Mr. HOLLAND said the present amendment was not a similar question with that of yesterday, but would, in some degree, meet the wishes of gentlemen who opposed it, as this proposition only contemplated one-half of the six hundred and forty acre lots to be divided, whereas the former motion proposed that the whole should be so divided. The principal objects of the bill were to aid the The House took up the amendments of the revenue, and one other object ought to be to acSenate to the Indian trading-house bill, and re-commodate real settlers in preference to those solved to insist upon their disagreement to the Senate's amendments.

who purchased with a view of selling again. This amendment, he trusted, would tend to both those Ordered, That a Committee of Conference be objects. Few men who would be inclined to setappointed to confer with the Senate on the sub-tle in that country would have so much money as ject-matter thereof.

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[APRIL, 1796.

He did not think there would be any considerable expense attending it. He thought the more the lands were divided the greater would be the competition; and if this were not the case, he was apprehensive that though land might be worth six dollars an acre, they would not sell for more than two. He was, therefore, for so dividing the land as that speculators might not have it in their power to play into each other's hands.

1 minds made up, he did not wish to trespass on their patience. He was a friend of the bill, and his only wish was that it might so pass as to give general satisfaction. If this amendment did not take place, he knew the bill would be reprobated by many. He did not wish particularly to encourage adventurers to that country, but he wished every class of citizens, who had a desire to purchase this land, to have a fair opportunity of purchasing, in proportion to their capital, of the Go- Mr. CRABB said he was induced to bring forvernment, and not from private persons. He ward this amendment, because he did not believe, wished mankind to be as independent as possible. as the bill stood, that one-half their citizens who He did not like the idea thrown out, that these might wish to become purchasers and actual setpeople were likely to fall off from this Govern- tlers of these lands, would be accommodated by ment. He thought the peace, and happiness, and the present provisions of the bill. The poor man, attachment of the people, would be more likely to he said, was more likely to go into that country be secured, when the land was occupied by real than the rich, but he insisted that the bill, as it proprietors, than if possessed by persons who were now stood, was a prohibition to all poor men acsubject, by being tenants, to the will of others. quiring these lands, and he had heard no arguHe thought it a curious idea that had been thrown ment to convince him the amendment would not out, that lest these settlers should become too in- be a good one in point of policy as well as justice. dependent, that the bill should so pass as to pro- Gentlemen had said poor men may join together duce sparse settlements, lest they, being connected, and so purchase; but there were difficulties atwould involve us in an Indian war. This pre- tending such associations. A man must not only supposes, said he, our citizens always to be the look to his own resources, but to his associators' aggressors, which he did not admit. But on the resources and integrity, lest, by a failure in comcontrary, being extended thinly over a large ex-pleting their purchase, the land should revert to tent of country, they would be an easy sacrifice the Union. This apprehension would prevent in to the savages, and render their circumstances a 'great degree such associations. The dividing more miserable. He hoped the amendment would prevail, without which he must be opposed to its passage, although with reluctance, as he was impressed by the necessity of an addition to the re

venue.

of the land into small lots would put it into the possession of real proprietors, and have a tendency, to make good Republicans instead of servile tenants dependant upon tyrannical landlords. It would not be denied, that the more land was diMr. HARTLEY thought that if this amendment vided and subdivided the stronger would be the was agreed to, it would change the principle of settlement, and the more firmly would be the peothe bill. He thought the division proposed would ple's attachment to Government; for it was well unreasonably delay the survey and increase the known that the strength of a country did not so expense of it; and that, as the bill now stood, per- much consist in its great extent as in its compactsons might join together and purchase a six hun-ness of settlements and the attachment of the peodred and forty acre lot, with as much ease as they would purchase them if smaller. There was no occasion for them to go into such minutiæ in the business. He had as much a wish as any one to serve the poorer class of citizens, but thought they should not carry the division farther than they had done.

Mr. VAN ALLEN hoped the amendment would prevail. It would little increase either the time or expense of surveying. The chief alteration it would make would be an increase of the number of sales; but a trifling sum put upon each lot, which would be cheerfully paid, would more than recompense for it.

Mr. COOPER hoped the amendment would not prevail. The intention, it was said, was to accommodate poor men; but, did practice tell them that poor men would buy these lots when divided? He referred to sales of land in the States of Pennsylvania and New York, where, though land was sold in small lots, there were not twenty instances of farmers buying it. The moneyed men had always been the purchasers at those sales, and he apprehended it would be the case in the sale of this land.

Mr. CLAIBORNE was in favor of the amendment.

ple to the Government. By this means, he said, encouragement would be given to useful, industrious men, and it would not be in the power of a few men to engross the whole.

