not defend ourselves none will defend us; if we yield we will be more and more pressed as we recede; and if we submit we will be trampled under foot. Be assured that emancipation itself would not satisfy these fanatics: that gained, the

next step would be to raise the negroes to a social and political equality with the whites; and that being effected, we would soon find the present condition of the two races reversed. They and their northern allies would be the masters, and we the slaves; the condition of the white race in the British West India Islands, bad as it is, would be happiness to ours. There the mother country is interested in sustaining the supremacy of the European race. It is true that the authority of the former master is destroyed, but the African will there still be a slave, not to individuals but to the community,-forced to labor, not by the authority of the overseer, but by the bayonet of the soldiery and the rod of the civil magistrate.

Surrounded as the slaveholding States are with such imminent perils, I rejoice to think that our means of defence are ample, if we shall prove to have the intelligence and spirit to see and apply them before it is too late. All we want is concert, to lay aside all party differences, and unite with zeal and energy in repelling approaching dangers. Let there be concert of action, and we shall find ample means of security without resorting to secession or disunion. I speak with full knowledge and a thorough examination of the subject, and for one, see my way clearly. One thing alarms me-the eager pursuit of gain which overspreads the land, and which absorbs every faculty of the mind and every feeling of the heart. Of all passions avarice is the most blind and compromising -the last to see and the first to yield to danger. I dare not hope that any thing I can say will arouse the South to a due sense of danger; I fear it is beyond the power of mortal voice to awaken it in time from the fatal security into which it has fallen.

SPEECH

On his proposition to cede the Public Lands to the new States upon the payment of one-third of the gross amount of the sales; delivered in the Senate February 7th, 1837.

[THE Bill to suspend the sale of the Public Lands being under consideration, Mr. Calhoun offered the following as a substitute:—

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all the public lands within the States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, with the exception of the sites of fortifications, navy and dock yards, arsenals, magazines, and all other public buildings, be ceded to the States within the limits of which they are respectively situated, on the following conditions:

First. That the said States shall severally pass acts, to be irrevocable, that they will annually pay to the United States thirty-three and one-third per cent. on the gross amount of the sales of such lands, on or before the first day of February of each succeeding year.

Secondly. That the minimum price, as now fixed by law, shall remain unchanged until the first day of January, eighteen hundred and forty-two; after which time, the price of all lands heretofore offered at public sale, and then remaining unsold ten years or upwards preceding the first day of January aforesaid, may be reduced by said States to a price not less than per acre; and all lands that may have been offered at public sale, and remaining unsold fifteen years or upwards, preceding the first day of January, eighteen hundred and fortyseven, may thereafter be reduced by said States to a price not less than per acre; and all lands that may have been offered at public sale, and remaining unsold twenty years or upwards, preceding the first day of January, eighteen hundred and fifty-two, may then be reduced by said States to a price not less than per acre; and all lands that may have been offered at public sale, and remaining unsold twenty years or upwards, preceding the first day of January, eigh

teen hundred and fifty-seven, may thereafter be reduced by said States to a price not less than per acre; and all lands that may have been offered at public sale, and remaining unsold thirty years or upwards, preceding the first day of January, eighteen hundred and sixtytwo, may thereafter be reduced by said States to a price not less than

per acre; and all lands that shall have been offered at public sale, and remaining unsold thirty-five years or upwards, shall be ceded immediately to the States in which said lands are situate: Provided, That all lands which shall remain unsold after having been offered at public sale for ten years, and which do not come under the above provisions, shall be subject to the provisions of graduation and cession aforesaid at the respective periods of ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five years after said sale, commencing from the expiration of ten years after the same had been offered at public sale.

Thirdly. That the lands shall be subject to the same legal subdivisions in the sale and survey as is now provided by law, reserving for each township the sixteenth section, or the substitute, as heretofore provided by law; and the land not yet offered for sale, shall be first offered by the State at public auction, and be sold, for cash only, in the manner now provided by law. And any land now or hereafter remaining unsold after the same shall have been offered for sale at public auction, shall be subject to entry for cash only, according to the graduation which may be fixed by the States respectively under the provisions of this act.

