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fund among the several States, in proportion to the representation of each in this House.

Of appropriating a portion of these proceeds to a new and specific object.-A part of the public domain was acquired by the fortune of war, and a part by purchase. The whole constitutes a common fund for the joint benefit of the States and the People. This domain amounted to some hundred millions of acres, and, of it, probably some two hundred millions of acres of good land yet remain unsold. It is true, that the proceeds of these lands, together with those of the internal duties, and the duties on merchandise and the tonnage of vessels, to the amount of ten millions of dollars annually, are appropriated and pledged to the 'Sinking Fund.' But, is this a valid objection to the appropriation of the whole or of any part of the proceeds of these lands to any other proper object? Since the act of March, 1817, making this appropriation and pledge to the sinking fund, the annual average amount of the public revenue has been about twenty millions of dollars. So long, therefore, as ten millions of dollars are left to the sinking fund, the appropriation is answered and the pledge redeemed; and the surplus revenuc, from whatever source derived, not having been appropriated or pledged, remains to be disposed of in such way and for such purposes as the Congress may direct. But, are the public lands a source of revenue upon which a wise and prudent government ought to risk its credit? Will capitalists lend their money upon such vague and uncertain security? The land may be offered for sale, but no man can be compelled to buy. The purchase is wholly voluntary. The promised revenue to be derived from it is altogether contingent. It depends not at all upon the power or the necessities of the government, but upon the will of the purchaser Besides, the faith of the government does not consist in the intrinsic value of the thing pledged. This is not enough. No prudent man, for example, would lend his money to the government to be reimbursed out of the proceeds which may or may not accrue from the lead mines and salt springs belonging to the United States. The value of the pledge is the credit it secures. And the thing pledged is valued in proportion to its peculiar fitness and proper adaptedness to the end for which it was pledged. So that the faith of the government necessarily depends upon its ability to coerce the possession-to touch and turn the thing pledged into money. This the government cannot do with the public lands. They are indeed, tangible; but neither the wishes, the will, nor the power of the government, can change them into money. They are, therefore, not a proper source of revenue, upon which the faith or the credit of the nation should be hazarded. Congress seems to have considered them so. A township of land has been given to

the Nation's Guest.' Large portions of land have, from time to time, been given to other individuals, and to public institutions. Now, if it be good faith to give away the lands, from which the revenue pledged to the sinking fund is derived, it cannot be bad faith to appropriate a portion at least of their proceeds for the support of common schools.

Of converting it into a permanent fund for the sole use and support of common schools in the several States.-Unless children are taught how to govern themselves, and how to be governed, by law, they will rarely make good citizens. It may be objected that the Constitution does not give to Congress the power to appropriate the proceeds of these lands for the purposes of Education. The question is not whether Congress can superintend and control the private schools in the several States, but whether Congress can appropriate the proceeds of these lands for the use and support of those private schools, to be applied by and under the exclusive authority of the several States. The only clause in the Constitution, which, perhaps, can in any way restrain the general right of appropriating money, is that which declares that the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States.'

Can the proceeds of the public lands, in any sense, be considered a tax, duty, impost, or excise? A tax must be levied, and the obligation to pay it, created by the authority of law. The money derived from the public lands is not levied, nor is the obligation to pay it created by law. Both the purchase and the obligation are voluntary. The Constitution gives Congress the power of disposing of the territory and other property of the United States, but it no where considers the proceeds of these lands as a revenue to be applied as the proceeds of taxes are directed to be applied. The Military Academy at West Point is an invaluable institution. If Congress has the constitutional power (and we believe no one denies it) to establish such a school; to draw money directly from the public treasury for its support; to pay for teaching a boy mathematics and engineering; it may be difficult to show that Congress has not the power to employ a few acres of the public domain to teach a poor man's son how to read. But did any doubt remain, that doubt would appear to be removed, by referring to the facts, that a portion of these lands has, from the beginning, been set apart for the purposes of common education, and that other portions of them have been given, from time to time, for the use of colleges, and of deaf and dumb asylums, and for the construction of roads and canals.

Of apportioning this fund among the several States.-Equality of

rights and privileges, both as it regards citizens and States, is the fundamental principle of our Government. Hence, the People, so far as the integrity and independence of the States will permit, are equally represented in the popular branch of the National legislature. Guided by this rule the Committee have no doubt that the apportionment should be made among the several States according to the representation of each in the House of Representatives. This will distribute the fund, and dispense the blessings resulting from it, upon the strictest principles of equality. The ordinary disbursement of the public money does not directly benefit all alike. This apparently partial distribution of the money of the nation, depends upon the nature of the objects to which it is applied. An army is stationed where its services are required; a fortress erected where it is wanted; a navy constructed where it can be done the safest and the best; and the money to pay for objects of this sort, necessarily goes to those portions of the country only, in which the services and labour have been performed. These great objects, which enter so largely into the defence of the nation, are local in their character; and hence it is that some of the States, and many portions of the country, receive no direct benefit from the annual expenditure of millions of the public money. But the proposed appropriation for the support of common schools, is for an object general in its nature and benefits. It is an appropriation, in which every American citizen has a deep interest, and by the operation and influence of which, the ignorant and the wise, the rich and the poor, the government and the governed, will receive direct and lasting benefits. The ignorant and the poor will be aided and enlightened; the wise and the rich estimated and protected; and the Government appreciated and defended. Common schools are the nurseries of youth; they are the most universal, as they are the most effectual means of opening the mind; of giving reason the mastery, and of fixing, in habits of sober industry, the rising generations of men. Can, then, a portion of the proceeds of the national domain, be expended in any way which will more directly or forcibly come home to the wants and wishes, the business and bosoms, of the People?

