by the multiplying relations of personal
and intimate intercourse between the citizens of the Union dwelling at
the remotest distances from each other.

Among the subjects which have heretofore occupied the earnest solicitude
and attention of Congress is the management and disposal of that portion
of the property of the nation which consists of the public lands. The
acquisition of them, made at the expense of the whole Union, not only in
treasure but in blood, marks a right of property in them equally
extensive. By the report and statements from the General Land Office now
communicated it appears that under the present Government of the United
States a sum little short of $33,000,000 has been paid from the common
Treasury for that portion of this property which has been purchased from
France and Spain, and for the extinction of the aboriginal titles. The
amount of lands acquired is near 260,000,000 acres, of which on the 1st
of January, 1826, about 139,000,000 acres had been surveyed, and little
more than 19,000,000 acres had been sold. The amount paid into the
Treasury by the purchasers of the public lands sold is not yet equal to
the sums paid for the whole, but leaves a small balance to be refunded.
The proceeds of the sales of the lands have long been pledged to the
creditors of the nation, a pledge from which we have reason to hope that
they will in a very few years be redeemed.

The system upon which this great national interest has been managed was
the result of long, anxious, and persevering deliberation. Matured and
modified by the progress of our population and the lessons of
experience, it has been hitherto eminently successful. More than
nine-tenths of the lands still remain the common property of the Union,
the appropriation and disposal of which are sacred trusts in the hands
of Congress. Of the lands sold, a considerable part were conveyed under
extended credits, which in the vicissitudes and fluctuations in the
value of lands and of their produce became oppressively burdensome to
the purchasers. It can never be the interest or the policy of the nation
to wring from its own citizens the reasonable profits of their industry
and enterprise by holding them to the rigorous import of disastrous
engagements. In March, 1821, a debt of $22,000,000, due by purchasers of
the public lands, had accumulated, which they were unable to pay. An act
of Congress of the 2d March, 1821, came to their relief, and has been
su