not less than ten miles. I could desire to acquiesce in the demands of gentlemen; but things do not always go as we wish. Philosophy and resignation are duties which we have been called on to exercise very often under this administration. Let the honorable Senator endeavor to practise them, and to ask in moderation what we only in moderation can grant.

Mr. ROBINSON said, as a member of the committee which had reported this bill, he felt it his duty to state some facts, in relation to it, of which other members were not, perhaps, fully in possession. The system, so far as respects the mode of performing the work, had been wholly changed about a year since; previously, the work was done by letting it out by the job to the lowest responsible bidders; now, hands and artisans are em ployed by the day, by the superintendent, an officer of the engineer corps.

This last and present mode admitted of large expenditures advantageously. The amounts, as now in the bill, are based upon estimates from the War Department.

The committee had had two sets of estimates: one showing the smallest amount which ought to be appropriated for any thing like a successful prosecution of the work; the other, the maximum amount that could be advantageously expended.

Passing over the admitted importance and usefulness of this road, it is a national work, one which it was agreed on all hands ought to be and would be comple ted. It is now only to be determined-shall the work progress as speedily as circumstances fairly authorize, or shall it be at a slower rate; and, if the latter, how slow?

The fact is indisputable, that a certain number of officers are necessarily to be kept employed, whether the appropriation be the full or half the amount as now in the bill. To his mind, and so he thought it must strike every one, there could be no hesitancy as to the proper course. If an individual was compelled to keep in his employ a certain number of overseers until a given piece of work was completed, and, by hiring as many hands as his overseers could advantageously find employment for, the work could be finished in one year, would he not be a very bad economist, having, too, the means at hand, to hire laborers so sparingly as to keep the overseers ten years doing what could have been done in one? The same course which would be adopted by an individual in the case just put, should, by the Government, be observed in the present case. The minimum estimates have been taken, not the maximum; and unless these amounts be appropriated, the work, instead of going on prosperously, will languish, and in many instances, in its unfinished state, suffer much injury. It has been said the road passes through a sparsely populated country, particularly that part of it which is in Illinois, and hence the road is not much called for. True, the population is not as dense as the country would admit and invites. Here Mr. R. gave a statement of the average size of the several counties through which the road passed, from where it first entered Illinois to Vandalia, the seat of Government, and the respective population of each; which, he trusted, showed a population not so very sparse, and, as he thought, not very far short of the average population of a large portion of the Western country. But it is objected that it will never be one of very great commerce. Admit it will never be one upon which wagons will pass a great distance at a time for the purpose of taking produce to market, yet for that purpose it would be much used in the neighborhoods of towns and navigable rivers. East they will find a market for a very large portion of their surplus stock. Already that trade had commenced, and upon this road much of it would be driven. As to travelling upon it, he had only to say it would be used, as all other roads generally are by the people of the country, in passing from one neighborhood to another, from one county to another, and from one State to another. It was certainly true, as has been stated, that any one wishing to come here, or east of the mountains, from where this road will cross the Mississippi, would most probably make the trip by water, if steamboats were running; which, by the by, was not by any means always the case. Mr. R. hoped the motion to reduce the sums now in the bill to the amounts appropriated last year would not be sustained by the Senate. If it was, that ninety miles of the road in Illinois which is in a very handsome state of progress would be left without a single dollar for the prosecution of the work, because, for that part, there was no appropriation whatever last year; and the reason was this: there was an excess of previous appropriations upon hand, supposed to be enough, and was enough, for the year 1835. This excess was owing to the derangement of labor by the Indian war of 1832, the cholera, and other sickness the two succeeding years. From VOL. XII.-40

[SENATE.

these causes, it was wholly impossible to employ the necessary number of hands. These balances, he believed, were now exhausted, and perhaps more than exhausted. Should the latter be the case, and such it was in Ohio, the amendment, if adopted, would leave your officers in a very awkward situation. Be this as it may, as to any arrears yet due hands, under this amendment all further labor upon the ninety miles in Illinois is undoubtedly stopped, which certainly could not be designed by any one, much less the mover of the amendment, [Mr. CLAY,] who tells us he is friendly to the road and its completion-a completion more slowly, to be sure, than I think is advisable and in keeping with good policy.