Mr. C. said it might even require two or more poor men to purchase one hundred and sixty acres, and this, he trusted. was not a consideration too low to occupy the attention of that House. For his part he could see no reason which could be urged against passing of the amendment he had proposed, since it would not only serve a valuable body of people, but would tend to get more money into their Treasury by opening the door and inviting a considerable class of citizens to market. He said there would remain one-half the land in large tracts to meet the demands of moneyed men ; one-fourth in tracts of six hundred and forty acres to accommodate substantial farmers: and that House could not, he trusted, refuse the small portion asked for to accommodate the poorer class of their citizens. Some gentlemen had urged that people would never travel so far to a new country to acquire so small a portion as one hundred and sixty acres of land. He was of a different opinion. Lands had become so high in most of the old States, that the hope of acquiring possession of

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of men, however small, would be accommodated by dividing one-half of the six hundred and forty acre lots into lots of one hundred sixty acres each, the competition, and consequently the price of the land, would be increased. The gentleman from New York [Mr. COOPER] had said there were no such men who would purchase. How did he know this? Was he informed of the number of small farmers who wished to go into that country? Certainly not. He went entirely upon supposition and analogy. He informed the House, that in the States of Pennsylvania and New York, poor men never purchased any lands in the sales which were held there. With respect to Pennsylvania, he could say the gentleman was totally mistaken. He would maintain that not more than one thousand chased large tracts of land; the other seventy thousand inhabitants were mostly possessors of small tracts. The cause of its being sold in large tracts at all was the quantity offered for sale at once, and the low price at which it was sold. It was evident that by selling a part of the land in these small lots they should get a greater compe

the soil, and becoming independent, was lost; and the rents of lands had risen so high, that the tenants sorely felt the oppression of their landlords, and their last hope of releasement from this oppression was by emigration to this new country, which they looked on as common property. And will this House, he exclaimed, blast this last remaining, this flattering hope, this natural and laudable desire of independence? He hoped not. One more observation, he said, he would beg leave to make, and he would conclude and leave the amendment to its fate. This observation he meant to apply to those that thought men would not emigrate to acquire and possess so small a property as this. He replied, that the poor and the oppressed had the greatest inducement of all men to emigrate. And the man must know but little of human na-persons in the State of Pennsylvania had purture indeed, that did not believe that when a man had been in a state of dependence, and by strenuous exertions of industry, rigid economy, and frugality, had saved a small sum, which would scarcely buy him a garden in the old settled countries where land is so high-has not such a man, Mr. C. said, the most cogent reasons to move to this new country where he could, with three hun-tition in the sales; for, if a greater quantity of dred and twenty dollars, become an independent master of soil sufficient comfortably to support his family on? And give me leave, said Mr. C., to tell those gentlemen, that the man possessing one hundred and sixty acres of land, in his own right, under those circumstances, feels the sweets of it as much, and thinks himself as independent, and perhaps more happy, than the lordly nabob that holds a million, not acquired by the sweat of his

brow.

land be offered for sale than a certain description of men have money to pay for, though they would gladly purchase a smaller lot, they cannot become bidders for lots they are not able to pay for. The other analogy which the gentleman refers to in the State of New York, was a sale of land, at a time when the sale of land was very dull, and land was not wanted. Objections had been made to this plan of dividing, on account of the expense of surveying, and the time it would take to make the survey; both of which he thought perfectly groundless. The expense would be trifling, and would be more than repaid by a small sum put upon each farm; and the time it would consume in making the additional survey would throw no obstacle in the way of the sale. He therefore saw no objection which could be reasonably urged against this amendment.

Mr. S. SMITH thought the same question had been negatived yesterday. If the mover would alter the size of the lots to three hundred and twenty, instead of one hundred and sixty acres, he would vote for the amendment.

Mr. WILLIAMS was in favor of the amendment, as he thought it would be productive of the best consequences, as it would encourage freeholders, and get a good price for the land. It was certainly their interest so to parcel off the land as to meet every degree of purchasers. He was at first for dividing the whole of the land into small tracts; but he believed if they laid a part of it off in one hundred and sixty acre lots it would answer every purpose. He said the dividing of half the six hundred and forty acre lots each into four parts would be attended with little expense; and whatever expense it might be, it would be more than repaid by the advanced price it would com- Mr. NICHOLAS hoped the amendment would not mand. Besides, it was a duty incumbent upon prevail. He did not believe it would be of any them to accommodate every class of their citi-real use. He need not say that he was as much zens; by doing which they did an essential service to their country; as the best way to make a man love and serve his country was to make him interested in it. It was, therefore, much better that they should accommodate useful industrious citizens than that they should put their land into the hands of rich speculators to exercise their will

upon.

Mr. COOPER again insisted that poor men never attended at any sales which had been made for the purpose of purchasing land, but that they always got it from the large purchasers.