Fourth. This cession, together with the portion of the sales to be retained by the States respectively under the provisions of this act, shall be in full of the five per cent. fund, or any part thereof, not already advanced to any State; and the said States shall be exclusively liable for all charges that may hereafter accrue from the surveys, sales, and management of the public lands, and extinguishment of Indian title within the limits of said States respectively.

Fifth. That, on a failure to comply with any of the above conditions, or a violation of the same, on the part of any of the said States, the cession herein made to the State failing to comply with, or violating said conditions, shall be thereby rendered null and void; and all grants or titles thereafter made by said State, for any portion of the public lands within the limits of the same ceded by this act, shall be, and is hereby declared to be null and void, and of no effect whatever.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That, whenever the President of the United States shall be officially notified that any of the said States has passed an act in compliance with the above conditions, it shall be his duty forthwith to adopt such measures as he shall think proper to close the land-offices, including the surveying department, within the limits of said State; and that the commissions of all officers connected therewith shall expire on a day to be fixed by him, but which day shall not be beyond six months from the day he received the official notification of the passage of said act.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That on such notification being made, the said State shall be relieved from all compacts, acts, or ordinances, imposing restrictions on the right of said State to tax any lands by her authority subsequent to the sale thereof, ceded by this act; and all maps, titles, records, books, documents, and papers, in the General Land-Office at Washington, relative to said lands, shall be subject to the order and disposition of the Executive of said State.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That all lands of the United States within the limits of the State of Tennessee, with the exceptions enumerated in the first section of this act, shall be, and the same are hereby, ceded to said State.

In reply to the objections urged against this substitute by Messrs. Benton and Buchanan, Mr. Calhoun said:]

He wished the Senate to be assured that, in offering the proposition he had presented, he had no indirect or concealed purpose. He was perfectly sincere in proposing and advocating it, and that on the highest possible ground. When the Senate entered upon the present discussion, he had had little thought of offering a proposition like this. He had, indeed, always seen that there was a period coming when this Government must cede to the new States the possession of their own soil; but he had never thought till now that period was so What he had seen this session, however, and especially the nature and character of the bill which was now likely to pass, had fully satisfied him that the time had arrived. There were at present eighteen Senators from the new States. In four years there would be six more, which would make

near.

twenty-four. All, therefore, must see that, in a very short period, those States would have this question in their own hands. And it had been openly said, that they ought not to accept of the present proposition, because they would soon be able to get better terms. He thought, therefore, that, instead of attempting to resist any longer what must eventually happen, it would be better for all concerned that Congress should yield at once to the force of circumstances, and cede the public domain. His objects in this movement were high and solemn objects. He wished to break down the vassalage of the new States. He desired that this Government should cease to hold the relation of a landlord. He wished, further, to draw this great fund out of the vortex of the Presidential contest, with which, it had openly been announced to the Senate, there was an avowed design to connect it. He thought the country had been sufficiently agitated, corrupted, and debased by the influence of that contest; and he wished to take this great engine out of the hands of power. If he were a candidate for the presidency, he might desire to leave it there. He wished to go further he sought to remove the immense amount of patronage connected with the management, of this domain-a patronage which had corrupted both the old and the new States to an enormous extent. He sought to counteract the centralism, which was the great danger of this Government, and thereby to preserve the liberties of the people much longer than would otherwise be possible. As to what was to be received for these lands, he cared nothing about it. He would have consented at once to yield the whole, and withdraw altogether the landlordship of the General Government over them, had he not believed that it would be most for the benefit of the new States themselves that it should continue somewhat longer.

These were the views which had induced him to present the amendment. He offered no gilded pill. He threw in no apple of discord. He was no bidder for popularity. He pre