The advantage of giving land to those who would settle and cultivate it, was illustrated in one of my speeches, by reciting the case of "Granny White" – well known in her time to all the population of Middle Tennessee, and especially to all who travelled south from Nashville, along the great road which crossed the "divide" between the Cumberland and Harpeth waters, at the evergreen tree which gave name to the gap – the Holly Tree Gap. The aged woman, and her fortunes, were thus introduced into our senatorial debates and lodged on a page of our parliamentary history, to enlighten, by her incidents, the councils of national legislation:
"At the age of sixty, she had been left a widow, in one of the counties in the tide-water region of North Carolina. Her poverty was so extreme, that when she went to the county court to get a couple of little orphan grandchildren bound to her, the Justices refused to let her have them, because she could not give security to keep them off the parish. This compelled her to emigrate; and she set off with the two little boys, upon a journey of eight or nine hundred miles, to what was then called "the Cumberland Settlement." Arrived in the neighborhood of Nashville, a generous-hearted Irishman (his name deserves to be remembered – Thomas McCrory) let her have a corner of his land, on her own terms, – a nominal price and indefinite credit. It was fifty acres in extent, and comprised the two faces of a pair of confronting hills, whose precipitous declivities lacked a few degrees, and but a few, of mathematical perpendicularity. Mr. B. said he knew it well, for he had seen the old lady's pumpkins propped and supported with stakes, to prevent their ponderous weight from tearing up the vine, and rolling to the bottom of the hills. There was just room at their base for a road to run between, and not room for a house, to find a level place for its foundation; for which purpose a part of the hill had to be dug away. Yet, from this hopeless beginning, with the advantage of a little piece of ground that was her own, this aged widow, and two little grandchildren, of eight or nine years old, advanced herself to comparative wealth: money, slaves, horses, cattle; and her fields extended into the valley below, and her orphan grandchildren, raised up to honor and independence: these were the fruits of economy and industry, and a noble illustration of the advantage of giving land to the poor. But the federal government would have demanded sixty-two dollars and fifty cents for that land, cash in hand; and old Granny White and her grandchildren might have lived in misery and sunk into vice, before the opponents of this bill would have taken less."
I quoted the example of all nations, ancient and modern, republican and monarchical, in favor of giving lands, in parcels suitable to their wants, to meritorious cultivators; and denied that there was an instance upon earth, except that of our own federal government, which made merchandise of land to its citizens – exacted the highest price it could obtain – and refused to suffer the country to be settled until it was paid for. The "promised land" was divided among the children of Israel – the women getting a share where there was no man at the head of the family – as with the daughters of Manasseh. All the Atlantic States, when British colonies, were settled upon gratuitous donations, or nominal sales. Kentucky and Tennessee were chiefly settled in the same way. The two Floridas, and Upper and Lower Louisiana, were gratuitously distributed by the kings of Spain to settlers, in quantities adapted to their means of cultivation – and with the whole vacant domain to select from according to their pleasure. Land is now given to settlers in Canada; and £30,000 sterling, has been voted at a single session of Parliament, to aid emigrants in their removal to these homes, and commencing life upon them. The republic of Colombia now gives 400 acres to a settler: other South American republics give more or less. Quoting these examples, I added:
"Such, Mr. President, is the conduct of the free republics of the South. I say republics: for it is the same in all of them, and it would be tedious and monotonous to repeat their numerous decrees. In fact, throughout the New World, from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn (with the single exception of these United States), land, the gift of God to man, is also the gift of the government to its citizens. Nor is this wise policy confined to the New World. It prevails even in Asia; and the present age has seen – we ourselves have seen – published in the capital of the European world, the proclamation of the King of Persia, inviting Christians to go to the ancient kingdom of Cyrus, Cambyses and Darius, and there receive gifts of land – first rate, not refuse – with a total exemption from taxes, and the free enjoyment of their religion. Here is the proclamation: listen to it.
The Proclamation
"'Mirza Mahomed Saul, Ambassador to England, in the name, and by the authority of Abbas Mirza, King of Persia, offers to those who shall emigrate to Persia, gratuitous grants of land, good for the production of wheat, barley, rice, cotton, and fruits, – free from taxes or contributions of any kind, and with the free enjoyment of their religion; THE KING'S OBJECT BEING TO IMPROVE HIS COUNTRY.
"'London, July 8th, 1823.'"