Something has been said about the cost of this road per mile, and that stone has to be hauled ten miles. I have seen (said Mr. R.) no estimate of the cost per mile for the entire completion of that part in Illinois, nor am I advised any has been made. This, however, I will venture to assert, that it can be made as cheap as any ninety miles of the same kind of road in any part of the known world. The country is level, and abundant in material of every kind necessary for its construction. Stone, it is true, has, at some places, to be hauled considerable distances, and in one instance as far as thirteen miles. The bottom at Vandalia, it is admitted, will be costly, for there the road has to be raised several feet for the distance of about two miles, and this is the only place of extraordinary cost. Many bridges will have to be constructed, but not more, if so many, as are found necessary in every country; and none of them are of a very costly character, for the streams are narrow.

Mr. EWING said he did not at all deny that the two per cent. fund due to Ohio, or which would ever become due to her for the sale of lands in her territory, was long since exhausted, long, indeed, before the road which had its origin from that fund had reached the Ohio river at Wheeling; and gentlemen were wrong in saying that those who advocated the extension of this road held out to Congress the vain pretence that the money to be expended on that road would be reimbursed out of that fund. I remember well, (said Mr. E.,) when the first appropriation for this road west of the Ohio river was under discussion, that one of its principal advocates from Ohio (General Beecher) declared on the floor of Congress that the fund, so far as it respected Ohio, had then been exhausted, and that reimbursement in that way was out of the question; and he rested the claim of the West on other grounds, the same, in the main, as those on which we now place it.

From

But though Ohio contributed, and largely too, to the construction of the road from Cumberland to Wheeling, it is not, in my opinion, just that the road, so far as her funds did not make it, should be charged to her account, or as a boon granted to her and to the States northwest of the river, by the United States. Especially it seems to me that this charge should not be made against them by the gentlemen from Kentucky. The road from Wheeling to Cumberland is as much the road of Kentucky, Tennessee, and all the country upon the Mississippi and its waters, as it is of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. whatever quarter of the great West we come, we meet at Wheeling, and this is our common highway. And from whatever portion of the Atlantic seaboard the traveller or the emigrant sets out for the West, this is his most direct and convenient route. It is, therefore, a road for the benefit of the nation, constructed in part out of the public funds, and in part out of a fund created by compact with Ohio on her admission into the Union. It does not lie, one inch of it, in the territory of Ohio. She has no more interest in it than one half the Union besides, and it is very unjust to her to charge as a dona tion or gratuity to her the excess expended upon that

road beyond the amount which was applied by virtue of her compact.

But the Senator from Kentucky before me [Mr. CRITTENDEN] has said that this two per cent. fund, out of which the road was in part constructed, was itself a gratuity, a gift by the general Government to the new States, a kind of outfit given by the common parent to them, the younger members of the national family. The honorable Senator is mistaken; we paid for it with a price, and it was a dear purchase. The consideration given for it seems to be misunderstood by many. The Senator from Kentucky seems to suppose that it was on condition that the new States would not tax the United States lands, which they had, in fact, no right to tax. Not so. It was in consideration that they would not tax those lands for five years after they became the property of individuals; thus depriving the State of a source of revenue which, according to the rates of taxation for State, county, and road purposes, would have very much exceeded that five per cent., and holding out inducements to individuals to buy the land of the United States, partly because of this exemption from taxation. much with regard to the road from Cumberland to Wheeling, which is constantly paraded here in every account current between the United States and Ohio, whenever it is the wish of gentlemen to impress her rep. resentatives here with a due sense of her special obligations to the general Government. Those obligations are, indeed, many and deep, and none can be more ready than I to acknowledge them, but I cannot consent that this should hold the rank which gentlemen are disposed to give it among the number.

So

And now, as I am upon this subject, I cannot forbear to say a word in reply to the gentleman from Kentucky near me, [Mr. CLAY,] as to the general matter of donations to the new States, which he has been among the foremost and the most liberal in granting, but which he seems to think have gone further than justice to the old States would warrant. In this, it seems to me, he is in error, according to the principles avowed by himself, and on which, I presume, he will continue to act.

