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 Covers Spring 5.0

FIFTH EDITION

Craig Walls

MANNING
vi CONTENTS

2 Developing web applications 29

2.1 Displaying information 30
Establishing the domain 31 ■ Creating a controller class 32
Designing the view 35
2.2 Processing form submission 40
2.3 Validating form input 45
Declaring validation rules 46 Performing validation at
■

form binding 48 Displaying validation errors 49

■

2.4 Working with view controllers 51

2.5 Choosing a view template library 52
Caching templates 54

3 Working with data 56

3.1 Reading and writing data with JDBC 57
Adapting the domain for persistence 59 Working with
■

JdbcTemplate 60 Defining a schema and preloading data

■
64
Inserting data 66
3.2 Persisting data with Spring Data JPA 75
Adding Spring Data JPA to the project 76 Annotating the ■

domain as entities 76 Declaring JPA repositories 80

■

Customizing JPA repositories 81

4 Securing Spring 84
4.1 Enabling Spring Security 85
4.2 Configuring Spring Security 86
In-memory user store 88 JDBC-based user store
■
89
LDAP-backed user store 92 Customizing user
■

authentication 96
4.3 Securing web requests 103
Securing requests 104 Creating a custom login page 106
■

Logging out 109 Preventing cross-site request forgery 109

■

4.4 Knowing your user 110

5 Working with configuration properties 114

5.1 Fine-tuning autoconfiguration 115
Understanding Spring’s environment abstraction 116
Configuring a data source 117 Configuring the embedded
■

server 119 Configuring logging 120 Using special

■ ■

property values 121

 CONTENTS vii

5.2 Creating your own configuration properties 122

Defining configuration properties holders 124 ■ Declaring
configuration property metadata 126
5.3 Configuring with profiles 129
Defining profile-specific properties 130 Activating profiles
■ 131
Conditionally creating beans with profiles 132

PART 2 INTEGRATED SPRING .......................................135

6 Creating REST services 137

6.1 Writing RESTful controllers 138
Retrieving data from the server 140 Sending data to the
■

server 145 Updating data on the server 146 Deleting data

■ ■

from the server 148

6.2 Enabling hypermedia 149
Adding hyperlinks 152 Creating resource assemblers 154
■

Naming embedded relationships 159

6.3 Enabling data-backed services 160
Adjusting resource paths and relation names 162 Paging and ■

sorting 164 Adding custom endpoints 165 Adding custom

■ ■

hyperlinks to Spring Data endpoints 167

7 Consuming REST services 169

7.1 Consuming REST endpoints with RestTemplate 170
GETting resources 172 PUTting resources 173
■

DELETEing resources 174 POSTing resource data

■ 174
7.2 Navigating REST APIs with Traverson 175

8 Sending messages asynchronously 178

8.1 Sending messages with JMS 179
Setting up JMS 179 Sending messages with JmsTemplate 181
■

Receiving JMS messages 188

8.2 Working with RabbitMQ and AMQP 192
Adding RabbitMQ to Spring 193 Sending messages with
■

RabbitTemplate 194 Receiving message from RabbitMQ 198

■

8.3 Messaging with Kafka 202

Setting up Spring for Kafka messaging 203 Sending messages
■

with KafkaTemplate 204 Writing Kafka listeners 206

■
viii CONTENTS

9 Integrating Spring 209

9.1 Declaring a simple integration flow 210
Defining integration flows with XML 211 Configuring ■

integration flows in Java 213 Using Spring Integration’s

■

DSL configuration 215

9.2 Surveying the Spring Integration landscape 216
Message channels 217 Filters 219 Transformers 220
■ ■

Routers 221 Splitters 223 Service activators 225

■ ■

Gateways 227 Channel adapters 228 Endpoint

■ ■

modules 230
9.3 Creating an email integration flow 231

PART 3 REACTIVE SPRING ...........................................239

10 Introducing Reactor
10.1
241
Understanding reactive programming 242
Defining Reactive Streams 243
10.2 Getting started with Reactor 245
Diagramming reactive flows 246 ■ Adding Reactor
dependencies 247
10.3 Applying common reactive operations 248
Creating reactive types 249 Combining reactive types 253
■

Transforming and filtering reactive streams 257 Performing■

logic operations on reactive types 266

11 Developing reactive APIs 269

11.1 Working with Spring WebFlux 269
Introducing Spring WebFlux 271 ■ Writing reactive
controllers 272
11.2 Defining functional request handlers 276
11.3 Testing reactive controllers 279
Testing GET requests 279 Testing POST requests 282
■

Testing with a live server 284

11.4 Consuming REST APIs reactively 285
GETting resources 285 Sending resources 287
■

Deleting resources 288 Handling errors 289

■

Exchanging requests 290

 CONTENTS ix

11.5 Securing reactive web APIs 292

Configuring reactive web security 292 ■ Configuring a reactive
user details service 294

12 Persisting data reactively 296

12.1 Understanding Spring Data’s reactive story 297
Spring Data reactive distilled 297 Converting between
■

reactive and non-reactive types 298 Developing reactive

■

repositories 300
12.2 Working with reactive Cassandra repositories 300
Enabling Spring Data Cassandra 301 Understanding Cassandra■

data modeling 303 Mapping domain types for Cassandra

■

persistence 304 Writing reactive Cassandra repositories 309

■

12.3 Writing reactive MongoDB repositories 312

Enabling Spring Data MongoDB 312 Mapping domain types ■

to documents 314 Writing reactive MongoDB repository

■

interfaces 317

PART 4 CLOUD-NATIVE SPRING ....................................321

13 Discovering services 323

13.1 Thinking in microservices 324
13.2 Setting up a service registry 326
Configuring Eureka 330 ■ Scaling Eureka 333
13.3 Registering and discovering services 334
Configuring Eureka client properties 335 ■ Consuming
services 337

14 Managing configuration 343

14.1 Sharing configuration 344
14.2 Running Config Server 345
Enabling Config Server 346 ■
Populating the configuration
repository 349
14.3 Consuming shared configuration 352
14.4 Serving application- and profile-specific properties 353
Serving application-specific properties 354 ■ Serving properties
from profiles 355
14.5 Keeping configuration properties secret 357
Encrypting properties in Git 357 ■ Storing secrets in Vault 360
x CONTENTS

14.6 Refreshing configuration properties on the fly 364

Manually refreshing configuration properties 365
Automatically refreshing configuration properties 367

15 Handling failure and latency 376

15.1 Understanding circuit breakers 376
15.2 Declaring circuit breakers 378
Mitigating latency 381 ■
Managing circuit breaker
thresholds 382
15.3 Monitoring failures 383
Introducing the Hystrix dashboard 384 ■
Understanding Hystrix
thread pools 387
15.4 Aggregating multiple Hystrix streams 389

PART 5 DEPLOYED SPRING ..........................................393

16 Working with Spring Boot Actuator 395

16.1 Introducing Actuator 396
Configuring Actuator’s base path 397 ■
Enabling and
disabling Actuator endpoints 398
16.2 Consuming Actuator endpoints 399
Fetching essential application information 400 Viewing ■

configuration details 403 Viewing application activity 411

■

Tapping runtime metrics 413

16.3 Customizing Actuator 416
Contributing information to the /info endpoint 416
Defining custom health indicators 421 Registering
■

custom metrics 422 Creating custom endpoints 424

■

16.4 Securing Actuator 426

17 Administering Spring 429

17.1 Using the Spring Boot Admin 430
Creating an Admin server 430 ■
Registering Admin clients 431
17.2 Exploring the Admin server 435
Viewing general application health and information 436
Watching key metrics 437 Examining environment
■

properties 438 Viewing and setting logging levels 439

■

Monitoring threads 440 Tracing HTTP requests 441

■
 CONTENTS xi

17.3 Securing the Admin server 442

Enabling login in the Admin server 443 ■ Authenticating with
the Actuator 444

18 Monitoring Spring with JMX 446

18.1 Working with Actuator MBeans 446
18.2 Creating your own MBeans 449
18.3 Sending notifications 451

19 Deploying Spring 454

19.1 Weighing deployment options 455
19.2 Building and deploying WAR files 456
19.3 Pushing JAR files to Cloud Foundry 458
19.4 Running Spring Boot in a Docker container 461
19.5 The end is where we begin 465

