I have always supported liberal appropriations for the purpose of opening communications to and through these lands, by common roads, canals, and railroads; and where lands of little value have been long in market, and, on account of their indifferent quality, are not likely to command a common price, I know no objection to a reduction of price, as to such lands, so that they may pass into private ownership.  Nor do I feel any objections to removing those restraints which prevent the States from taxing the lands for five years after they are sold.  But while, in these and all other respects, I am not only reconciled to a liberal policy, but espouse it and support it, and have constantly done so, I still hold the national domain to be the general property of the country, confined to the care of Congress, and which Congress is solemnly bound to protect and preserve for the common good.

The benefit derived from the public lands, after all, is, and must be, in the greatest degree, enjoyed by those who buy them and settle upon them.  The original price paid to government constitutes but a small part of their actual value.  Their immediate rise in value, in the hands of the settler, gives him competence.  He exercises a power of selection over a vast region of fertile territory, all on sale at the same price, and that price an exceedingly low one.  Selection is no sooner made, cultivation is no sooner begun, and the first furrow turned, than he already finds himself a man of property.  These are the advantages of Western emigrants and Western settlers; and they are such, certainly, as no country on earth ever before afforded to her citizens.  This opportunity of purchase and settlement, this certainty of enhanced value, these sure means of immediate competence and ultimate wealth,—­all these are the rights and the blessings of the people of the West, and they have my hearty wishes for their full and perfect enjoyment.

I desire to see the public lands cultivated and occupied.  I desire the growth and prosperity of the West, and the fullest development of its vast and extraordinary resources.  I wish to bring it near to us, by every species of useful communication.  I see, not without admiration and amazement, but yet without envy or jealousy, States of recent origin already containing more people than Massachusetts.  These people I know to be part of ourselves; they have proceeded from the midst of us, and we may trust that they are not likely to separate themselves, in interest or in feeling, from their kindred, whom they have left on the farms and around the hearths of their common fathers.

A liberal policy, a sympathy with its interests, an enlightened and generous feeling of participation in its prosperity, are due to the West, and will be met, I doubt not, by a return of sentiments equally cordial and equally patriotic.

Gentlemen, the general question of revenue is very much connected with this subject of the public lands, and I will therefore, in a very few words, express my views on that point.