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Show 12 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Tariff protection was essential for the infant industries then springing up and should be maintained at its existing level, if not increased. Reduction in the price of government land would have a baneful effect on land values elsewhere, would drain off population to the West, and, some feared, would aid in making that region the dominant section of the country. Cession of land to the states, as Clay was later to say, would be tantamount to robbing the Original States of a share in valuable property which they had created. Free land or a reduction in the price of government land would likewise rob the older states of some of the benefits they hoped to receive from sharing the proceeds of the public lands. Clay favored internal improvements through land grants and government loans, but saw little chance to secure the adoption of extensive programs of construction because of Jackson's certain opposition and threat of veto. Distribution of the proceeds of land sales would bring to each state a considerable sum for whatever purpose it might choose, including internal improvements. True, distribution according to congressional representation would assure the older and more populous states the lion's share, but Clay included in his proposed distribution scheme a smart device to win western support. Each public land state was to receive a bonus of 12'/2 percent of the net income from sales of land within its borders, along with its share of the remaining 87 x/i percent. The bait of the bonus was calculated to count heavily with western Representatives, as it did. Three of the seven public land states would receive much more from the bonus than from their share of the remainder, and all seven would fare more favorably than if there were no bonus.24 24 In the American State Papers, Public Lands, VI, 451, is a table showing what the allotments would be after deducting 15 percent of the proceeds and on p. 515 is a table showing the gross receipts from the lands in the various stales. In his annual message to Congress of December 8, 1829, Jackson had favored apportionment of the surplus revenue among the states when the public debt was extinguished. James D. Richardson, Messages and Papersof the Presidents, II, 452. Sources of National Income and Reduction m the Debt* (in thousands) Total Federal Customs Land Debt Receipts Receipts Sales 1831 $28,527 $24,224 $3,211 $39,123 1832 31,866 28,465 2,623 24,322 1833 33,948 29,033 3,968 7,012 1834 21,792 16,215 4,858 4,760 1835 35,430 19,391 14,758 38 1836 50,827 23,410 24,877 38 H Historical Statistics of the United States (Washington, 1960), p. 712. During the debate on Clay's distribution bill in 1832-33 and again on Jackson's veto message various arguments were set forth that were to be repeatedly advanced in the intersectional combat over "whose public lands." Stated simply, the Northeast wanted to share in the proceeds of the public lands which the Original States either had ceded or had helped to buy, and it wished to keep the price of western land at a level that would not drain off its population. The South, fearing the growth of Federal power, disliked Federal handouts through distribution, which might tend to aggrandize the central government and cause the states to look to it increasingly for gratuities. The West wanted low land prices or free land, and was anxious to have the lands ceded to the states, which presumably would administer them in a way more satisfactory to local interests.25 Both East and West took a sectional 25 The congressional debates on the distribution measure may be followed in the Register of Debates, 22d Cong., 1st sess. The Senate vote on distribution on July 3, 1832, as analyzed by Henry Tatter is interesting: Northeast Old South West For 18 1 7 Against 2 9 7 Henry Tatter, "The Preferential Treatment of the Actual Settler in the Primary Disposition of the Vacant Lands in the United States" (Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1932), p. 261. |
