be sold
to settlers in limited parcels at a price barely sufficient to reimburse
to the United States the expense of the present system and the cost
arising under our Indian compacts. The advantages of accurate surveys
and undoubted titles now secured to purchasers seem to forbid the
abolition of the present system, because none can be substituted which
will more perfectly accomplish these important ends. It is desirable,
however, that in convenient time this machinery be withdrawn from the
States, and that the right of soil and the future disposition of it be
surrendered to the States respectively in which it lies.

The adventurous and hardy population of the West, besides contributing
their equal share of taxation under our impost system, have in the
progress of our Government, for the lands they occupy, paid into the
Treasury a large proportion of $40,000,000, and of the revenue received
therefrom but a small part has been expended amongst them. When to the
disadvantage of their situation in this respect we add the consideration
that it is their labor alone which gives real value to the lands, and
that the proceeds arising from their sale are distributed chiefly among
States which had not originally any claim to them, and which have
enjoyed the undivided emolument arising from the sale of their own
lands, it can not be expected that the new States will remain longer
contented with the present policy after the payment of the public debt.
To avert the consequences which may be apprehended from this cause, to
put an end forever to all partial and interested legislation on the
subject, and to afford to every American citizen of enterprise the
opportunity of securing an independent freehold, it seems to me,
therefore, best to abandon the idea of raising a future revenue out of
the public lands.

In former messages I have expressed my conviction that the Constitution
does not warrant the application of the funds of the General Government
to objects of internal improvement which are not national in their
character, and, both as a means of doing justice to all interests and
putting an end to a course of legislation calculated to destroy the
purity of the Government, have urged the necessity of reducing the whole
subject to some fixed and certain rule. As there never will occur a
period, perhaps, more propitious than the present to the accomplishment
of this object, I beg leave to press the subject again upon your
attention