of the government on this exciting matter. When such abundant evidence is found in the proceedings of the gov ernment, to shew the anxiety and exertions of the Washington administration, to promote and secure the western interests; it is painful to reflect on the little credit it received in the public mind of Kentucky, for this enlarged and parental policy. It is to be apprehended, that there had been too much familiarity with the idea of righting themselves without the aid, if not in defiance, of their own government, to have allowed a fair construction to be placed upon the measures of the general government. Indeed it is not to be concealed, that Kentucky was a violent antifederal State from the first proposition of the glorious system of government, which has advanced this country to such heights of happiness and renown. She had in the excess of her democratic prejudices, refused her sanction to the new frame of government, and she was identified with the opposition to all the leading measures of the Washington administration. The election of Humphrey Marshall, and his votes were, it is believed, the only exceptions to this temper; and now instructions were brought forward, to direct him distinctly from his colleague, in his vote upon the British treaty, which had received the advice and consent of the Senate, to a conditional notification during the preceding summer. Subsequently, however, the individual instructions to Senator Marshall, were amended by inserting the words Senators, in conformity to all propriety and official decorum. The treaty, however, did not again come before the Senate of the United States, owing to the ready acceptance of the exception proposed by the American government. Y 2 CHAPTER XV. Land Laws of Kentucky-Dissatisfaction with the Constitution of 1792-Gov. GarrardJohn Adams, President of the United States-Occupying claimant law and controversy -Seven years' limitation law. Another branch of perplexing legislation presented itself this session in the vacant lands of the commonwealth southwest of Green river, that were ordered to be sold on a credit which created a debt from her citizens, embarrassing to the government of Kentucky as long as it existed. The first act secured to each housekeeper a pre-emptive right to purchase his land at thirty dollars per hundred acres; the fee simple to be withheld until the money was paid. These easy and tempting terms rapidly attracted a numerous population from other parts of the state to this section of it, where lands were to be had at thirty cents per acre. These are declared to have been worth from two to four dollars for that quantity. Such tampering with public property, contrary to all mercantile principles of supply and demand, and laying aside all the wholesome control of commercial competition, necessarily gave rise to great land speculations, and the arts and impositions which invariably follow in the train of all such excitements to the cupidity of the community. Still, as if these terms were not favorable enough, in the year 1797, another act passed, allowing from one to two hundred acres to all who should settle in this section of the state before the 1st of July, 1798, reside one year and tend two acres of corn within a fence. The prices were raised from thirty dollars to sixty per hundred acres of first rate land, and forty dollars per hundred acres of second rate land. But now no first rate lands were to be found for the benefit of the commonwealth, however abundantly they might reward private settlers. The land was to be forfeited, if it was not paid for within a year from the date of the commissioners' certificate; but how could this forfeiture be exacted by the commonwealth against a large and valuable body of her citizens? The very idea is absurd under a popular government, and it may well be doubted, whether the commonwealth deserved to collect debts, which she had by her imprudent and improvident legislation tempted her people to contract without any regard to their means of discharging them. If it were good policy to force the population of the commonwealth beyond the natural or efficient demands of her citizens; that is, before their ability to pay what, on free competition, should have proved a fair equivalent for the public domain; better, ten thousand times better would it have been, to have given the lands gratuitously to actual settlers, than to have tempted the creation of a body of debtors to the state, possessing a large section of the commonwealth, and necessarily thrown into conflict with the interests of its powerful but unwieldy creditor. But in truth, there is no doubt that the domain of the State in the section under notice, has been most improvidently wasted. Sound communities are not to be created by such forced bounties and legislative whims, in defiance of the natural laws of society, prior and paramount to the laws of men. Because a legislative body finds itself in possession of a great treasure which they are bound to administer for the benefit of society, is it fair and just that they should give it away on the slightest conditions to those who might want it? Such a scheme may, at a superficial glance, appear to be recommended by a noble benevolence and humanity, but on a closer examination it will be found only deceptive. Could