thereof, as exhibited in the preceding annual statement for the year 1827, with notes in relation to the increase of the registered and enrolled tonnage, respectively, in the year 1828. By this statement it appears that the total amount of vessels built in the several districts of the United States, during the year 1828, was
| Tons. | 95ths. | |
| Registered tonnage, | 45,716 | 66 |
| Enrolled do. | 52,658 | 87 |
| 98,375 | 58 |
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
T. L. SMITH, register.
Hon. Saml. D. Ingham, secretary of the treasury.
[Gross amount of tonnage, after the correction of the lists in 1818
1,225,184 tons.
The amount has been increased every year, until it has reached the aggregate of
1,706,259 tons.
Shewing an increase of 481,055 tons in ten years, or of thirty three per cent.
In the tariff year of 1824 the amount was 1,589,163 tons. In 1825 1,706,239
| Increase in 4 years | 317,076 | ||
| Registered. | Enrolled, &c. | ||
| 1818 | 606,088 | 609,095 | |
| 1828 | 812,619 | 928,871 | |
| Increase | 206,531 | 319,776 |
Is commerce destroyed—or do the merchants and others build ships that they may rot without being used?
Note added by the editors of the Register.]
DEBATE IN THE SENATE.
January 20.
Mr. Foot's resolution being under consideration,
Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts, said, on rising, that [nothing had been further from his intention, than to take any part in the discussion of this resolution. It proposed only an inquiry on a subject of much importance, and one in regard to which it might strike the mind of the mover, and of other gentlemen, that inquiry and investigation would be useful. Although (said Mr. W.)] I am one of those who do not perceive any particular utility in instituting the inquiry, I have nevertheless, not seen that harm would be likely to result from adopting the resolution. Indeed, it gives no new powers, and hardly imposes any new duty on the committee. All that the resolution proposes should be done, the committee is quite competent, without the resolution, to do by virtue of its ordinary powers. But, sir, though I have felt quite indifferent about the passing of the resolution, yet opinions were expressed yesterday on the general subject of the public lands, and on some other subjects, by the gentleman from South Carolina, so widely different from my own, that I am not willing to let the occasion pass without some reply. If I deemed the resolution as originally proposed hardly necessary, still less do I think it either necessary or expedient to adopt it, since a second branch has been added to it today. By this second branch, the committee is to be instructed to inquire whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands.
Now it appears, that, in forty years, Mr. President, we have sold no more than about twenty millions of acres of public lands. The annual sales do not now exceed, and never have exceeded, one millions of acres. A million a year is, according to our experience, as much as the increase of population can bring into settlement. And, it appears, also, that we have, at this moment, sir, surveyed and in the market, ready for sale, two hundred and ten millions of acres, or thereabouts. All this vast mass, at this moment, lies on our hands, for mere want of purchasers. Can any man, looking to the real interests of the country and the people, seriously think of inquiring, whether we ought not still faster to hasten the public surveys, and to bring, still more and more rapidly, other vast quantities into the market? The truth is, that rapidly as population has increased, the surveys have, nevertheless, out-ran out wants. There are more lands than purchasers. They are now sold a low prices, and taken up as fast as the increase of people furnishes hands to take them up. It is obvious, that no artificial regulation, no forcing of sales, no giving away of the lands even, can produce any great and sudden augmentation of population. The ratio of increase, though great, has yet its bounds. Hands for labor are multiplied only at a certain rate. The lands cannot be settled but by settlers; nor faster than settlers can be found. A system, if now adopted, of forcing sales, at whatever prices, may have the effect of throwing large quantities into the hands of individuals, who would, in this way, in time, become themselves competitors with the government in the sale of land. My own opinion has uniformly been, that the public lands should be offered freely, and at low prices, so as to encourage settlement and cultivation as rapidly as the increasing population of the country is competent to extend settlement and cultivation.
Every actual settler should be able to buy good land, at a cheap rate; but, on the other hand, speculation by individuals, on a large scale, should not be encouraged; nor should the value of all lands, sold or unsold, be reduced to nothing, by throwing new and vast quantities into the market at prices merely nominal.
I now proceed, sir, to some of the opinions expressed by the gentleman from South Carolina. Two or three topics were touched by him, in regard to which he expressed sentiments in which I do not at all concur.
In the first place, sir, the honorable gentleman spoke of the whole course and policy of the government, towards those who have purchased and settled the public lands; and seemed to think this policy wrong. He held it to have been, from the first, hard and rigorous; he was of opinion that the United States had acted towards those who subdued the western wilderness, in the spirit of a step-mother; that the public domain, had been improperly regarded as a source of revenue; and that we had rigidly compelled payment for that which ought to have been given away. He said we ought to have followed the analogy of other governments, which had acted on a much more liberal system than ours, in planting colonies. He dwelt, particularly, upon the settlement of America by colonists from Europe; and reminded us, that their governments had not exacted from those colonists payment for the soil, and he lamented that we had not followed that example, and pursued the same liberal course towards our own emigrants to the west.
Now, sir, I deny, altogether, that there has been anything harsh or severe in the policy of the government towards the new states of the west. On the contrary, I maintain, that it has uniformly pursued, towards those states, a liberal and enlightened system, such as its own duty allowed and requries; and such as their interests and welfare demanded. The government has been no step-mother to the new states. She has not been careless of their interests, nor deaf to their requests, but from the first moment, when the territories which now form those states were ceded to the union, down to the time in which I am now speaking, it has been the invariable object of the government, to dispose of the soil, according to the true spirit of the obligation under which it received it; to hasten its settlement and cultivation, as far and as fast as practicable; and to rear the new communities into equal and independent states, at the earliest moment of their being able, by their numbers, to form a regular government.
I do not admit, sir, that the analogy to which the gentleman refers us, is just, or that the cases are at all similar. There is no resemblance between the cases upon which a statesman can found an argument. The original North American colonists either fled from Europe, like our New England ancestors, to avoid persecution, or came hither at their own charges, and often at the ruin of their fortunes, as private adventurers. Generally speaking, they derived neither succour nor protection from their governments at home. Wide, indeed, is the difference between those cases and ours. From the very origin of the government, these western lands, and the just protection of those who had settled or should settle