appendix Bootstrapping Spring applications 466

index 487
 preface
After nearly 15 years of working with Spring and having written five editions of this
book (not to mention Spring Boot in Action), you’d think that it’d be hard to come up
with something exciting and new to say about Spring when writing the preface for this
book. But nothing could be further from the truth!
Every single release of Spring, Spring Boot, and all of the other projects in the
Spring ecosystem unleashes some new amazing capabilities that rekindle the fun in
developing applications. With Spring reaching a significant milestone with its 5.0
release and Spring Boot releasing version 2.0, there’s so much more Spring to enjoy
that it was a no-brainer to write another edition of Spring in Action.
The big story of Spring 5 is reactive programming support, including Spring Web-
Flux, a brand new reactive web framework that borrows its programming model from
Spring MVC, allowing developers to create web applications that scale better and make
better use of fewer threads. Moving toward the backend of a Spring application, the lat-
est edition of Spring Data enables the creation of reactive, non-blocking data reposito-
ries. And all of this is built on top of Project Reactor, a Java library for working with
reactive types.
In addition to the new reactive programming features of Spring 5, Spring Boot 2
now provides even more autoconfiguration support than ever before as well as a com-
pletely reimagined Actuator for peeking into and manipulating a running application.
What’s more, as developers look to break down their monolithic applications into
discrete microservices, Spring Cloud provides facilities that make it easy to configure
and discover microservices, as well as fortify them so they’re more resilient to failure.

xiii
xiv PREFACE

I’m happy to say that this fifth edition of Spring in Action covers all of this and
more! If you’re a seasoned veteran with Spring, Spring in Action, Fifth Edition will be
your guide to everything new that Spring has to offer. On the other hand, if you’re
new to Spring, then there’s no better time than now to get in on the action and the
first few chapters will get you up and running in no time!
It’s been an exciting 15 years of working with Spring. And now that I’ve written this
fifth edition of Spring in Action, I’m eager to share that excitement with you!
 acknowledgments
One of the most amazing things that Spring and Spring Boot do is to automatically
provide all of the foundational plumbing for an application, leaving you as a devel-
oper to focus primarily on the logic that’s unique to your application. Unfortunately,
no such magic exists for writing a book. Or does it?
At Manning, there were several people working their magic to make sure that this
book is the best it can possibly be. Many thanks in particular to Jenny Stout, my devel-
opment editor, and to the production team, including project manager Janet Vail,
copyeditors Andy Carroll and Frances Buran, and proofreaders Katie Tennant and
Melody Dolab. Thanks, too, to technical proofer Joshua White who was thorough
and helpful.
Along the way, we got feedback from several peer reviewers who made sure that the
book stayed on target and covered the right stuff. For this, my thanks goes to Andrea
Barisone, Arnaldo Ayala, Bill Fly, Colin Joyce, Daniel Vaughan, David Witherspoon,
Eddu Melendez, Iain Campbell, Jettro Coenradie, John Gunvaldson, Markus Matzker,
Nick Rakochy, Nusry Firdousi, Piotr Kafel, Raphael Villela, Riccardo Noviello, Sergio
Fernandez Gonzalez, Sergiy Pylypets, Thiago Presa, Thorsten Weber, Waldemar
Modzelewski, Yagiz Erkan, and Željko Trogrlić.
As always, there’d be absolutely no point in writing this book if it weren’t for the
amazing work done by the members of the Spring engineering team. I’m amazed at
what you’ve created and how we continue to change how software is developed.
Many thanks to my fellow speakers on the No Fluff/Just Stuff tour. I continue to
learn so much from every one of you. I especially want to thank Brian Sletten, Nate

xv
xvi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Schutta, and Ken Kousen for conversations and emails about Spring that have helped
shape this book.
Once again, I’d like to thank the Phoenicians. You know what you did.
Finally, to my beautiful wife Raymie, the love of my life, my sweetest dream, and my
inspiration: Thank you for your encouragement and for putting up with another book
project. And to my sweet and wonderful girls, Maisy and Madi: I am so proud of you
and of the amazing young ladies you are becoming. I love all of you more than you
can imagine or I can possible express.
 about this book
Spring in Action, Fifth Edition was written to equip you to build amazing applications
using the Spring Framework, Spring Boot, and a variety of ancillary members of the
Spring ecosystem. It begins by showing you how to develop web-based, database-
backed Java applications with Spring and Spring Boot. It then expands on the essen-
tials by showing how to integrate with other applications, program using reactive
types, and then break an application into discrete microservices. Finally, it discusses
how to ready an application for deployment.
Although all of the projects in the Spring ecosystem provide excellent documenta-
tion, this book does something that none of the reference documents do: provide a
hands-on, project-driven guide to bringing the elements of Spring together to build a
real application.

Who should read this book

Spring in Action, 5th edition is for Java developers who want to get started with Spring
Boot and the Spring Framework as well as for seasoned Spring developers who want to
go beyond the basics and learn the newest features of Spring.

How this book is organized: a roadmap

The book has 5 parts spanning 19 chapters. Part 1 covers the foundational topics of
building Spring applications:
■ Chapter 1 introduces Spring and Spring Boot and how to initialize a Spring
project. In this chapter, you’ll take the first steps toward building a Spring appli-
cation that you’ll expand upon throughout the course of the book.

xvii
xviii ABOUT THIS BOOK

■ Chapter 2 discusses building the web layer of an application using Spring MVC.
In this chapter, you’ll build controllers that handle web requests and views that
render information in the web browser.
■ Chapter 3 delves into the backend of a Spring application where data is per-
sisted to a relational database.
■ In chapter 4, you’ll use Spring Security to authenticate users and prevent unau-
thorized access to an application.
■ Chapter 5 reveals how to configure a Spring application using Spring Boot con-
figuration properties. You’ll also learn how to selectively apply configuration
using profiles.
Part 2 covers topics that help integrate your Spring application with other applications:
■ Chapter 6 expands on the discussion of Spring MVC started in chapter 2 by
looking at how to write REST APIs in Spring.
■ Chapter 7 turns the tables on chapter 6 to show how a Spring application can
consume a REST API.
■ Chapter 8 looks at using asynchronous communication to enable a Spring
application to both send and receive messages using the Java Message Service,
RabbitMQ, or Kafka.
■ Chapter 9 discusses declarative application integration using the Spring Inte-
gration project.
Part 3 explores the exciting new support for reactive programming in Spring:
■ Chapter 10 introduces Project Reactor, the reactive programming library that
underpins Spring 5’s reactive features.
■ Chapter 11 revisits REST API development, introducing Spring WebFlex, a new
web framework that borrows much from Spring MVC while offering a new reac-
tive model for web development.
■ Chapter 12 takes a look at writing reactive data persistence with Spring Data to
read and write data to Cassandra and Mongo databases.
Part 4 breaks down the monolithic application model, introducing you to Spring
Cloud and microservice development:
■ Chapter 13 dives into service discovery, using Spring with Netflix’s Eureka regis-
try to both register and discover Spring-based microservices.
■ Chapter 14 shows how to centralize application configuration in a configura-
tion server that shares configuration across multiple microservices.
■ Chapter 15 introduces the circuit breaker pattern with Hystrix, enabling micro-
services that are resilient in the face of failure.
In part 5, you’ll ready an application for production and see how to deploy it:
■ Chapter 16 introduces the Spring Boot Actuator, an extension to Spring Boot
that exposes the internals of a running Spring application as REST endpoints.
 ABOUT THIS BOOK xix

■ In chapter 17 you’ll see how to use the Spring Boot Admin to put a user-friendly
browser-based administrative application on top of the Actuator.
■ Chapter 18 discusses how to expose and consume Spring beans as JMX MBeans.
■ Finally, in chapter 19 you’ll see how to deploy your Spring application in a vari-
ety of production environments.
In general, developers new to Spring should start with chapter 1 and work through
each chapter sequentially. Experienced Spring developers may prefer to jump in at
any point that interests them. Even so, each chapter builds upon the previous chapter,
so there may be some context missing if you dive into the middle of the book.