The injustice of holding all lands at one uniform price, waiting for the cultivation of the good land to give value to the poor, and for the poorest to rise to the value of the richest, was shown in a reference to private sales, of all articles; in the whole of which sales the price was graduated to suit different qualities of the same article. The heartless and miserly policy of waiting for government land to be enhanced in value by the neighboring cultivation of private land, was denounced as unjust as well as unwise. The new States of the West were the sufferers by this federal land policy. They were in a different condition from other States. In these others, the local legislatures held the primary disposal of the soil, – so much as remained vacant within their limits, – and being of the same community, made equitable alienations among their constituents. In the new States it was different. The federal government held the primary disposition of the soil; and the majority of Congress (being independent of the people of these States), was less heedful of their wants and wishes. They were as a stepmother, instead of a natural mother: and the federal government being sole purchaser from foreign nations, and sole recipient of Indian cessions, it became the monopolizer of vacant lands in the West: and this monopoly, like all monopolies, resulted in hardships to those upon whom it acted. Few, or none of our public men, had raised their voice against this hard policy before I came into the national councils. My own was soon raised there against it: and it is certain that a great amelioration has taken place in our federal land policy during my time: and that the sentiment of Congress, and that of the public generally, has become much more liberal in land alienations; and is approximating towards the beneficent systems of the rest of the world. But the members in Congress from the new States should not intermit their exertions, nor vary their policy; and should fix their eyes steadily upon the period of the speedy extinction of the federal title to all the lands within the limits of their respective States; – to be effected by pre-emption rights, by donations, and by the sale (of so much as shall be sold), at graduated prices, – adapted to the different qualities of the tracts, to be estimated according to the time it has remained in market unsold – and by liberal grants to objects of general improvement, both national and territorial.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CESSION OF A PART OF THE TERRITORY OF ARKANSAS TO THE CHEROKEE INDIANS
Arkansas was an organized territory, and had been so since the year 1819. Her western boundary was established by act of Congress in May 1824 (chiefly by the exertions of her then delegate, Henry W. Conway), – and was an extension of her existing boundary on that side; and for national and State reasons. It was an outside territory – beyond the Mississippi – a frontier both to Mexico (then brought deep into the Valley of the Mississippi by the Florida treaty which gave away Texas), and to the numerous Indian tribes then being removed from the South Atlantic States to the west of the Mississippi. It was, therefore, a point of national policy to make her strong – to make her a first class State, – both for her own sake and that of the Union, – and equal to all the exigencies of her advanced and frontier position. The extension was on the west – the boundaries on the other three sides being fixed and immovable – and added a fertile belt – a parallelogram of forty miles by three hundred along her whole western border – and which was necessary to compensate for the swamp lands in front on the river, and to give to her certain valuable salt springs there existing, and naturally appurtenant to the territory, and essential to its inhabitants. Even with this extension the territory was still deficient in arable land – not as strong as her frontier position required her to be, nor susceptible (on account of swamps and sterile districts) of the population and cultivation which her superficial contents and large boundaries would imply her to be. Territorially, and in mere extent, the western addition was a fourth part of the territory: agriculturally, and in capacity for population, the addition might be equal to half of the whole territory; and its acquisition was celebrated as a most auspicious event for Arkansas at the time that it occurred.
In the month of May, 1828, by a treaty negotiated at Washington by the Secretary at War, Mr. James Barbour, on one side, and the chiefs of the Cherokee nation on the other, this new western boundary for the territory was abolished – the old line re-established: and what had been an addition to the territory of Arkansas, was ceded to the Cherokees. On the ratification of this treaty several questions arose, all raised by myself – some of principle, some of expediency – as, whether a law of Congress could be abolished by an Indian treaty? and whether it was expedient so to reduce, and thus weaken the territory (and future State) of Arkansas? I was opposed to the treaty, and held the negative of both questions, and argued against them with zeal and perseverance. The supremacy of the treaty-making power I held to be confined to subjects within its sphere, and quoted "Jefferson's Manual," to show that that was the sense in which the clause in the constitution was understood. The treaty-making power was supreme; but that supremacy was within its proper orbit, and free from the invasion of the legislative, executive, or judicial department. The proper objects of treaties were international interests, which neither party could regulate by municipal law, and which required a joint consent, and a double execution, to give it effect. Tried by this test, and this Indian treaty lost its supremacy. The subject was one of ordinary legislation, and specially and exclusively confined to Congress. It was to repeal a law which Congress had made in relation to territory; and to reverse the disposition which Congress had made of a part of its territory. To Congress it belonged to dispose of territory; and to her it belonged to repeal her own laws. The treaty avoided the word "repeal," while doing the thing: it used the word "abolish" – which was the same in effect, and more arrogant and offensive – not appropriate to legislation, and evidently used to avoid the use of a word which would challenge objection. If the word "repeal" had been used, every one would have felt that the ordinary legislation of Congress was flagrantly invaded; and the avoidance of that word, and the substitution of another of the same meaning, could have no effect in legalizing a transaction which would be condemned under its proper name. And so I held the treaty to be invalid for want of a proper subject to act upon, and because it invaded the legislative department.