Mr. GALLATIN hoped the amendment would pass. He did not think any solid objection had been made to it. It must be agreed, that if any number

a friend of the poor man, and of a Republican Government, as any man. But he did not believe, except it was the few persons already in that country, that the proposed division would accommodate one man. If the gentlemen would consider what was necessary to be done before a man became purchaser of this land, they must be convinced of the truth of his assertion. A man intending to purchase must first go and explore the country, in order to find out a piece of land which would suit him; and it would not be sufficient to fix on one particular spot, because others might want the same. The uncertainty of vendue would also prevent many from going into the country to make the necessary examinations.

Persons of small property would rather wait till the sale was over, and the land come to be laid out and divided into farms. The persons whom the mover and supporters of the present amendment had in view would not embrace the offer meant to be held out to them. He did not think one such person would attend the sale. The additional expense of the survey, he said, would not be less than two hundred dollars on every township. This was a certain expense which he thought they ought not to go into for the possibility of accommodating a small number of purchasers. He hoped the propositions would not be agreed to, as there would be an additional expense attending the survey of fifty thousand dollars, and he believed it would not be repaid by the advantage of the proposed sales.

[APRIL, 1796.

a small addition of fee to the 160-acre lots. Tracts of this size, he said, would command a higher price. He should wish that there might be a portion of the land in tracts of half a mile square, or 320 acres. He thought lots of both sizes might be made, and that would meet the ideas of the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. VAN ALLEN and Mr. NICHOLAS said a few words upon the expense-the former insisting that it could not be anything like that stated by the latter.

Mr. MILLEDGE thought there was no necessity for taking up the time of the Committee any longer on the subject: he believed there was not a member who had not made up his mind.

Mr. MADISON was sorry to add any observations on the subject, after what had fallen from the gentleman from New Jersey; but he thought the arguments which had been used in favor of the proposed amendment had great weight. If the lots of one mile square could be easily divided into four, (which it appeared to him they might,) he could see no reasonable objection to the measure; for, if it could accommodate any number of real occupiers, it was desirable that it should be done. The expense of exploring the country had been urged as an objection; but it occurred to him that a number of persons would go and explore the country without an intention of returning, and consequently the expense of their journey could be reckoned as nothing. Whether so large a por

be settled in this way, he should doubt; but still, he thought attention was due to them. And he found this to be the opinion of men who lived in that part of the country, and was conversant in the business of dividing and selling lands. He was not sure whether the amendment was worded in the best way possible.

Mr. HARTLEY again objected to the division of the land into small lots, on the ground of expense and the time it would take to lay them out. He added, that the Senate would not agree to this division, if it were to pass that House.

Mr. FINDLEY said, if he could believe the expense of surveying would be so great as had been stated, he would never agree to a Land Office being opened at all. If the land was offered in such parcels as that farmers could only become purchasers at second-hand, he did not think the land would be sold, as the best land in the State of Pennsylvania was now offered at that price. But if it were only the few in the neighborhood of these lands who would be accommodated by the proposed division of these lands into small lots, it was very desirable it should be done; for these few, he believed, were several thousands, who had built and made improvements upon the land, and to remove whom would be a task which he was suretion of the country as gentlemen expected would the Government would not willingly undertake. Would it not, therefore, be very proper to divide the land in such a manner as that these present occupiers may become purchasers? The present rage for going into that country was great. Land and provisions had become high in the Atlantic States, and some persons were so desirous of emigrating, that, if they could not go upon this land, they might be inclined to go out of the Territory of the United States. Gentlemen say they ought to be certain there would be purchasers before they thus parcelled out the land. He thought the probability was very much on their side, and no gentleman could be certain there would not be purchasers for small lots. Persons were more generally inquiring for 100-acre tracts than others, and it behooved them to provide for such persons. The gentleman from New York [Mr. COOPER] had made frequent allusions to the State of Pennsylvania. When the land in that State was sold it was generally in the power of the Indians, and was disposed of in large tracts; but in that part of the country in which he lived, few farmers had more than 300 acres. But the law for dividing that land gave a tone to the settlement of the country. There were very few large tracts in Pennsylvania. He was desirous they should give a tone to the settlement of this country. The smaller the tracts were made, the more saleable they would be. Great numbers of persons were going to that country, and others would follow. It was improbable that rich land-holders would go there: the emigrants would be chiefly of the poorer class. The additional expense of surveying would be repaid by

Mr. HAVENS was surprised to hear the amendment objected to on the ground of expense: he said the expense would be trifling. The surveyors would only have to mark every half mile, and to run the same line on the map.

Mr. VAN ALLEN said, that every objection to expense might be obviated by an amendment that the land should be divided on the map without running the lines.

Mr. COOPER spoke again in opposition to the motion, and said they might as well lay out garden spots as propose these small lots.