such a distribution of lands return like the Jewish jubilee every fifty years, it would bring along with it the same periodical derangement of the ordinary prices of regular industry, of land and of wages, injuring the people by an improvement of the condition of one portion, at the expense of another. To be sensible that these ideas are neither strained nor extravagant, let the effect of these almost gratuitous distributions of land be calculated, upon its value in the older settlements of the state; just as much as the price was artificially depressed in the southwest, it must have been lowered in the northeast; and what was added in one section of the commonwealth, was nearly subtracted in another by the arbitrary glutting of the land market, without any regard to the principles of buying and selling, which govern private property. These should, for the public good, have governed the management of the valuable domain, now almost entirely alienated from the state. The act of this year began the career of annual indulgence or relief, which was trod through all the mazes of legislative quackery;* in January, 1798, an act of indulgence, or in other words, the Green river bill passed; in November session, 1798, the whole debt was divided into four equal annual instalments at lawful interest, except the debts of those who claimed under the first act on this subject, which were required to be paid in six months. This act was amended in 1799, and in eleven days afterwards it received a supplementary act: in 1800 another act of indulgence passed, and nine days after was amended. By a third act of this session, nine years were given to the purchasers of the public lands, and the interest was reduced to five per cent.; in addition to this, every person over eighteen years of age, might acquire a right to four hundred acres, at twenty dollars per hundred acres, to include his settlement, which was to be made before his claim could be allowed. The county courts were then vested with the power of granting the claims, instead of the more cumbrous and less expeditious commissioners. The responsibility was now less than ever; fictitious purchasers were as acceptable as real, and the commonwealth was again all agog with land jobbing. Now acts of relief were prayed against the mistakes of the county courts; till after the usual annual protractions of the land debt, its payment was, in 1806, divided into twelve annual instalments of principal and interest; the first instalment to be paid on or before the 1st of December, 1806. Nor ought the commonwealth to be ungrateful that any time was appointed for the payment of this old unconscionable debt of a great land holder, against its poor private purchasers. Indeed it would seem matter of public admiration and gratitude, that the debtors of the commonwealth condescended to promise either principal or interest, on this side of eternity. This strain of remark is certainly indulged in no unfriendly * See Marshall 2-178, for a full analysis of this system feeling to the southwestern section of the state, now so honorable and flourishing a portion of the commonwealth; but solely with a faint hope of exposing the mischievous and corrupting tendency of legislation, when it transcends the boundaries of experience, and the eternal principles of political justice. The injury to the government, though gross in the waste of its treasures, was inconsiderable, when compared to the corruption of public morals and the derangement of regular, efficient industry, by these land bounties and distributions. They kindled the same deleterious speculative, spirit, which the rise of stocks or any other powerful temptations to the avaricious passions of society, have ever occasioned. They would produce the same effects in any community, that they did in Kentucky, with those who rushed from other states to enjoy her misjudged wastefulness. Had this great landed estate been sold out upon any reasonable conformity to current value, tested as in the sales of the United States' lands, by public competition, the disposition would have been uncensurable. True it is, large accessions were made to the productive population of one portion of the state, and as large transfers from other parts of the commonwealth; but this increase might have been effected more soundly and more productively to the state, by less hurried and hot-bed measures. In this last arrangement, Mr. John Pope lent the efficient aid of his excellent mind, in these healing measures, which immediately procured something like $200,000 from the small purchasers; and in a few years the payments amounted to $700,000. Thus has been terminated a mischievous floating interest, ready to be attached to any project which could enlist friends sufficient to effect its own favourite and paramount policy of relief; and the counsels of the commonwealth were relieved from the odious incubus of a debtor interest, too great to be controlled; and yet not large enough to maintain an independent footing. During this session discontent began to show itself with the constitution of Kentucky; in consequence of which a bill was brought into the legislature for taking the sense of the people on the question of calling a convention to revise the constitution. The immediate occasion of this dissatisfaction |