About the code

This book contains many examples of source code both in numbered listings and
inline with normal text. In both cases, source code is formatted in a fixed-width font
like this to separate it from ordinary text. Sometimes code is also in bold to high-
light code that has changed from previous steps in the chapter, such as when a new
feature adds to an existing line of code.
In many cases the original source code has been reformatted; we’ve added line
breaks and reworked indentation to accommodate the available page space in the
book. In rare cases, even this was not enough, and listings include line-continuation
markers (➥). Additionally, comments in the source code have often been removed
from the listings when the code is described in the text. Code annotations accompany
many of the listings, highlighting important concepts.
Source code for the examples in this book is available for download from the pub-
lisher’s website at www.manning.com/books/spring-in-action-fifth-edition as well as
from the author’s GitHub account at github.com/habuma/spring-in-action-5-samples.

Book forum
Purchase of Spring in Action, 5th edition, includes free access to a private web forum
run by Manning Publications where you can make comments about the book, ask
technical questions, and receive help from the author and from other users. To access
the forum, go to https://forums.manning.com/forums/spring-in-action-fifth-edition.
You can also learn more about Manning’s forums and the rules of conduct at https://
forums.manning.com/forums/about.
Manning’s commitment to our readers is to provide a venue where a meaningful
dialogue between individual readers and between readers and the author can take
place. It is not a commitment to any specific amount of participation on the part of
the author, whose contribution to the forum remains voluntary (and unpaid). We sug-
gest you try asking the author some challenging questions lest his interest stray! The
forum and the archives of previous discussions will be accessible from the publisher’s
website as long as the book is in print.
xx ABOUT THIS BOOK

Other online resources

Need additional help?
■ The Spring website has several useful getting-started guides (some of which
were written by the author of this book) at https://spring.io/guides.
■ The Spring tag at StackOverflow (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/
spring) as well as the Spring Boot tag at StackOverflow are great places to ask
questions and help others with Spring. Helping someone else with their Spring
questions is a great way to learn Spring!

About the author

CRAIG WALLS is a principal engineer with Pivotal. He’s a zealous promoter of the
Spring Framework, speaking frequently at local user groups and conferences and writ-
ing about Spring. When he’s not slinging code, Craig is planning his next trip to Dis-
ney World or Disneyland and spending as much time as he can with his wife, two
daughters, two birds, and three dogs.

About the cover illustration

The figure on the cover of Spring in Action, 5th edition, is “Le Caraco,” or an inhabi-
tant of the province of Karak in southwest Jordan. Its capital is the city of Al-Karak, which
boasts an ancient hilltop castle with magnificent views of the Dead Sea and surround-
ing plains. The illustration is taken from a French travel book, Encyclopédie des Voyages
by J. G. St. Sauveur, published in 1796. Travel for pleasure was a relatively new phe-
nomenon at the time and travel guides such as this one were popular, introducing
both the tourist as well as the armchair traveler to the inhabitants of other regions of
France and abroad.
The diversity of the drawings in the Encyclopédie des Voyages speaks vividly of the dis-
tinctiveness and individuality of the world’s towns and provinces just two hundred
years ago. This was a time when the dress codes of two regions separated by a few
dozen miles identified people uniquely as belonging to one or the other. The travel
guide brings to life a sense of isolation and distance of that period, and of every other
historic period except our own hyperkinetic present.
Dress codes have changed since then and the diversity by region, so rich at the
time, has faded away. It is now often hard to tell the inhabitants of one continent from
another. Perhaps, trying to view it optimistically, we have traded a cultural and visual
diversity for a more varied personal life—or a more varied and interesting intellectual
and technical life. We at Manning celebrate the inventiveness, the initiative, and the
fun of the computer business with book covers based on the rich diversity of regional
life two centuries ago brought back to life by the pictures from this travel guide.
 Part 1

Foundational Spring

P art 1 of this book will get you started writing a Spring application, learning
the foundations of Spring along the way.
In chapter 1, I’ll give you a quick overview of Spring and Spring Boot essen-
tials and show you how to initialize a Spring project as you work on building
Taco Cloud, your first Spring application. In chapter 2, you’ll dig deeper into
the Spring MCV and learn how to present model data in the browser and how to
process and validate form input. You’ll also get some tips on choosing a view tem-
plate library. You’ll add data persistence to the Taco Cloud application in chapter
3. There, we’ll cover using Spring’s JDBC template, how to insert data, and how to
declare JPA repositories with Spring Data. Chapter 4 covers security for your
Spring application, including autoconfiguring Spring Security, defining custom
user storage, customizing the login page, and securing against cross-site request
forgery (CSRF) attacks. To close out part 1, we'll look at configuration properties
in chapter 5. You’ll learn how to fine-tune autoconfigured beans, apply configura-
tion properties to application components, and work with Spring profiles.
 Getting started
with Spring

This chapter covers

 Spring and Spring Boot essentials
 Initializing a Spring project
 An overview of the Spring landscape

Although the Greek philosopher Heraclitus wasn’t well known as a software devel-
oper, he seemed to have a good handle on the subject. He has been quoted as say-
ing, “The only constant is change.” That statement captures a foundational truth of
software development.
The way we develop applications today is different than it was a year ago, 5 years
ago, 10 years ago, and certainly 15 years ago, when an initial form of the Spring
Framework was introduced in Rod Johnson’s book, Expert One-on-One J2EE Design
and Development (Wrox, 2002, http://mng.bz/oVjy).
Back then, the most common types of applications developed were browser-
based web applications, backed by relational databases. While that type of develop-
ment is still relevant, and Spring is well equipped for those kinds of applications,
we’re now also interested in developing applications composed of microservices
destined for the cloud that persist data in a variety of databases. And a new interest
in reactive programming aims to provide greater scalability and improved perfor-
mance with non-blocking operations.

3
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
whilst the purchasers, in consequence of the clashing and
interference between their rights, were exposed to tedious,
vexatious, and ruinous litigation. Kentucky suffered long and
severely from this cause; and is just emerging from the troubles
brought upon her by improvident land legislation. Western Virginia
has also suffered greatly, though not to the same extent.

The state of Georgia had large bodies of waste lands, which she
disposed of in a manner satisfactory, no doubt, to herself, but
astonishing to every one out of that commonwealth. According to
her system, waste lands are distributed in lotteries, among the
people of the state, in conformity with the enactments of the
legislature. And when one district of country is disposed of, as there
are many who do not draw prizes, the unsuccessful call out for fresh
distributions. These are made from time to time, as lands are
acquired from the Indians; and hence one of the causes of the
avidity with which the Indian lands are sought. It is manifest, that
neither the present generation, nor posterity, can derive much
advantage from this mode of alienating public lands. On the
contrary, I should think, it cannot fail to engender speculation and a
spirit of gambling.

The state of Kentucky, in virtue of a compact with Virginia,

acquired a right to a quantity of public lands south of Green river.
Neglecting to profit by the unfortunate example of the parent state,
she did not order the country to be surveyed previous to its being
offered to purchasers. Seduced by some of those wild land projects,
of which at all times there have been some afloat, and which,
hitherto, the general government alone has firmly resisted, she was
tempted to offer her waste lands to settlers, at different prices,
under the name of head-rights or preëmptions. As the laws, like
most legislation upon such subjects, were somewhat loosely worded,
the keen eye of the speculator soon discerned the defects, and he
took advantage of them. Instances had occurred, of masters
obtaining certificates of head-rights in the name of their slaves, and
thus securing the land, in contravention of the intention of the
legislature. Slaves, generally, have but one name, being called Tom,
Jack, Dick, or Harry. To conceal the fraud, the owner would add
Black, or some other cognomination, so that the certificate would
read Tom Black, Jack Black, and so forth. The gentleman from
Tennessee, (Mr. Grundy,) will remember, some twenty-odd years
ago, when we were both members of the Kentucky legislature, that
I took occasion to animadvert upon these fraudulent practices, and
observed, that when the names came to be alphabeted, the truth
would be told, whatever might be the language of the record; for
the alphabet would read Black Tom, Black Harry, and so forth.
Kentucky realized more in her treasury than the parent state had
done, considering that she had but a remnant of public lands, and
she added somewhat to her population. But they were far less
available than they would have been under a system of previous
survey and regular sale.

