AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES

AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES
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AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES
The periodical being reviewed here is the Nile`s weekly and how it reported the Webster-Hayne Debates. The periodical reported that Hayne drew the attention of the Senate to an error that had been published in a journal whereby Webster had misled the Senate (March, 7 1829). Later on in February 1930, the periodical reported on Mr. Foot's resolution. According to the periodical, 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 is expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands (February 20, 1830). However, Mr. Webster observed, in reply, that the gentleman from South Carolina had mistaken him, if he supposed that it was his wish so to hasten the sales of the public lands, as to throw them into the hands of purchasers who would sell again. His idea only went as far as this; that the price should be fixed as low as as not to prevent the settlement of the lands yet not so low as to prompt speculators to purchase. Mr. W. observed that he could not at all concur with the gentleman from South Carolina, in wishing to restrain the laboring classes of population in the eastern states from going to any part of our territory, where they could better their condition; nor did he suppose such an idea was any where entertained. The observations of the gentleman had opened to him new views of policy on the subject, and he thought he now could perceive why some of our states continued to have such bad roads; it must be for purpose of preventing people from going out of them. The gentleman from South Carolina supposes; that if our population had been confined to the old thirteen states, the aggregate wealth of the country would have been greater than it now is. But sir, it is an error, that the increase of the aggregate of the national wealth, is the object chiefly to be pursued by government. The distribution of the national wealth is an object quite as important as its increase. He was not surprised that the old states, not increasing in population so fast as was expected (for he believed nothing like a decrease was pretended) should be an idea by no means agreeable to gentlemen from those states. We are all reluctant in submitting to the loss of relative importance—but this was nothing more than the the natural condition of a country densely populated in one part, and possessing in another a vast tract of unsettled lands. The plan of the gentleman went to reverse the order of nature, vainly expecting to retain men within a small and comparatively unproductive territory "who have all the world before them who`s to choose". For his own part he was in favor of letting population take its own course; he should experience no feeling of mortification if any of his constituents liked better to settle on the Kansas or the Arkansas,or the lord knows where, within our territory; let them go, and be happier if they could. The gentleman says, our aggregate of wealth would have been greater if our population had been restrained within the limit of the old states, but does he not consider population to be wealth?, And has not this been increased by the settlement of a new and fertile country? Such a country present the most alluring of all prospects to a young and laboring man; it gives him a freehold—it offers to him weight and respectability in society; and above all, it presents to him a prospect of a permanent provision for his children. Sir, these are inducements which never were resisted, and never will be; and were the whole extent of country filled with population up to the Rocky Mountains, these inducements would carry that population forward to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Sir, it is in vain to talk; individuals will seek their own good, and not any artificial aggregate of the national wealth—a young, enterprising and hardy agriculturalist can conceive of nothing better to him than plenty of good, cheap land." Mr. Weber then concluded by moving the indefinite postponement of the resolution (February 20, 1830). Debate on Mr. Foot's resolution, proposing an inquiry into the expediency of abolishing the office of surveyor general of public lands, and for suspending further surveys until those already in market shall have been disposed of (February 13, 1830). Mr. Hayne said, that if the gentlemen who had discussed this proposition had confined themselves strictly to the resolution under consideration, he would have spared the senate the trouble of listening to the few remarks he now proposed to offer. It has been said, and correctly said, by more than one gentleman, that resolutions of inquiry were usually suffered to pass without opposition. The parliamentary practice in this respect was certainly founded in good sense, which regarded such resolutions as intended merely to elicit information, and therefore entitled to favor. But, said Mr. H. I cannot give my assent to the proposition so broadly laid down by some gentlemen, that, because nobody stands committed by a vote of inquiry, therefore every resolution concerning an inquiry—no matter on what subject—must pass almost as a matter of course, and that to discuss or oppose such resolutions is unparliamentarily. The true distinction seems to be this—where information is desired as the basis of legislation, or where the policy is questionable, it was always proper to send the subject to a committee for investigation; but where all the material facts are already known, and there is a fixed and settled opinion in respect to the policy to be pursued, inquiry was unnecessary, and ought to be refused. No one, he thought, could doubt the correctness of the position assumed by the gentleman from Missouri, that no inquiry ought ever to be institute...