They might, I think, be better employed. It has been stated publicly that these officers have helped themselves to loans, from their own bank, to an amount exceeding the amount of all its capital, and then failed, bank and all, leaving a prodigious mass of unredeemed paper upon the hands of the public. I know not how this may be; but until the charge is cleared up, one should think they might find better employment than in attempting to bolster up slanderous imputations against their neighbors, and attacking people who have not the misfortune to owe them any thing.

In reply to Mr. Niles, Mr. Webster remarked:

The law says, in so many words, that these pension agents shall receive no compensation without provision by law; and the Secretary, in making compensation, has of course done it without law. I have a right to the fact. The Secretary makes the appointment, generally, of the president or some other officer of a bank, and the appointment is entirely personal; the bond is personal; the bond is directly to the United States; and this proves conclusively that the officer is an officer of the United States. No bank is named in the bond; in those which I have seen, and I have obtained the common form from the office, I do not find that the agent is named or described as president or cashier of any bank. The appointment is simply of A. B. as agent for paying pensions in a certain place; and A. B. gives his own bond directly to the United States, with sureties, for the faithful discharge of his duties. If the agent, in any case, be connected with any bank, and desire to leave the money on deposit in that bank, instead of using it himself, that is matter of arrangement between him and the bank. All this makes no difference; it does not diminish the amount of compensation; it does not change the nature of the office. The agent is an officer appointed by authority of law, and acting under bonds to the United States, and receiving, as it appears by this report, a very large compensation. I have nothing to do now with the deposit system; all I say is, that this kind of management ought not to go on, making, as every one must admit, a very great allowance for compensation, far too great. And what occasion is there of hazarding all this money? I speak, 33*

however, only of the existing state of things, as a subject which the Senate must perceive requires a remedy. There is a personal appointment of a certain officer by law; and therefore there is in effect a personal emolument to the amount which I have stated; at least it is as large as I have stated it to be at Boston, and may be larger elsewhere.

THE RIGHT OF PREEMPTION TO ACTUAL

SETTLERS ON THE PUBLIC LANDS.*

THE following bill to grant preemption rights to actual settlers on the public lands being on its passage, viz.:

"A BILL TO GRANT PREEMPTION RIGHTS TO SETTLERS ON THE

PUBLIC LANDS.

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That every actual settler of the public lands, being the head of a family, or over twenty-one years of age, who was in possession, and a housekeeper by personal residence thereon, on or before the 1st day of December, 1837, shall be entitled to all the benefits and privileges of an act entitled 'An Act to grant preemption rights to settlers on the public lands,' approved May 29th, 1830; and the said act is hereby revived and continued in force two years, Provided, That where more than one person may have settled upon and cultivated any one quarter-section of land, each one of them shall have an equal share or interest in the said quarter-section, but shall have no claim, by virtue of this act, to any other land: And provided, always, That this act shall not be so construed as to give a right of preemption to any person or persons in consequence of any settlement or improvement made before the extinguishment of the Indian title to the land on which such settlement or improvement was made, or to land specially occupied or reserved for town lots, or other purposes, by authority of the United States: And provided further, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to affect any of the selections of public lands for the purposes of education, the use of salt springs, or for any other purpose, which may have been or may be made by any State, under existing laws of the United States; but this act shall not be so construed as to deprive those of the benefits of this act, who have

any

Remarks made in the Senate of the United States, on the 29th of January, 1838, on the Preemption Bill.

inhabited, according to its provisions, certain fractions of the public lands within the land district of Palmyra, in the State of Missouri, which were reserved from sale in consequence of the surveys of Spanish and French grants, but are found to be without the lines of said grants";

Mr. Webster rose and spoke as follows: :

WHATEVER opposition may be made to this bill, in my opinion some provision of this nature is necessary and proper. I have therefore supported it, and I shall now vote for its final passage.

Although entirely indisposed to adopt any measure which may prejudice the public interest, or trifle with this great subject, and opposed at all times to all new schemes and projects, I still think the time has come when we must, from nécessity, propriety, and justice, make some provision for the existing case. We are not now at the point when preëmption rights are first to be granted; nor can we recall the past. The state of things now actually existing must be regarded. To this our serious attention is summoned. There are now known to be many thousands of settlers on public lands, either not yet surveyed, or of which the surveys are not yet returned, or which, if surveyed, are not yet brought into market for sale.

The first question naturally is, How did they come there? How did this great number of persons get on the public lands? And to this question it may be truly answered, that they have gone upon the lands under the encouragement of previous acts of Congress. They have settled and built houses, and made improvements, in the persuasion that Congress would deal with them in the same manner as it has, in repeated instances, dealt with others. This has been the universal sentiment and expectation. Others have settled on the public lands, certainly with less encouragement from acts of Congress than these settlers have had, and yet have been allowed a preëmption right. These settlers, therefore, have confidently looked for the same privilege.

Another circumstance is fit to be mentioned. Very large purchases of the public lands are known to have been made in 1835 and 1836. These purchases exceeded the quantity necessary for actual settlement; and they were made, in many cases, in large tracts, by companies or by single proprietors, who

purchased for purposes of investment, and with a view to retain the lands until their value should be enhanced by the general settlement and improvement of the country. These purchases would be, of course, of the best and freshest lands in the market; that is, they would be in the most recent surveys, or, in other words, in the surveyed districts most advanced in the interior. Now, I have understood from good authority, that it has often happened in the Northwest, (of the Southwest I know little,) that persons disposed to purchase and settle on the frontier have, in many instances, found themselves unable to buy to their satisfaction, either of government or individuals. Government had sold the best lands to companies or to individual proprietors, and these last were disposed to keep, and not to sell; or they or their agents were either unknown, or were living in distant parts of the country, so that application to purchase could not readily be made to them.

These circumstances, there can be no doubt, have created a new incentive to pass beyond the surveys set down on the public domain, and trust to Congress for a preëmption right, such as has been granted in previous instances. The result of these causes is, that settlements have become quite extensive, and the number of people very large. In that part of Wisconsin which lies west of the Mississippi, there are supposed to be from thirty to fifty thousand inhabitants. Over this region Congress has extended civil government, established courts of law, and encouraged the building of villages and towns; and yet the land has not been brought into the market for sale, except it may be small quantities for the sites of villages and towns. In other parts of Wisconsin a similar state of things exists, especially on and near the border of Lake Michigan, where numerous settlements have been made and commercial towns erected, some of them already of considerable importance, but where the title to the land still remains in the government. Similar cases exist in Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, and probably also in the Southwestern States.

Now the practical question is, What is to be done in these cases? What are we to do with those settlers, their improvements, and the lands on which they live? Is there any one who would propose or desire that these lands should be put up at open auction, improvements and all, and sold to the highest