These observations, in respect to the course of the respectable

states referred to, in relation to their public lands, are not prompted
by any unkind feelings towards them, but to show the superiority of
the land system of the United States.

Under the system of the general government, the wisdom of

which, in some respects, is admitted, even by the report of the land
committee, the country subject to its operation, beyond the
Alleghany mountains, has rapidly advanced in population,
improvement, and prosperity. The example of the state of Ohio was
emphatically relied on by the report of the committee of
manufactures—its million of people, its canals, and other
improvements, its flourishing towns, its highly-cultivated fields, all
put there within less than forty years. To weaken the force of this
example, the land committee deny that the population of the state is
principally settled upon public lands derived from the general
government. But, Mr. President, with great deference to that
committee, I must say, that it labors under misapprehension. Three
fourths, if not four fifths of the population of that state, are settled
upon public lands purchased from the United States, and they are
the most flourishing parts of the state. For the correctness of this
statement, I appeal to my friend from Ohio, (Mr. Ewing,) near me.
He knows, as well as I do, that the rich valleys of the Miami of Ohio,
and the Maumee of the Lake, the Sciota and the Muskingum, are
principally settled by persons deriving titles to their lands from the
United States.

In a national point of view, one of the greatest advantages which

these public lands in the west, and this system of selling them,
affords, is the resource which they present against pressure and
want, in other parts of the union, from the vocations of society being
too closely filled, and too much crowded. They constantly tend to
sustain the price of labor, by the opportunity which they offer, of the
acquisition of fertile land at a moderate price, and the consequent
temptation to emigrate from those parts of the union where labor
may be badly rewarded.

The progress of settlement, and the improvement in the fortunes

and condition of individuals, under the operation of this beneficent
system, are as simple as they are manifest. Pioneers of a more
adventurous character, advancing before the tide of emigration,
penetrate into the uninhabited regions of the west. They apply the
axe to the forest, which falls before them, or the plough to the
prairie, deeply sinking its share in the unbroken wild grasses in
which it abounds. They build houses, plant orchards, enclose fields,
cultivate the earth, and rear up families around them. Meantime, the
tide of emigration flows upon them, their improved farms rise in
value, a demand for them takes place, they sell to the new comers,
at a great advance, and proceed further west, with ample means to
purchase from government, at reasonable prices, sufficient land for
all the members of their families. Another and another tide
succeeds, the first pushing on westwardly the previous settlers, who,
in their turn, sell out their farms, constantly augmenting in price,
until they arrive at a fixed and stationary value. In this way,
thousands, and tens of thousands, are daily improving their
circumstances, and bettering their condition. I have often witnessed
this gratifying progress. On the same farm you may sometimes
behold, standing together, the first rude cabin of round and unhewn
logs, and wooden chimneys, the hewed log house, chinked and
shingled, with stone or brick chimneys, and, lastly, the comfortable
brick or stone dwelling, each denoting the different occupants of the
farm, or the several stages of the condition of the same occupant.
What other nation can boast of such an outlet for its increasing
population, such bountiful means of promoting their prosperity, and
securing their independence?

To the public lands of the United States, and especially to the

existing system by which they are distributed with so much
regularity and equity, are we indebted for these signal benefits in our
national condition. And every consideration of duty, to ourselves, and
to posterity, enjoins that we should abstain from the adoption of any
wild project that would cast away this vast national property, holden
by the general government in sacred trust for the whole people of
the United States, and forbids that we should rashly touch a system
which has been so successfully tested by experience.

It has been only within a few years, that restless men have
thrown before the public their visionary plans for squandering the
public domain. With the existing laws, the great state of the west is
satisfied and contented. She has felt their benefit, and grown great
and powerful under their sway. She knows and testifies to the
liberality of the general government, in the administration of the
public lands, extended alike to her and to the other new states.
There are no petitions from, no movements in Ohio, proposing vital
and radical changes in the system. During the long period, in the
house of representatives, and in the senate, that her upright and
unambitious citizen, the first representative of that state, and
afterwards successively senator and governor, presided over the
committee of public lands, we heard of none of these chimerical
schemes. All went on smoothly, and quietly, and safely. No man, in
the sphere within which he acted, ever commanded or deserved the
implicit confidence of congress, more than Jeremiah Morrow. There
existed a perfect persuasion of his entire impartiality and justice
between the old states and the new. A few artless but sensible
words, pronounced in his plain Scotch Irish dialect, were always
sufficient to insure the passage of any bill or resolution which he
reported. For about twenty-five years, there was no essential change
in the system; and that which was at last made, varying the price of
the public lands from two dollars, at which it had all that time
remained, to one dollar and a quarter, at which it has been fixed
only about ten or twelve years, was founded mainly on the
consideration of abolishing the previous credits.

Assuming the duplication of our population in terms of twenty-

five years, the demand for waste land, at the end of every term, will
at least be double what it was at the commencement. But the ratio
of the increased demand will be much greater than the increase of
the whole population of the United States, because the western
states nearest to, or including the public lands, populate much more
rapidly than other parts of the union; and it will be from them that
the greatest current of emigration will flow. At this moment, Ohio,
Kentucky, and Tennessee, are the most migrating states in the
union.

To supply this constantly augmenting demand, the policy, which

has hitherto characterized the general government, has been highly
liberal both towards individuals and the new states. Large tracts, far
surpassing the demand of purchasers, in every climate and situation,
adapted to the wants of all parts of the union, are brought into
market at moderate prices, the government having sustained all the
expense of the original purchase, and of surveying, marking, and
dividing the land. For fifty dollars any poor man may purchase forty
acres of first-rate land; and, for less than the wages of one year’s
labor he may buy eighty acres. To the new states, also, has the
government been liberal and generous in the grants for schools and
for internal improvements, as well as in reducing the debt,
contracted for the purchase of lands, by the citizens of those states,
who were tempted, in a spirit of inordinate speculation, to purchase
too much, or at too high prices.

Such is a rapid outline of this invaluable national property, of the

system which regulates its management and distribution, and of the
effects of that system. We might here pause, and wonder that there
should be a disposition with any to waste or throw away this great
resource, or to abolish a system which has been fraught with so
many manifest advantages. Nevertheless, there are such, who,
impatient with the slow and natural operation of wise laws, have put
forth various pretensions and projects concerning the public lands,
within a few years past. One of these pretensions is, an assumption
of the sovereign right of the new states to all the lands within their
respective limits, to the exclusion of the general government, and to
the exclusion of all the people of the United States, those in the new
states only excepted. It is my purpose now to trace the origin,
examine the nature, and expose the injustice, of this pretension.

This pretension may be fairly ascribed to the propositions of the

gentleman from Missouri, (Mr. Benton,) to graduate the public lands,
to reduce the price, and cede the ‘refuse’ lands, (a term which
I believe originated with him,) to the states within which they lie.
Prompted, probably, by these propositions, a late governor of
Illinois, unwilling to be outdone, presented an elaborate message to
the legislature of that state, in which he gravely and formally
asserted the right of that state to all the land of the United States,
comprehended within its limits. It must be allowed that the governor
was a most impartial judge, and the legislature a most disinterested
tribunal, to decide such a question.

The senator from Missouri was chanting most sweetly to the

tune, ‘refuse lands,’ ‘refuse lands,’ ‘refuse lands,’ on the Missouri side
of the Mississippi, and the soft strains of his music, having caught
the ear of his excellency, on the Illinois side, he joined in chorus,
and struck an octave higher. The senator from Missouri wished only
to pick up some crumbs which fell from Uncle Sam’s table; but the
governor resolved to grasp the whole loaf. The senator modestly
claimed only an old, smoked, rejected joint; but the stomach of his
excellency yearned after the whole hog! The governor peeped over
the Mississippi into Missouri, and saw the senator leisurely roaming
in some rich pastures, on bits of refuse lands. He returned to Illinois,
and, springing into the grand prairie, determined to claim and
occupy it, in all its boundless extent.

Then came the resolution of the senator from Virginia,

(Mr. Tazewell,) in May, 1826, in the following words:

‘Resolved, that it is expedient for the United States to cede and surrender to
the several states, within whose limits the same may be situated, all the right,
title, and interest of the United States, to any lands lying and being within the
boundaries of such states, respectively, upon such terms and conditions as may be
consistent with the due observance of the public faith, and with the general
interest of the United States.’