The inexpediency of the treaty was in the question of crippling and mutilating Arkansas, reducing her to the class of weak States, and that against all the reasons which had induced Congress, four years before, to add on twelve thousand square miles to her domain; and to almost double the productive and inhabitable capacity of the Territory, and future State, by the character of the country added. I felt this wrong to Arkansas doubly, both as a neighbor to my own State, and because, having a friendship for the delegate, as well as for his territory, I had exerted myself to obtain the addition which had been thus cut off. I argued, as I thought, conclusively; but in vain. The treaty was largely ratified, and by a strong slaveholding vote, notwithstanding it curtailed slave territory, and made soil free which was then slave. Anxious to defeat the treaty for the benefit of Arkansas, I strongly presented this consequence, showing that there was, not only legal, but actually slavery upon the amputated part – that these twelve thousand square miles were inhabited, organized into counties, populous in some parts, and with the due proportion of slaves found in a southern and planting State. Nothing would do. It was a southern measure, negotiated, on the record, by a southern secretary at war, in reality by the clerk McKinney; and voted for by nineteen approving slaveholding senators against four dissenting. The affirmative vote was: Messrs. Barton, Berrien, Bouligny, Branch, Ezekiel Chambers, Cobb, King of Alabama, McKinley, McLane of Delaware, Macon, Ridgely, Smith of Maryland, Smith of South Carolina, John Tyler of Virginia, and Williams of Mississippi. The negative was, Messrs. Benton, Eaton, Rowan, and Tazewell. – Mr. Calhoun was then Vice-President, and did not vote; but he was in favor of the treaty, and assisted its ratification through his friends. The House of Representatives voted the appropriations to carry it into effect; and thus acquiesced in the repeal of an act of Congress by the President, Senate, and Cherokee Indians; and these appropriations were voted with the general concurrence of the southern members of the House. And thus another slice, and a pretty large one (twelve thousand square miles), was taken off of slave territory in the former province of Louisiana; which about completed the excision of what had been left for slave State occupation after the Missouri compromise of 1820, and the cession to Texas of contemporaneous date, and previous cessions to Indian tribes. And all this was the work of southern men, who then saw no objection to the Congressional legislation which acted upon slavery in territories – which further curtailed, and even extinguished slave soil in all the vast expanse of the former Louisiana – save and except the comparative little that was left in the State of Missouri and in the mutilated Territory of Arkansas. The reason of the southern members for promoting this amputation of Arkansas in favor of the Cherokees, was simply to assist in inducing their removal by adding the best part of Arkansas, with its salt springs, to the ample millions of acres west of that territory already granted to them; but it was a gratuitous sacrifice, as the large part of the tribe had already emigrated to the seven millions of acres, and the remainder were waiting for moneyed inducements to follow. And besides, the desire for this removal could have no effect upon the constitutional power of Congress to legislate upon slavery in territories, or upon the policy which curtails the boundaries of a future slave State.