Mr.HEISTER hoped the bill, thus modified, would pass; and that, when the interests of the Treasury, and those of men most likely to become settlers were united, there would be but one opinion upon the subject. The gentleman from Maryland had said that application had been made to him on the subject; and he could say that many such had been made to him by persons who wished to go into that country. The land should be laid off in tracts suitable to the pockets of these people, in

order that they may become land-owners in common with others. There were many persons without the bar of the House that could give information on the subject, if it were necessary. Some might wish to purchase a mile square, some half a mile, and a greater number 160 acres. It would be the interest of Government to accommodate them all, and he hoped no objection would be made to the present amendment.

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the one-fourth part in lots of 160 acres, and all the rest in lots of 640 acres with precisely the same surveying which was now directed to be performed; and that, therefore, no additional expense could be incurred.

He then adverted to the sales, and observed, that actual settlers might become purchasers from the Government of lots of 160 and of 640 acres; that none would be prohibited from purchasing; that Mr. VENABLE wished the lines might be so run of course the competition would be increased, and, as that no dispute might arise hereafter. He was he believed, the land sell best; that as the large in favor of the principle of the amendment: it lots would, at the minimum price, amount to would accommodate more people than any other 11,520 dollars, settlers were by no means likely to clause in the bill. It would require from 300 to become purchasers, as it was presumable few could 500 dollars to purchase one of these small tracts, command such a sum, and therefore they were as which was no inconsiderable sum. He doubted effectually prohibited as if a clause to that effect not a number of farmers' sons would go into that had been inserted in the bill; that the competition country without any intention of returning, and would of course be lessened, and the land purtherefore no expense could be reckoned on their chased chiefly, if not altogether, by speculators, exploring the country. It was right these persons and consequently sell for a less price. One reason should be accommodated; nor did he think it would which had been assigned for this measure was, that be found either difficult or expensive to carry the all purchasers might be accommodated. He was amendment into effect. willing to accommodate all such as were to be settlers, but no others. No one man, he thought, wanted to purchase so large a lot for his own actual improvement.

The amendment was put and carried.

Mr. VAN ALLEN observed, that the selling onehalf the land in lots of three miles square, or 5,760 acres, as contemplated by the bill, appeared to him to be a measure replete with such evident advantages to that part of the wealthy class of citizens whom they had been in the habit of styling speculators, that he conceived it his duty to state his objections to it, and, if in his power, to obtain an alteration. He moved an amendment which went to selling no larger lots than 640 acres.

He considered the land now about to be sold as the joint and common property of every citizen in the United States, and that therefore it ought to be disposed of in such manner as would best promote the general interest of the whole community: that, if this idea was a correct one, it would naturally lead to an inquiry what would be such disposition: the result of which he believed would be, first, to accommodate actual settlers; and, secondly, to bring money into the Treasury; and added, that, as he conceived the first to be the greatest object, it ought to be attended to, even if it would in some degree require a sacrifice of the other. But he hoped it would not be opposed, if it could be shown that it might be accomplished without any additional expense or loss to the public.

He observed, that the bill directed the whole tract to be laid out into townships of six miles square; to subdivide one-half of them alternately into lots of 640 acres; and by an amendment one-half of those lots were to be subdivided on the map into lots of 160 acres; that the remaining half of the townships were also to be divided on the map into four equal lots of 5,760 acres, for the purpose of selling them in the above described lots.

He stated, that, by actually running and marking the lines round every four lots that were to be sold, they could be separately granted with as much accuracy and certainty of description as if each had been fully surveyed; that, upon this plan, the whole of the land might be laid out and sold

It had been said, the price fixed upon the land would prevent speculation. He believed that might be the case if the fixed price was the full value, or so nearly so, as not to afford a profit. But these gentlemen understood figures, and considered more the per centage they could make than the high or low price they paid for an article.

It had been frequently said, and he believed, this was an excellent tract of land; that some of it would sell at from three to eight dollars per acre; and if so, would it not, he asked, afford a handsome profit?

He said, it was fair to presume no land would be purchased to sell again, which could not afford a reasonable prospect of at least 25 per cent. profit. This, at the lowest stated price, would be half a dollar per acre; that about five millions of acres were contemplated to be sold in large lots, which, at this rate, would eventually be a loss of two millions five hundred thousand dollars, besides the difference of the granting fees, (which he made no doubt would nett a profit,) and answer no other purpose than that of enriching individuals; that, to sell the land when it was not wanted for actual settlement, or in a manner which would preclude settlers from becoming purchasers, would be making a sacrifice: that, he thought, could only be justifiable under peculiar circumstances, such as did not now exist; that it was but another way of paying a high rate of interest, and establishing a bad precedent; that, to sell the land in such large lots would, he thought, operate as an indirect tax upon the cultivator-of so much at least as the small lots would sell per acre more than the largenot to say anything about the rise of the land. which would be increased in proportion to the settlements they made, without benefiting the Government. In short, he considered it as an act of favoritism towards that class of citizens, for which he could see no reason, unless it was their having