The latter words rendered the resolution somewhat ambiguous;

but still it contemplated a cession and surrender. Subsequently, the
senator from Virginia proposed, after a certain time, a gratuitous
surrender of all unsold lands, to be applied by the legislature, in
support of education and the internal improvement of the state.
[Here Mr. Tazewell controverted the statement. Mr. Clay called to the secretary
to hand him the journal of April, 1828, which he held up to the senate, and read
from it the following:

‘The bill to graduate the price of the public lands, to make donations thereof
to actual settlers, and to cede the refuse to the states in which they lie, being
under consideration—

‘Mr. Tazewell moved to insert the following as a substitute:

‘That the lands which shall have been subject to sale under the provisions of
this act, and shall remain unsold for two years, after having been offered at
twenty-five cents per acre, shall be, and the same is, ceded to the state in which
the same may lie, to be applied by the legislature thereof in support of education,
and the internal improvement of the state.’]
 Thus it appears not only that the honorable senator proposed the
cession, but showed himself the friend of education and internal
improvements, by means derived from the general government. For
this liberal disposition on his part, I believe it was, that the state of
Missouri honored a new county with his name. If he had carried his
proposition, that state might well have granted a principality to him.

The memorial of the legislature of Illinois, probably produced by

the message of the governor already noticed, had been presented,
asserting a claim to the public lands. And it seems, (although the
fact had escaped my recollection until I was reminded of it by one of
her senators, (Mr. Hendricks,) the other day,) that the legislature of
Indiana had instructed her senators to bring forward a similar claim.
At the last session, however, of the legislature of that state,
resolutions had passed, instructing her delegation to obtain from the
general government cessions of the unappropriated public lands, on
the most favorable terms. It is clear from this last expression of the
will of that legislature, that, on reconsideration, it believed the right
to the public lands to be in the general government, and not in the
state of Indiana. For, if they did not belong to the general
government, it had nothing to cede; if they belonged already to the
state, no cession was necessary to the perfection of the right of the
state.

I will here submit a passing observation. If the general

government had the power to cede the public lands to the new
states for particular purposes, and on prescribed conditions, its
power must be unquestionable to make some reservations for similar
purposes in behalf of the old states. Its power cannot be without
limit as to the new states, and circumscribed and restricted as to the
old. Its capacity to bestow benefits or dispense justice is not
confined to the new states, but is coextensive with the whole union.
It may grant to all, or it can grant to none. And this comprehensive
equity is not only in conformity with the spirit of the cessions in the
deeds from the ceding states, but is expressly enjoined by the terms
of those deeds.
 Such is the probable origin of the pretension which I have been
tracing; and now let us examine its nature and foundation. The
argument in behalf of the new states, is founded on the notion, that
as the old states, upon coming out of the revolutionary war, had or
claimed a right to all the lands within their respective limits; and as
the new states have been admitted into the union on the same
footing and condition in all respects with the old, therefore they are
entitled to all the waste lands embraced within their boundaries. But
the argument forgets that all the revolutionary states had not waste
lands; that some had but very little, and others none. It forgets that
the right of the states to the waste lands within their limits was
controverted; and that it was insisted that, as they had been
conquered in a common war, waged with common means, and
attended with general sacrifices, the public lands should be held for
the common benefit of all the states. It forgets that in consequence
of this right, asserted in behalf of the whole union, the states that
contained any large bodies of waste lands (and Virginia, particularly,
that had the most) ceded them to the union, for the equal benefit of
all the states. It forgets that the very equality, which is the basis of
the argument, would be totally subverted by the admission of the
validity of the pretension. For how would the matter then stand? The
revolutionary states will have divested themselves of the large
districts of vacant lands which they contained, for the common
benefit of all the states; and those same lands will enure to the
benefit of the new states exclusively. There will be, on the
supposition of the validity of the pretension, a reversal of the
condition of the two classes of states. Instead of the old having, as
is alleged, the wild lands which they included at the epoch of the
revolution, they will have none, and the new states all. And this in
the name and for the purpose of equality among all the members of
the confederacy! What, especially, would be the situation of Virginia?
She magnanimously ceded an empire in extent for the common
benefit. And now it is proposed not only to withdraw that empire
from the object of its solemn dedication, to the use of all the states,
but to deny her any participation in it, and appropriate it exclusively
to the benefit of the new states carved out of it.
 If the new states had any right to the public lands, in order to
produce the very equality contended for, they ought forthwith to
cede that right to the union, for the common benefit of all the
states. Having no such right, they ought to acquiesce cheerfully in
an equality which does, in fact, now exist between them and the old
states.

The committee of manufactures has clearly shown, that if the

right were recognised in the new states now existing, to the public
lands within their limits, each of the new states, as they might
hereafter be successively admitted into the union, would have the
same right; and, consequently, that the pretension under
examination embraces, in effect, the whole public domain, that is, a
billion and eighty millions of acres of land.

The right of the union to the public lands is incontestable. It

ought not to be considered debatable. It never was questioned but
by a few, whose monstrous heresy, it was probably supposed, would
escape animadversion from the enormity of the absurdity, and the
utter impracticability of the success of the claim. The right of the
whole is sealed by the blood of the revolution, founded upon solemn
deeds of cession from sovereign states, deliberately executed in the
face of the world, or resting upon national treaties concluded with
foreign powers, on ample equivalents contributed from the common
treasury of the people of the United States.

This right of the whole was stamped upon the face of the new
states at the very instant of their parturition. They admitted and
recognised it with their first breath. They hold their stations, as
members of the confederacy, in virtue of that admission. The
senators who sit here and the members in the house of
representatives from the new states, deliberate in congress with
other senators and representatives, under that admission. And since
the new states came into being, they have recognised this right of
the general government by innumerable acts—
 By their concurrence in the passage of hundreds of laws
respecting the public domain, founded upon the incontestable right
of the whole of the states;

By repeated applications to extinguish Indian titles, and to survey

the lands which they covered;

And by solicitation and acceptance of extensive grants of the

public lands from the general government.

The existence of the new state is a falsehood, or the right of all

the states to the public domain is an undeniable truth. They have no
more right to the public lands, within their particular jurisdiction,
than other states have to the mint, the forts and arsenals, or public
ships, within theirs, or than the people of the District of Columbia
have to this magnificent capitol, in whose splendid halls we now
deliberate.

The equality contended for between all the states now exists.
The public lands are now held, and ought to be held and
administered for the common benefit of all. I hope our fellow-
citizens of Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri, will reconsider the matter;
that they will cease to take counsel from demagogues who would
deceive them, and instil erroneous principles into their ears; and that
they will feel and acknowledge that their brethren of Kentucky and
of Ohio, and of all the states in the union, have an equal right with
the citizens of those three states, in the public lands. If the
possibility of an event so direful as a severance of this union were
for a moment contemplated, what would be the probable
consequence of such an unspeakable calamity; if three confederacies
were formed out of its fragments, do you imagine that the western
confederacy would consent to have the states including the public
lands hold them exclusively for themselves? Can you imagine that
the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, would quietly renounce
their right in all the public lands west of them? No, sir! No, sir! They
would wade to their knees in blood, before they would make such an
unjust and ignominious surrender.

But this pretension, unjust to the old states, unequal as to all,

would be injurious to the new states themselves, in whose behalf it
has been put forth, if it were recognised. The interests of the new
states is not confined to the lands within their limits, but extends to
the whole billion and eighty millions of acres. Sanction the claims,
however, and they are cut down and restricted to that which is
included in their own boundaries. Is it not better for Ohio, instead of
the five millions and a half, or Indiana, instead of the fifteen millions,
or even for Illinois, instead of the thirty-one or thirty-two millions, or
Missouri, instead of the thirty-eight millions, within their respective
limits, to retain their interest in those several quantities, and also to
retain their interest, in common with the other members of the
union, in the countless millions of acres that lie west, or northwest,
beyond them?