The resolution before the committee, does not indicate, in terms, whether the principal, annually apportioned, or the interest of the principal only, shall be paid over to the States. Nor does it point out any mode, in case the interest only is to be applied, of investing the principal. This part of the subject merits some examination. It seems to be manifest, that the more certain and permanent the fund, the greater and more lasting will be the benefits flowing from it. To apportion and pay the principal annually to the seve

ral States, will be doing equal and exact justice. But the principal, in that case, would be annually expended. The consequence of this will be, that, as the public domain diminishes by sales, untill the whole is sold, the fountain whence the fund is to be drawn, will be gradually and finally exhausted, and the fund and its benefits, of necessity, diminish and cease together. As this domain is not exhaustless, if the principal, set apart for the use of these common schools, be annually expended, its benefits will be chiefly confined to our own time; but, by investing the principal, and dividing the interest only, the fund will accumulate, and its benefits may continue to future ages. The Committee, therefore, propose, that the sum annually appropriated, shall be invested by the United States, in some productive fund, the interest, or other proceeds of which shall be annually apportioned among the several States, according to the representation of each State in the House of Representatives of the United States. This sum may be invested in various ways. It may be invested in Bank, Canal, or United States stock, or a new stock may be created for the purpose, or portions of the redeemed stock of the United States may, from time to time, be set apart by the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, uncancelled, and bearing the former, or a new rate of interest, to meet the object. The general investment of the principal by the United States, and the division of the interest in the manner proposed, seems to be the only way by which all the States and all the people can now and hereafter be equally benefitted. The annual appropriation should, and may, be so invested, as neither to affect, for the worse, the commercial relations of the country, nor to create artificial distinctions, or moneyed aristocracies. It should, and may, be so invested and applied, as to satisfy the moral and intellectual wants of all, while it will supply the pecuniary wants of none. Should the interest, by any particular mode of investing the principal, become an annual charge upon the United States, still, as the whole matter will, at all times, depend upon the wisdom and pleasure of the States and the People, no man, we believe, can reasonably doubt that they will release this charge the instant its burthens exceed its benefits. Hence, the evils of the measure, if there be any, will be rather negative than positive, and always under the control of the People, who alone are to be benefitted or injured by it.

In further discussing this measure, some of its obvious advantages must not be overlooked. It will give some aid to all, in the acquisition of learning. It will give efficient aid to the destitute, without which aid they must be left uneducated and in ignorance. It will diffuse, in the quickest and cheapest way, the

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greatest amount of useful knowledge among the people. It will tend, as much as any thing else, to make young men and old, respectable, efficient, good citizens. These considerations, it would seem, cannot fail to awaken the attention of the State Legislatures. They surely are not now to learn, for the first time, that the success of good government, the independence of the States, and the permanency of their political institutions, are vitally connected with a well educated and sound yeomanry. Besides, the fact of there being a permanent fund, the interest of which is to be applied to the glorious purpose of training up the young mind in the way of knowledge and morals, will, in some degree at least, excite in these guardians of State rights, a just emulation in promoting, to every practicable end, the great cause of common education.

It is a singular fact in the history of our species, that, nowhere, has common education made any considerable progress among the people, without the efficient aid and protection of the Government. There is, generally, a prevailing indifference among the illiterate, to the cultivation of the mind; were it not so, the poor man, though learned, can rarely instruct his children, because his time is necessarily occupied in earning their bread; and the ignorant man though rich, cannot do it, because he is himself untaught. In other countries, multitudes of the human race successively live and die as illiterate as they were born; and, in our own favoured land, with all the liberal patronage, private and public, which learning receives, we are not wholly exempt from these lamentable examples. Under a government like ours, there should nowhere be left masses of mind, illiterate and humbled, over which, in an evil hour, some master spirit may exercise a fatal control. Ignorance is the bane of liberty. Ordinarily, conspiracies and treasons are executed by the ignorant. These instruments of unholy ambition, however, are not selected from schools where letters and morals are taught. Are not, then, the National and State Legislatures under the strongest obligations to the people of this country, to provide and apply the means whereby every child may have the opportunity, in these nurseries of the mind, of acquiring some knowledge of letters, and of the various duties he owes to his country and his God?

It will, moreover, bind, by an additional and stronger tie, the People to the States, and the States to the Union. There is something in this tie of mind, affection, and blood. It attaches itself to every father of a family, and to children's children. It successively connects with the present each succeeding generation. Common education can be estimated only in proportion as its necessities and advantages are felt; and as the same number of children, as there are dollars annually distributed from this fund,

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