say a few words in relation to a point raised
in the course of the debate on this bill, which he would now proceed to
make if in order. The point in the case to which he referred arose on the
amendment that was submitted by the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Collamer]
in Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, and which was
afterward renewed in the House, in relation to the question whether the
reserved sections, which, by some bills heretofore passed, by which an
appropriation of land had been made to Wisconsin, had been enhanced in
value, should be reduced to the minimum price of the public lands. The
question of the reduction in value of those sections was to him at this
time a matter very nearly of indifference. He was inclined to desire that
Wisconsin should be obliged by having it reduced. But the gentleman from
Indiana [Mr. C. B. Smith], the chairman of the Committee on Territories,
yesterday associated that question with the general question, which is now
to some extent agitated in Congress, of making appropriations of alternate
sections of land to aid the States in making internal improvements, and
enhancing the price of the sections reserved, and the gentleman from
Indiana took ground against that policy. He did not make any special
argument in favor of Wisconsin, but he took ground generally against the
policy of giving alternate sections of land, and enhancing the price of
the reserved sections. Now he [Mr. Lincoln] did not at this time take the
floor for the purpose of attempting to make an argument on the general
subject. He rose simply to protest against the doctrine which the
gentleman from Indiana had avowed in the course of what he [Mr. Lincoln]
could not but consider an unsound argument.

It might, however, be true, for anything he knew, that the gentleman
from Indiana might convince him that his argument was sound; but he [Mr.
Lincoln] feared that gentleman would not be able to convince a majority
in Congress that it was sound. It was true the question appeared in a
different aspect to persons in consequence of a difference in the point
from which they looked at it. It did not look to persons residing east of
the mountains as it did to those who lived among the public lands. But,
for his part, he would state that if Congress would make a donation of
alternate sections of public land for the purpose of internal improvements
in his State, and forbid the reserved sections being sold at $1.25, he