I will now proceed, Mr. President, to consider the expediency of a

reduction of the price of the public lands, and the reasons assigned
by the land committee, in their report, in favor of that measure.
They are presented there in formidable detail, and spread out under
seven different heads. Let us examine them; the first is, ‘because
the new states have a clear right to participate in the benefits of a
reduction of the revenue to the wants of the government, by getting
the reduction extended to the article of revenue chiefly used by
them.’ Here is a renewal of the attempt made early in the session, to
confound the public lands with foreign imports, which was so
successfully exposed and refuted by the report of the committee on
manufactures. Will not the new states participate in any reduction of
the revenue, in common with the old states, without touching the
public lands? As far as they are consumers of objects of foreign
imports, will they not equally share the benefit with the old states?
What right, over and above that equal participation, have the new
states, to a reduction of the price of the public lands? As states,
what right, much less what ‘clear right’ have they, to any such
reduction? In their sovereign or corporate capacities, what right?
Have not all the stipulations between them, as states, and the
general government, been fully complied with? Have the people
within the new states, considered distinct from the states
themselves, any right to such a reduction? Whence is it derived?
They went there in pursuit of their own happiness. They bought
lands from the public because it was their interest to make the
purchase, and they enjoy them. Did they, because they purchased
some land, which they possess peacefully, acquire any, and what
right, in the land which they did not buy? But it may be argued, that
by settling and improving these lands, the adjacent public lands are
enhanced. True; and so are their own. The enhancement of the
public lands was not a consequence which they went there to
produce, but was a collateral effect, as to which they were passive.
The public does not seek to avail itself of this augmentation in value,
by augmenting the price. It leaves that where it was; and the
demand for reduction is made in behalf of those who say their labor
has increased the value of the public lands, and the claim to
reduction is founded upon the fact of enhanced value? The public,
like all other landholders, had a right to anticipate that the sale of a
part would communicate, incidentally, greater value upon the
residue. And, like all other land proprietors, it has the right to ask
more for that residue; but it does not, and, for one, I should be as
unwilling to disturb the existing price by augmentation as by
reduction. But the public lands is the article of revenue which the
people of the new states chiefly consume. In another part of this
report, liberal grants of the public lands are recommended, and the
idea of holding the public lands as a source of revenue is scouted;
because, it is said, more revenue could be collected from the settlers
as consumers, than from the lands. Here it seems that the public
lands are the articles of revenue chiefly consumed by the new
states.

With respect to lands yet to be sold, they are open to the

purchase alike of emigrants from the old states, and settlers in the
new. As the latter have most generally supplied themselves with
lands, the probability is, that the emigrants are more interested in
the question of reduction than the settlers. At all events, there can
be no peculiar right to such reduction existing in the new states. It is
a question common to all, and to be decided in reference to the
interest of the whole union.

Second. ‘Because the public debt being now paid, the public lands are entirely
released from the pledge they were under to that object, and are free to receive a
new and liberal destination, for the relief of the states in which they lie.’

The payment of the public debt is conceded to be near at hand;

and it is admitted that the public lands, being liberated, may now
receive a new and liberal destination. Such an appropriation of their
proceeds is proposed by the bill reported by the committee of
manufactures, and to which I shall hereafter more particularly call
the attention of the senate. But it did not seem just to that
committee, that this new and liberal destination of them should be
restricted ‘for the relief of the states in which they lie,’ exclusively,
but should extend to all the states indiscriminately, upon principles
of equitable distribution.

Third. ‘Because nearly one hundred millions of acres of the land now in market
are the refuse of sales and donations, through a long series of years, and are of
very little actual value, and only fit to be given to settlers, or abandoned to the
states in which they lie.’

According to an official statement, the total quantity of public

land which has been surveyed up to the thirty-first of December last,
was a little upwards of one hundred and sixty-two millions of acres.
Of this, a large proportion, perhaps even more than the one hundred
millions of acres stated in the land report, has been a long time in
market. The entire quantity which has ever been sold by the United
States, up to the same day, after deducting lands relinquished and
lands reverted to the United States, according to an official
statement, also, is twenty-five million two hundred forty-two
thousand five hundred and ninety acres. Thus after the lapse of
thirty-six years, during which the present land system has been in
operation, a little more than twenty-five millions of acres have been
sold, not averaging a million per annum, and upwards of one
hundred millions of the surveyed lands remain to be sold. The
argument of the report of the land committee assumes, that ‘nearly
one hundred millions are the refuse of sales, and donations,’ are of
very little actual value, and only fit to be given to settlers, or
abandoned to the states in which they lie.

Mr. President, let us define as we go—let us analyze. What do the

land committee mean by ‘refuse land?’ Do they mean worthless,
inferior, rejected land, which nobody will buy at the present
government price? Let us look at facts, and make them our guide.
The government is constantly pressed by the new states to bring
more and more lands into the market; to extinguish more Indian
titles; to survey more. The new states themselves are probably
urged to operate upon the general government by emigrants and
settlers, who see still before them, in their progress west, other new
lands which they desire. The general government yields to the
solicitations. It throws more land into the market, and it is annually
and daily preparing additional surveys of fresh lands. It has thrown
and is preparing to throw open to purchasers already one hundred
and sixty-two millions of acres. And now, because the capacity to
purchase, in its nature limited by the growth of our population, is
totally incompetent to absorb this immense quantity, the
government is called upon, by some of the very persons who urged
the exhibition of this vast amount to sale, to consider all that
remains unsold as refuse! Twenty-five millions in thirty-six years only
are sold, and all the rest is to be looked upon as refuse. Is this right?
If there had been five hundred millions in market, there probably
would not have been more or much more sold. But I deny the
correctness of the conclusion that it is worthless because not sold. It
is not sold, because there were not people to buy it. You must have
gone to other countries, to other worlds, to the moon, and drawn
from thence people to buy the prodigious quantity which you offered
to sell.
 Refuse land! A purchaser goes to a district of country and buys
out of a township a section which strikes his fancy. He exhausts his
money. Others might have preferred other sections. Other sections
may even be better than his. He can with no more propriety be said
to have ‘refused’ or rejected all the other sections, than a man who,
attracted by the beauty, charms, and accomplishments of a
particular lady, marries her, can be said to have rejected or refused
all the rest of the sex.

Is it credible, that out of one hundred and fifty or one hundred

and sixty millions of acres of land in a valley celebrated for its
fertility, there are only about twenty-five millions of acres of good
land, and that all the rest is refuse? Take the state of Illinois as an
example. Of all the states in the union, that state probably contains
the greatest proportion of rich, fertile lands; more than Ohio, more
than Indiana, abounding as they both do in fine lands. Of the thirty-
three millions and a half of public lands in Illinois, a little more only
than two millions have been sold. Is the residue of thirty-one millions
all refuse land? Who that is acquainted in the west can assert or
believe it? No, sir; there is no such thing. The unsold lands are
unsold because of the reasons already assigned. Doubtless there is
much inferior land remaining, but a vast quantity of the best of lands
also. For its timber, soil, water-power, grazing, minerals, almost all
land possesses a certain value. If the lands unsold are refuse and
worthless in the hands of the general government, why are they
sought after with so much avidity? If in our hands they are good for
nothing, what more would they be worth in the hands of the new
states? ‘Only fit to be given to settlers!’ What settlers would thank
you? what settlers would not scorn a gift of refuse, worthless land?
If you mean to be generous, give them what is valuable; be manly in
your generosity.
 But let us examine a little closer this idea of refuse land. If there
be any state in which it is to be found in large quantities, that state
would be Ohio. It is the oldest of the new states. There the public
lands have remained longer exposed in the market. But there we
find only five millions and a half to be sold. And I hold in my hand an
account of sales in the Zanesville district, one of the oldest in that
state, made during the present year. It is in a paper, entitled the
‘Ohio Republican,’ published at Zanesville, the twenty-sixth of May,
1832. The article is headed ‘refuse land,’ and it states: ‘it has suited
the interest of some to represent the lands of the United States
which have remained in market for many years, as mere ‘refuse’
which cannot be sold; and to urge a rapid reduction of price, and the
cession of the residue, in a short period, to the states in which they
are situated. It is strongly urged against this plan, that it is a
speculating project, which, by alienating a large quantity of land
from the United States, will cause a great increase of price to actual
settlers, in a few years; instead of their being able for ever, as it may
be said is the case under the present system of land sales, to obtain
a farm at a reasonable price. To show how far the lands unsold are
from being worthless, we copy from the Gazette the following
statement of recent sales in the Zanesville district, one of the oldest
districts in the west. The sales at the Zanesville land-office, since the
commencement of the present year, have been as follows; January,
seven thousand one hundred and twenty dollars and eighty cents;
February, eight thousand five hundred and forty-two dollars and
sixty-seven cents; March, eleven thousand seven hundred and forty-
four dollars and seventy-five cents; April, nine thousand two
hundred and nine dollars and nineteen cents; and since the first of
the present month about nine thousand dollars worth have been
sold, more than half of which was in forty acre lots.’ And there
cannot be a doubt that the act, passed at this session, authorizing
sales of forty acres, will, from the desire to make additions to farms,
and to settle young members of families, increase the sales very
much, at least during this year.
 A friend of mine in this city bought in Illinois, last fall, about two
thousand acres of this refuse land, at the minimum price, for which
he has lately refused six dollars per acre. An officer of this body, now
in my eye, purchased a small tract of this same refuse land, of one
hundred and sixty acres, at second or third hand, entered a few
years ago, and which is now estimated at one thousand and nine
hundred dollars. It is a business, a very profitable business, at which
fortunes are made in the new states, to purchase these refuse lands,
and, without improving them, to sell them at large advances.

