schools, universities, seats of Government, and sa ines, amounting to 12,105,093 acres. It is also particularly applicable to another item, not mentioned before, which is known as the five per cent. fund, from the proceeds of the public lands, for the benefit of roads and canals, amounting in the whole to $5,242,069. These appropriations being made on specific considerations, faithfully performed by the States down to this day, may properly be excluded from our calculations. And this is a response to the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Underwood], who dwelt so energetically on these appropriations, without seeming to be aware of the conditions on which they were granted.

That I may make this more intelligible, let me refer to the act for the admission of Indiana. After setting forth the five reservations and grants already mentioned, it proceeds:

"And provided, always, That the five foregoing provis ions herein offered are on the condition that the convention of the said State shall provide by an ordinance, irrevocable without the consent of the United States, that every and each tract of land sold by the United States, from and after the 1st day of December next, shall be, and remain, exempt from any tax laid by order of any authority of the State, whether for State, county, or township, or any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years from and after the day of sale."

This clause does not stand by itself in the acts admitting the more recent States, but is mixed with other conditions. I will not believe, however, that any discrimination can be made between particular Land States, on the ground of a difference in their conditions which may properly be attributed to accidental circumstances. The provision just quoted is

found substantially in the acts for the admission of Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas So far as these States are concerned, it is a complete consideration, in the nature of satisfaction, for the reservations and grants enjoyed by them. It also helps to illus trate the value of the permanent immunity from taxation belonging to the United States, by exhibiting the concessions made by the United States to assure this franchise to certain moderate quantities of land during the brief space of five years only.

After the constant charges of squandering the public lands and of partiality to the Land States, I think all will be astonished at the small amount to be entered on the debtor side, in the great account between the States and the National Government. This consists of grants for internal improvements, in the whole reaching to only 8,474,473 acres, which, at $1.25 an acre, will be $10,593,091. If this sum be deducted from the estimated value of the immunity from taxation already enjoyed by the United States, we shall still have upwards of $60,000,000 surrendered by the Land States to the nation; or, if we call the annual tax two、 cents an acre, more than double this sum.

In these estimates I have grouped together all the Land States. But, taking separate States, we shall find the same proportionate result. For instance, there is Ohio, with 16,770,984 acres proclaimed for sale down to January 1, 1849. Adopting the basis already employed, and assuming that these lands continued in the possession of the United States after being surveyed and proclaimed an average period of twenty-five years, and that the land tax was one cent an acre, we have $4,192,725 as the value of the im

munity from taxation already enjoyed by the United States in Ohio. From this may be deducted the value of 1,181,134 acres, being grants to this State for internal improvements, at $1.25 per acre, equal to $1,476,367, leaving upwards of two millions-nearly three millions of dollars yielded by this State to the nation.

Take another State- Missouri. It appears that, down to January, 1849, 39,685,609 acres had been proclaimed for sale in this State. Assuming again the basis already employed, and we have $9,908,900 as the value of the immunity from taxation already enjoyed by the United States in Missouri. From this may be deducted the value of 500,000 acres, granted to this State for internal improvements, which, at $1.25 an acre, will amount to $625,000, leaving upwards of nine millions of dollars thus yielded by this State to the nation.

I might in this way proceed with all the Land States individually; but enough has been done to repel the charges against them, and to elucidate their peculiar equity in the premises. On the one side, they have received little very little from the nation; while, on the other side, the nation, by strong considerations of equity, is largely indebted to them. This obligation of itself constitutes an equitable fund to which the Land States may properly resort for assistance in their works of internal improvement, and Congress will show an indifference to the reasonable demands of these States, should it fail to deal with them munificently-in some sort, according to the simple measure of advantage which the nation has already so largely enjoyed at their hands.

Against these clear and well-supported merits of the Land States, the old States can present small claims to consideration. They have waived no right of taxation over lands within their acknowledged jurisdiction; they have made no valuable concessions; they have yielded up no costly franchise. It remains, then, that, with candor and justice, they should recognize the superior-I will not say exclusive-claims of the States within whose borders and under the protection of whose laws the national domain is found.

Thus much for what I have to say in favor of this bill, on the ground of justice to the States in which the lands lie. If this argument did not seem sufficiently conclusive to render any further discussion superfluous, at least from me, I might go forward, and show that the true interests of the whole country of every State in the Union, as of Iowa itself. happily coincident with this claim of justice.

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It will readily occur to all, that the whole country will gain by the increased value of the lands still retained and benefited by the proposed road. But this advantage, though not unimportant, is trivial by the side of the grander gains-commercially, politically, socially and morally-which will necessarily accrue from the opening of a new communication, by which the territory beyond the Mississippi will be brought into connection with the Atlantic seaboard, and by which the distant post of Council Bluffs will become a suburb of Washington. It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence of roads as means of civilization. This, at least, may be said: Where roads

are not, civilization cannot be; and civilization advances as roads are extended. By roads, religion and knowledge are diffused; intercourse of all kinds is promoted; the producer, the manufacturer, and the consumer, are all brought nearer together; commerce is quickened; markets are opened; property, wherever touched by these lines, is changed, as by a magic rod, into new values; and the great current of travel, like that stream of classic fable, or one of the rivers of our own California, hurries in a channel of golden sand. The roads, together with the laws, of ancient Rome, are now better remembered than her victories. The Flaminian and Appian Ways - once trod by returning proconsuls and tributary kings - still remain as beneficent representatives of her departed grandeur. Under God, the road and the schoolmaster are the two chief agents of human improvement. The education begun by the schoolmaster is expanded, liberalized, and completed, by intercourse with the world; and this intercourse finds new opportunities and inducements in every road that is built.

Our country has already done much in this regard. Through a remarkable line of steam communications, chiefly by railroad, its whole population is now, or will be soon, brought close to the borders of Iowa. The cities of the Southern seaboard - Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile. are already stretching their lines in this direction, soon to be completed conductors; while the traveller from all the principal points of the Northern seaboard - from Portland, Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington-now passes without impediment to this remote region, traversing a territory of unexampled