He admits, and I believe all admit, that the new States are entitled to some consideration in consequence of the location of a large amount of public lands within their borders, which is rendered more saleable, and consequently more valuable, by the improvements made in their vicinity by the State and by the people. If public improvements be made by funds raised from a tax on land, the United States, as a great landholder, although not taxable, ought in justice to contribute something with the other landholders, to raise the general value of the common property. The increased sales in the old districts in Ohio show how the public lands rise in value by reason of these improvements. If the United States should contribute something, the next question is, how much? This the Senator from Kentucky has settled according to his own judgment, in the land bill introduced by himself, and which he has heretofore pressed, and I trust will again press, with his wonted zeal and ability. In that he gives to the new States ten per cent. of the proceeds of all the lands sold within their limits. Taking this to be the just rule, and I think it is, we may say with confidence, that what is just now has been so heretofore; and the States ought to have, or to have had, the same ten per cent. upon all the sales heretofore made. There have been paid into the treasury, of the proceeds of the sales of lands in Ohio, of cash and stocks, a little more than $19,000,000, of which, on that principle, she ought to have received $1,900,000; while the whole value of the lands given to her, and on conditions, too, very important to the United States, is, at the minimum price, $1,153,671; less, by upwards of $700,000 than what she is entitled to on this principle.

[FEB. 26, 1836.

There have been given to Indiana, and is proposed to be given her by the bill to which I have referred, 500,000 acres of land, worth $625,000, while the receipts from the lands in that State have amounted to about $9,500,000, making her deficit, on this principle, $325,000. The accounts of the other States would not, it is true, balance so well on this principle, if we take into view the grant proposed to them in the land bill; but if any thing more than exact justice were done them, it would at least be well-placed generosity.

This road, on which the present appropriation is proposed, has, I have no doubt, had much effect in increasing the sales of public lands in the new States through which it passes. Those sales, which produced a sum last year unexampled in amount, still go on increasing; and if the sales during the whole of the year 1836 bear the same proportion to those of 1835, as those of the month of January in those years bear to each other, the whole sales will not fall much short of $30,000,000. From present appearances, I esteem it safe to estimate the receipts for lands in 1836, at $20,000,000. The sum asked for an appropriation to this road is trifling, compared with the amount which is in the treasury, and which is flowing in from those two bounteous sourcesthe public lands and the customs. The report of the Secretary of the Treasury, received a few days ago, shows that the amount in the treasury is but a trifle short of $28,000,000, and the accruing receipts from the customs for the present year will more than supply all that can be expended under any appropriations which we can judiciously make. This bill, therefore, or any other appropriation bills, which are not the very wildness of extravagance, does not, and cannot, militate successfully against the land bill-that measure of justice to all the States which the Senator from Kentucky still so fondly cherishes, and in which I assure him that he shall have all the aid which it is possible for me to give him. Indeed, anxious as I am for the passage of this bill, I deem it of small importance to my own State, when compared with that; but, as neither can affect the other injuriously, I still hope for the aid of all who are friendly to the general object, in the passage of both.

Mr. CLAY said he was desirous to get a little aid in this work of economy. He would like to know if there had been any estimate of the cost of this road from the Wabash to the Mississippi. He was informed that the stone had to be hauled from a distance of twenty-five miles, and that the graduation had cost $7,000 a mile. The Maysville road, extending some forty or fifty miles, did not cost above $6,000. It had been said that this road was convenient for driving stock. He touches me (said Mr. C.) when he makes this statement, and compels me to say that a Macadamized road is the worst possible road for stock. What has happened to myself? I had to transport my bull Orizimbo from Lexington to Maysville. could not risk the destruction of his feet by putting him on a stone road, and I had to bring him in a wagon. His friend from Ohio [Mr. EwING] would make the best auditor in the world; nay, all the other auditors together would not equal him. He, from the slightest data imaginable, can make out a balance in favor of his own State. The land bill, on which he places his calculations, has not yet passed; and, if it had, all the rest the suffering States would participate in its benefits. The gentleman had said that a single advantage in the transportation of men and muni tions, in some exigency of war, would be sufficient to remunerate the Government for all that the road would cost. Give him but an "if" to stand upon, and, like Archimedes, he can move the world. If this was to facilitate the driving of stock, he would tell the gentleman that it was better to drive stock over the prairie than over a stone road. The cost of transporting the