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Show WHOSE PUBLIC LANDS? 15 The old states fared well under the Deposit Act as they had earlier, when the income from the public lands was being used to retire the national debt for which they, as the richest and most populous states, had the major obligation. But they were still dissatisfied as they watched each successive new state carved out of the public lands being treated generously with land grants for education and internal improvements. Tariffs and Public Land Proceeds Deposit did not end the cry for distribution which came up regularly in every session of Congress until 1841. Since Jackson would not consent to distribution, Representatives of the landless states brought forth another proposal. Chilton Allan, a Democrat from Kentucky, proposed that each of the Thirteen Original States plus Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee should be given land in the West for purposes of education, in proportion to the donations given the new states. To meet the objection that one state should not hold land in another he advocated leaving the lands thus granted to the Federal government, which would manage and sell them under its laws. To avoid reference to the Public Lands Committee, which was packed with westerners, Allan proposed to refer the matter to a special committee consisting of one member from each state; thus the old states would be in control.32 Samuel F. Vinton, a Whig Representative from Ohio, then proposed an amendment to the Allan bill requiring payment to the public land states of the value of improvements made by them in the public lands, or payment of the amount the public lands would have been assessed for taxes had they been in private ownership. Vinton declared that these proposed grants for education would not be a gratuity to the western states since the government had received from them an equivalent in higher prices for land and speedier sales. 32 Cong. Globe, 24th Cong., 2d sess., Jan. 4, 1837, p. 71. Abijah Mann, a Jacksonian Democratic Representative from New York State, following his leader's line, struck hard at the Allan proposal, declaring that it was "neither more nor less than a new edition of the old and exploded idea of distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, attempted to be concealed under rubbish and verbiage, and gilded over by the patriotic idea of applying it to public education." He declared that "its paternity is suspicious, and its hope falacious and delusive." Kentucky and Tennessee, which led the movement for such grants or distribution had, he declared, made "lawful prize" of the lands within their own boundaries and now wished to share in a new division of the spoils.33 The following year William Cost Johnson, Whig Representative of Maryland, made one of the longest and best reasoned arguments in support of a proposal for the older states to share in the public lands. He went back to the Maryland Constitutional Convention of 1776 to trace his state's position that "each of the United States had an equal right to participate in the benefits of the public lands, the common property of the nation," and quoted from the cessions of the states beginning with New York and concluding with Georgia, which had uniformly stated that the lands thus ceded should be held as a common fund for the use and benefit of all the states according to their respective proportions in the general charge and expenditure. Johnson showed how generously the western states had been treated and expressed the view that it was time the older states should draw similar benefit, now that the lands were no longer needed to repay the public debt for which they had been pledged.34 In 1840 and 1841 the Whigs did their utmost to put through Congress another distribution bill similar to the one Jackson had vetoed. The western states as well as the older ones had borrowed lavishly to finance their internal improvement schemes and to 33 Ibid., p. 72. 34 Cong. Globe, Appendix, 25th Cong., 2d sess., February 1838, p. 342. |