I have said that the amputated part of Arkansas was an organized part of the territory, divided into counties, settled and cultivated. Now, what became of these inhabitants? – their property? and possessions? They were bought out by the federal government! A simultaneous act was passed, making a donation of three hundred and twenty acres of land (within the remaining part of Arkansas), to each head of a family who would retire from the amputated part; and subjecting all to military removal that did not retire. It was done. They all withdrew. Three hundred and twenty acres of land in front to attract them, and regular troops in the rear to push them, presented a motive power adequate to its object; and twelve thousand square miles of slave territory was evacuated by its inhabitants, with their flocks, and herds, and slaves; and not a word was said about it; and the event has been forgotten. But it is necessary to recall its recollection, as an important act, in itself, in relation to the new State of Arkansas – as being the work of the South – and as being necessary to be known in order to understand subsequent events.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
RENEWAL OF THE OREGON JOINT OCCUPATION CONVENTION
The American settlement at the mouth of the Columbia, or Oregon, was made in 1811. It was an act of private enterprise, done by the eminent merchant, Mr. John Jacob Astor, of New-York; and the young town christened after his own name, Astoria: but it was done with the countenance and stipulated approbation of the government of the United States; and an officer of the United States navy – the brave Lieutenant Thorn, who was with Decatur at Tripoli, and who afterwards blew up his ship in Nootka Sound to avoid her capture by the savages (blowing himself, crew and savages all into the air), – was allowed to command his (Mr. Astor's) leading vessel, in order to impress upon the enterprise the seal of nationality. This town was captured during the war of 1812, by a ship of war detached for that purpose, by Commodore Hillyar, commanding a British squadron in the Pacific Ocean. No attempt was made to recover it during the war; and, at Ghent, after some efforts on the part of the British commissioners, to set up a title to it, its restitution was stipulated under the general clause which provided for the restoration of all places captured by either party. But it was not restored. An empty ceremony was gone through to satisfy the words of the treaty, and to leave the place in the hands of the British. An American agent, Mr. John Baptist Prevost, was sent to Valparaiso, to go in a British sloop of war (the Blossom) to receive the place, to sign a receipt for it, and leave it in the hands of the British. This was in the autumn of the year 1818; and coincident with that nominal restitution was the conclusion of a convention in London between the United States and British government, for the joint occupation of the Columbia for ten years – Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Rush the American negotiators – if those can be called negotiators who are tied down to particular instructions. The joint occupancy was provided for, and in these words: "That any country claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America, together with its harbors, bays, and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open, for the term of ten years, to the subjects, citizens, and vessels of the two powers; without prejudice to any claim which either party might have to any part of the country." – I was a practising lawyer at St. Louis, no way engaged in politics, at the time this convention was published; but I no sooner saw it than I saw its delusive nature – its one-sidedness – and the whole disastrous consequences which were to result from it to the United States; and immediately wrote and published articles against it: of which the following is an extract:
"This is a specimen of the skill with which the diplomatic art deposits the seeds of a new contestation in the assumed settlement of an existing one, – and gives unequal privileges in words of equality, – and breeds a serious question, to be ended perhaps by war, where no question at all existed. Every word of the article for this joint occupation is a deception and a blunder – suggesting a belief for which there is no foundation, granting privileges for which there is no equivalent, and presenting ambiguities which require to be solved – peradventure by the sword. It speaks as if there was a mutuality of countries on the northwest coast to which the article was applicable, and a mutuality of benefits to accrue to the citizens of both governments by each occupying the country claimed by the other. Not so the fact. There is but one country in question, and that is our own; – and of this the British are to have equal possession with ourselves, and we no possession of theirs. The Columbia is ours; Frazer's River is a British possession to which no American ever went, or ever will go. The convention gives a joint right of occupying the ports and harbors, and of navigating the rivers of each other. This would imply that each government possessed in that quarter, ports, and harbors, and navigable rivers; and were about to bring them into hotch-potch for mutual enjoyment. No such thing. There is but one port, and that the mouth of the Columbia – but one river, and that the Columbia itself: and both port and river our own. We give the equal use of these to the British, and receive nothing in return. The convention says that the "claim" of neither party is to be prejudiced by the joint possession. This admits that Great Britain has a claim – a thing never admitted before by us, nor pretended by her. At Ghent she stated no claim, and could state none. Her ministers merely asked for the river as a boundary, as being the most convenient; and for the use of the harbor at its mouth, as being necessary to their ships and trade; but stated no claim. Our commissioners reported that they (the British commissioners) endeavored 'to lay a nest-egg' for a future pretension; which they failed to do at Ghent in 1815, but succeeded in laying in London in 1818; and before the ten years are out, a full grown fighting chicken will be hatched of that egg. There is no mutuality in any thing. We furnish the whole stake – country, river, harbor; and shall not even maintain the joint use of our own. We shall be driven out of it, and the British remain sole possessors. The fur trade is the object. It will fare with our traders on the Columbia under this convention as it fared with them on the Miami of the Lakes (and on the lakes themselves), under the British treaties of '94 and '96, which admitted British traders into our territories. Our traders will be driven out; and that by the fair competition of trade, even if there should be no foul play. The difference between free and dutied goods, would work that result. The British traders pay no duties: ours pay above an average of fifty per centum. No trade can stand against such odds. But the competition will not be fair. The savages will be incited to kill and rob our traders, and they will be expelled by violence, without waiting the slower, but equally certain process, of expulsion by underselling. The result then is, that we admit the British into our country, our river, and our harbor; and we get no admittance into theirs, for they have none – Frazer's River and New Caledonia being out of the question – that they will become sole possessors of our river, our harbor, and our country; and at the end of the ten years will have an admitted 'claim' to our property, and the actual possession of it."
