in a great measure, on upholding the Constitution and Union of these States.  If shattered and destroyed, no matter by what cause, the peculiar and cherished idea of United American Liberty will be no more for ever.  There may be free states, it is possible, when there shall be separate states.  There may be many loose, and feeble, and hostile confederacies, where there is now one great and united confederacy.  But the noble idea of United American Liberty, of our liberty, such as our fathers established it, will be extinguished for ever.  Fragments and shattered columns of the edifice may be found remaining; and melancholy and mournful ruins will they be.  The august temple itself will be prostrate in the dust.  Gentlemen, the citizens of this republic cannot sever their fortunes.  A common fate awaits us.  In the honor of upholding, or in the disgrace of undermining the Constitution, we shall all necessarily partake.  Let us then stand by the Constitution as it is, and by our country as it is, one, united, and entire; let it be a truth engraven on our hearts, let it be borne on the flag under which we rally, in every exigency, that we have ONE COUNTRY, ONE CONSTITUTION, ONE DESTINY.

Gentlemen, of our interior administration, the public lands constitute a highly important part.  This is a subject of great interest, and it ought to attract much more attention than it has hitherto received, especially from the people of the Atlantic States.  The public lands are public property.  They belong to the people of all the States.  A vast portion of them is composed of territories which were ceded by individual States to the United States, after the close of the Revolutionary war, and before the adoption of the present Constitution.  The history of these cessions, and the reasons for making them, are familiar to you.  Some of the Old Thirteen possessed large tracts of unsettled lands within their chartered limits.  The Revolution had established their title to these lands, and as the Revolution had been brought about by the common treasure and the common blood of all the Colonies, it was thought not unreasonable that these unsettled lands should be transferred to the United States, to pay the debt created by the war, and afterwards to remain as a fund for the use of all the States.  This is the well-known origin of the title possessed by the United States to lands northwest of the River Ohio.

By treaties with France and Spain, Louisiana and Florida, containing many millions of acres of public land, have been since acquired.  The cost of these acquisitions was paid, of course, by the general government, and was thus a charge upon the whole people.  The public lands, therefore, all and singular, are national property; granted to the United States, purchased by the United States, paid for by all the people of the United States.