Far from being discouraged by the fact of so much surveyed

public land remaining unsold, we should rejoice that this bountiful
resource, possessed by our country, remains in almost undiminished
quantity, notwithstanding so many new and flourishing states have
sprung up in the wilderness, and so many thousands of families
have been accommodated. It might be otherwise, if the public land
was dealt out by government with a sparing, grudging, griping hand.
But they are liberally offered, in exhaustless quantities, and at
moderate prices, enriching individuals, and tending to the rapid
improvement of the country. The two important facts brought
forward and emphatically dwelt on by the committee of
manufactures, stand in their full force, unaffected by any thing
stated in the report of the land committee. These facts must carry
conviction to every unbiased mind, that will deliberately consider
them. The first is, the rapid increase of the new states, far
outstripping the old, averaging annually an increase of eight and a
half per centum, and doubling of course in twelve years. One of
these states, Illinois, full of refuse land, increasing at the rate of
eighteen and a half per centum! Would this astonishing growth take
place if the lands were too high, or all the good land sold? The other
fact is, the vast increase in the annual sales—in 1830, rising of three
millions. Since the report of the committee of manufactures, the
returns have come in of the sales of last year, which had been
estimated at three millions. They were, in fact, three million five
hundred and sixty-six thousand one hundred and twenty-seven
dollars and ninety-four cents! Their progressive increase baffles all
calculation. Would this happen, if the price were too high?

It is argued, that the value of different townships and sections is

various; and that it is, therefore, wrong to fix the same price for all.
The variety in the quality, situation, and advantages, of different
tracts, is no doubt great. After the adoption of any system of
classification, there would still remain very great diversity in the
tracts belonging to the same class. This is the law of nature. The
presumption of inferiority, and of refuse land, founded upon the
length of time that the land has been in market, is denied, for
reasons already stated. The offer, at public auction, of all lands to
the highest bidder, previous to their being sold at private sale,
provides in some degree for the variety in the value, since each
purchaser pushes the land up to the price which, according to his
opinion, it ought to command. But if the price demanded by
government is not too high for the good land, (and no one can
believe it,) why not wait until that is sold, before any reduction in the
price of the bad? And that will not be sold for many years to come.
It would be quite as wrong to bring the price of good land down to
the standard of the bad, as it is alleged to be, to carry the latter up
to that of the former. Until the good land is sold there will be no
purchasers of the bad; for, as has been stated in the report of the
committee of manufactures, a discreet farmer would rather give a
dollar and a quarter per acre for first-rate land, than accept refuse
and worthless land as a present.

‘Fourth. Because the speedy extinction of the federal title within their limits is
necessary to the independence of the new states, to their equality with the elder
states; to the development of their resources; to the subjection of their soil to
taxation, cultivation, and settlement, and to the proper enjoyment of their
jurisdiction and sovereignty.’

All this is mere assertion and declamation. The general

government, at a moderate price, is selling the public land as fast as
it can find purchasers. The new states are populating with
unexampled rapidity; their condition is now much more eligible than
that of some of the old states. Ohio, I am sorry to be obliged to
confess, is, in internal improvement and some other respects, fifty
years in advance of her elder sister and neighbor, Kentucky. How
have her growth and prosperity, her independence, her equality with
the elder states, the development of her resources, the taxation,
cultivation, and settlement of her soil, or the proper enjoyment of
her jurisdiction and sovereignty, been affected or impaired by the
federal title within her limits? The federal title! It has been a source
of blessings and of bounties, but not one of real grievance. As to the
exemption from taxation of the public lands, and the exemption for
five years of those sold to individuals, if the public land belonged to
the new states, would they tax it? And as to the latter exemption, it
is paid for by the general government, as may be seen by reference
to the compacts; and it is, moreover, beneficial to the new states
themselves, by holding out a motive to emigrants to purchase and
settle within their limits.

‘Sixth. Because the ramified machinery of the land-office department, and the
ownership of so much soil, extends the patronage and authority of the general
government into the heart and corners of the new states, and subjects their policy
to the danger of a foreign and powerful influence.’

A foreign and powerful influence! The federal government a

foreign government! And the exercise of a legitimate control over
the national property, for the benefit of the whole people of the
United States, a deprecated penetration into the heart and corners
of the new states! As to the calamity of the land offices, which are
held within them, I believe that is not regarded by the people of
these states with quite as much horror as it is by the land
committee. They justly consider that they ought to hold those offices
themselves, and that no persons ought to be sent from the other
foreign states of this union to fill them. And, if the number of the
offices were increased, it would not be looked upon by them as a
grievous addition to the calamity.

But what do the land committee mean by the authority of this

foreign, federal government? Surely, they do not desire to get rid of
the federal government. And yet the final settlement of the land
question will have effected but little in expelling its authority from
the bosoms of the new states. Its action will still remain in a
thousand forms, and the heart and corners of the new states will still
be invaded by post-offices and post-masters, and post-roads, and
the Cumberland road, and various other modifications of its power.

‘Because the sum of four hundred and twenty-five millions of dollars, proposed
to be drawn from the new states and territories, by the sale of their soil, at one
dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, is unconscionable and impracticable—such
as never can be paid—and the bare attempt to raise which, must drain, exhaust,
and impoverish these states, and give birth to the feelings, which a sense of
injustice and oppression never fail to excite, and the excitement of which should
be so carefully avoided in a confederacy of free states.’

In another part of this report the committee say, speaking of the

immense revenue alleged to be derivable from the public lands, ‘this
ideal revenue is estimated at four hundred and twenty-five millions
of dollars, for the lands now within the limits of the states and
territories, and at one billion three hundred and sixty-three million
five hundred and eighty-nine thousand six hundred and ninety-one
dollars for the whole federal domain. Such chimerical calculations
preclude the propriety of argumentative answers.’ Well, if these
calculations are all chimerical, there is no danger, from the
preservation of the existing land system, of draining, exhausting and
impoverishing the new states, and of exciting them to rebellion.

The manufacturing committee did not state what the public lands
would, in fact, produce. They could not state it. It is hardly a subject
of approximate estimate. The committee stated what would be the
proceeds, estimated by the minimum price of the public lands; what,
at one half of that price; and added, that, although there might be
much land that would never sell at one dollar and a quarter per acre,
‘as fresh lands are brought into market and exposed to sale at
auction, many of them sell at prices exceeding one dollar and a
quarter per acre.’ They concluded by remarking, that the least
favorable view of regarding them, was to consider them a capital
yielding an annuity of three millions of dollars at this time; that, in a
few years, that annuity would probably be doubled, and that the
capital might then be assumed as equal to one hundred millions of
dollars.

Whatever may be the sum drawn from the sales of the public
lands, it will be contributed, not by citizens of the states alone in
which they are situated, but by emigrants from all the states. And it
will be raised, not in a single year, but in a long series of years. It
would have been impossible for the state of Ohio to have paid, in
one year, the millions that have been raised in that state, by the sale
of public lands; but in a period of upwards of thirty years, the
payment has been made, not only without impoverishing, but with
the constantly increasing prosperity of the state.

