. Walker moved that it be referred to a committee of five. Mr.
Calhoun opposed the bill, and moved a reference to the Committee on
Public Lands. Mr. Walker rose and said:

* * 'He had heard with regret the actual settlers denounced in the
Senate as squatters, as if that were a term of reproach. Our glorious
Anglo-Saxon ancestry, the pilgrims who landed on Plymouth rock, the
early settlers at Jamestown, were squatters. They settled this continent
with less pretension to title than the settlers on the public lands.
Daniel Boone was a squatter; Christopher Columbus was a squatter.

* * They are the men who cultivate the soil in peace, and defend your
country in war, when those who denounce them are reposing upon beds of
down. These are the men who, in the trackless wilderness and upon the
plains of Orleans, carried forward to victory, the bannered eagle of our
great and glorious Union. These are the men with whom the patriot
Jackson achieved his great and glorious victories; and if but one
thousand of these much abused squatters, these Western riflemen, had
been at Bladensburg beneath their great commander, never would a British
army have polluted the soil where stands the capitol of the Union. They
would have driven back the invader ere the torch of the incendiary had
reached the capitol, or they would have left their bones bleaching there
(as did the Spartans at Thermopylae), alike, in death or victory, the
patriot defenders of their country's soil, and fame, and honor. [Here
Mr. Walker was interrupted by warm applause from the crowded galleries.]
It is proposed to send this bill to the Committee on Public Lands, that
has already reported against reducing the price of the public lands,
against granting preemptions to settlers, against every other material
feature of this bill--to send this bill there, to have another report
against us. No, said Mr. Walker; we have had one report against the new
States, and the settlers in them, and now let them be heard through the
report of a select committee: let argument encounter argument, and the
question be decided on its real merits.'

The opposition of Mr. Calhoun to this measure, was based upon the idea,
_originating with him_, that, selling the public lands, only in small
tracts, and at reduced prices, exclusively to actual settlers, would be
hostile to large plantations, prevent the transfer of slavery to new
Territories, and the multiplication of slave States. This view was