Thus I wrote in the year 1818, when the joint occupation convention of that year was promulgated. I wrote in advance; and long before the ten years were out, it was all far more than verified. Our traders were not only driven from the mouth of the Columbia River, but from all its springs and branches; – not only from all the Valley of the Columbia, but from the whole region of the Rocky Mountains between 49 and 42 degrees; – not only from all this mountain region, but from the upper waters of all our far distant rivers – the Missouri, the Yellow Stone, the Big Horn, the North Platte; and all their mountain tributaries. And, by authentic reports made to our government, not less than five hundred of our citizens had been killed, nor less than five hundred thousand dollars worth of goods and furs robbed from them; – the British remaining the undisturbed possessors of all the Valley of the Columbia, acting as its masters, and building forts from the sea to the mountains. This was the effect of the first joint occupation treaty, and every body in the West saw its approaching termination with pleasure; but the false step which the government had made induced another. They had admitted a "claim" on the part of Great Britain, and given her the sole, under the name of a joint, possession; and now to get her out was the difficulty. It could not be done; and the United States agreed to a further continued "joint" occupation (as it was illusively called in the renewed convention), not for ten years more, but "indefinitely," determinable on one year's notice from either party to the other. The reason for this indefinite, and injurious continuance, was set forth in the preamble to the renewed convention (Mr. Gallatin now the sole United States negotiator); and recited that the two governments "being desirous to prevent, as far as possible, all hazard of misunderstanding, and with a view to give further time for maturing measures which shall have for their object a more definite settlement of the claims of each party to the said territory;" did thereupon agree to renew the joint occupation article of the convention of 1818, &c. Thus, we had, by our diplomacy in 1818, and by the permitted non-execution of the Ghent treaty in the delivery of the post and country, hatched a question which threatened a "misunderstanding" between the two countries; and for maturing measures for the settlement of which indefinite time was required – and granted – Great Britain remaining, in the mean time, sole occupant of the whole country. This was all that she could ask, and all that we could grant, even if we actually intended to give up the country.
I was a member of the Senate when this renewed convention was sent in for ratification, and opposed it with all the zeal and ability of which I was master: but in vain. The weight of the administration, the indifference of many to a remote object, the desire to put off a difficulty, and the delusive argument that we could terminate it at any time – (a consolation so captivating to gentle temperaments) – were too strong for reason and fact; and I was left in a small minority on the question of ratification. But I did not limit myself to opposition to the treaty. I proposed, as well as opposed; and digested my opinions into three resolves; and had them spread on the executive journal, and made part of our parliamentary history for future reference.
The resolves were: 1. "That it is not expedient for the United States and Great Britain to treat further in relation to their claims on the northwest coast of America, on the basis of a joint occupation by their respective citizens. 2. That it is expedient that the joint-occupation article in the convention of 1818 be allowed to expire upon its own limitation. 3. That it is expedient for the government of the United States to continue to treat with His Britannic Majesty in relation to said claims, on the basis of a separation of interests, and the establishment of a permanent boundary between their dominions westward of the Rocky Mountains, in the shortest possible time." These resolves were not voted upon; but the negative vote on the ratification of the convention showed what the vote would have been if it had been taken. That negative vote was – Messrs. Benton, Thomas W. Cobb of Georgia, Eaton of Tennessee, Ellis of Mississippi, Johnson of Kentucky, Kane of Illinois, and Rowan of Kentucky – in all 7. Eighteen years afterwards, and when we had got to the cry of "inevitable war," I had the gratification to see the whole Senate, all Congress, and all the United States, occupy the same ground in relation to this joint occupation on which only seven senators stood at the time the convention for it was ratified.