Such, Mr. President, are the reasons of the land committee, for
the reduction of the price of the public lands. Some of them had
been anticipated and refuted in the report of the manufacturing
committee; and I hope that I have now shown the insolidity of the
residue.

I will not dwell upon the consideration urged in that report,

against any large reduction, founded upon its inevitable tendency to
lessen the value of the landed property throughout the union, and
that in the western states especially. That such would be the
necessary consequence, no man can doubt, who will seriously reflect
upon such a measure as that of throwing into market, immediately,
upwards of one hundred and thirty millions of acres, and at no
distant period upwards of two hundred millions more, at greatly
reduced rates.

If the honorable chairman of the land committee, (Mr. King,) had

relied upon his own sound practical sense, he would have presented
a report far less objectionable than that which he has made. He has
availed himself of another’s aid, and the hand of the senator from
Missouri, (Mr. Benton,) is as visible in the composition, as if his name
had been subscribed to the instrument. We hear again, in this paper,
of that which we have so often heard repeated before in debate, by
the senator from Missouri—the sentiments of Edmund Burke. And
what was the state of things in England, to which those sentiments
were applied?

England has too little land, and too many people. America has
too much land, for the present population of the country, and wants
people. The British crown had owned, for many generations, large
bodies of land, preserved for game and forest, from which but small
revenues were derived. It was proposed to sell out the crown lands,
that they might be peopled and cultivated, and that the royal family
should be placed on the civil list. Mr. Burke supported the proposition
by convincing arguments. But what analogy is there between the
crown lands of the British sovereign, and the public lands of the
United States? Are they here locked up from the people, and, for the
sake of their game or timber, excluded from sale? Are not they freely
exposed in market, to all who want them, at moderate prices? The
complaint is, that they are not sold fast enough, in other words, that
people are not multiplied rapidly enough to buy them. Patience,
gentlemen of the land committee, patience! The new states are daily
rising in power and importance. Some of them are already great and
flourishing members of the confederacy. And, if you will only
acquiesce in the certain and quiet operation of the laws of God and
man, the wilderness will quickly teem with people, and be filled with
the monuments of civilization.

The report of the land committee proceeds to notice and to

animadvert upon certain opinions of a late secretary of the treasury,
contained in his annual report, and endeavors to connect them with
some sentiments expressed in the report of the committee of
manufactures. That report has before been the subject of repeated
commentary in the senate, by the senator from Missouri, and of
much misrepresentation and vituperation in the public press.
Mr. Rush showed me the rough draft of that report, and I advised
him to expunge the paragraphs in question, because I foresaw that
they would be misrepresented, and that he would be exposed to
unjust accusation. But knowing the purity of his intentions, believing
in the soundness of the views which he presented, and confiding in
the candor of a just public, he resolved to retain the paragraphs.
I cannot suppose the senator from Missouri ignorant of what passed
between Mr. Rush and me, and of his having, against my
suggestions, retained the paragraphs in question, because these
facts were all stated by Mr. Rush himself, in a letter addressed to a
late member of the house of representatives, representing the
district in which I reside, which letter, more than a year ago, was
published in the western papers.

I shall say nothing in defence of myself, nothing to disprove the

charge of my cherishing unfriendly feelings and sentiments towards
any part of the west. If the public acts in which I have participated,
if the uniform tenor of my whole life, will not refute such an
imputation, nothing that I could here say would refute it.

But I will say something in defence of the opinions of my late

patriotic and enlightened colleague, not here to speak for himself;
and I will vindicate his official opinions from the erroneous glosses
and interpretations which have been put upon them.

Mr. Rush, in an official report which will long remain a monument

of his ability, was surveying, with a statesman’s eye, the condition of
America. He was arguing in favor of the protective policy—the
American system. He spoke of the limited vocations of our society,
and the expediency of multiplying the means of increasing
subsistence, comfort, and wealth. He noticed the great and the
constant tendency of our fellow-citizens to the cultivation of the soil,
the want of a market for their surplus produce, the inexpediency of
all blindly rushing to the same universal employment, and the policy
of dividing ourselves into various pursuits. He says:

‘The manner in which the remote lands of the United States are selling and
settling, whilst it possibly may tend to increase more quickly the aggregate
population of the country, and the mere means of subsistence, does not increase
capital in the same proportion. * * * * Anything that may serve to hold
back this tendency to diffusion from running too far and too long into an extreme,
can scarcely prove otherwise than salutary * * * * If the population of
these, (a majority of the states, including some western states,) not yet redundant
in fact, though appearing to be so, under this legislative incitement to emigrate,
remain fixed in more instances, as it probably would be by extending the motives
to manufacturing labor, it is believed that the nation would gain in two ways: first,
by the more rapid accumulation of capital, and next, by the gradual reduction of
the excess of its agricultural population over that engaged in other vocations. It is
not imagined that it ever would be practicable, even if it were desirable, to turn
this stream of emigration aside; but resources, opened through the influence of
the laws, in new fields of industry, to the inhabitants of the states already
sufficiently peopled to enter upon them, might operate to lessen, in some degree,
and usefully lessen, its absorbing force.’

Now, Mr. President, what is there in this view adverse to the

west, or unfavorable to its interests? Mr. Rush is arguing on the
tendency of the people to engage in agriculture, and the incitement
to emigration produced by our laws. Does he propose to change
those laws in that particular? Does he propose any new measure? So
far from suggesting any alteration of the conditions on which the
public lands are sold, he expressly says, that it is not desirable, if it
were practicable, to turn this stream of emigration aside. Leaving all
the laws in full force, and all the motives to emigration arising from
fertile and cheap lands, untouched, he recommends the
encouragement of a new branch of business, in which all the union,
the west as well as the rest, is interested; thus presenting an option
to population to engage in manufactures or in agriculture, at its own
discretion. And does such an option afford just ground of complaint
to any one? Is it not an advantage to all? Do the land committee
desire (I am sure they do not) to create starvation in one part of the
union, that emigrants may be forced into another? If they do not,
they ought not to condemn a multiplication of human employments,
by which, as its certain consequence, there will be an increase in the
means of subsistence and comfort. The objection to Mr. Rush, then,
is, that he looked at his whole country, and at all parts of it; and
that, whilst he desired the prosperity and growth of the west to
advance undisturbed, he wished to build up, on deep foundations,
the welfare of all the people.

Mr. Rush knew that there were thousands of the poorer classes
who never would emigrate; and that emigration, under the best
auspices, was far from being unattended with evil. There are moral,
physical, pecuniary obstacles to all emigration; and these will
increase, as the good vacant lands of the west are removed, by
intervening settlements further and further from society, as it is now
located. It is, I believe, Dr. Johnson who pronounces, that of all
vegetable and animal creation, man is the most difficult to be
uprooted and transferred to a distant country; and he was right.
Space itself, mountains, and seas, and rivers, are impediments. The
want of pecuniary means, the expenses of the outfit, subsistence
and transportation of a family, is no slight circumstance. When all
these difficulties are overcome, (and how few, comparatively, can
surmount them!) the greatest of all remains—that of being torn from
one’s natal spot—separated, for ever, from the roof under which the
companions of his childhood were sheltered, from the trees which
have shaded him from summer’s heats, the spring from whose
gushing fountain he has drunk in his youth, the tombs that hold the
precious relic of his venerated ancestors!

But I have said, that the land committee had attempted to

confound the sentiments of Mr. Rush with some of the reasoning
employed by the committee of manufactures against the proposed
reduction of the price of the public lands. What is that reasoning?
Here it is; it will speak for itself; and without a single comment will
demonstrate how different it is from that of the late secretary of the
treasury, unexceptionable as that has been shown to be.

‘The greatest emigration, (says the manufacturing committee,) that is believed

now to take place from any of the states, is from Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
The effects of a material reduction in the price of the public lands, would be, first,
to lessen the value of real estate in those three states; secondly, to diminish their
interest in the public domain, as a common fund for the benefit of all the states;
and, thirdly, to offer what would operate as a bounty to further emigration from