chaser (who is to sell again to settlers) the usual profit upon capital employed in similar speculations. Should the lands be sold before there is an actual demand by settlers, they will bring a price proportionably less as the prospect of settlement may be farther distant. Congress have directed their lands to be sold partly in small and partly in large tracts; one half of the purchase-money to be paid at the time of sale, and the other half within one year after; no lands to be sold under two dollars per acre. The credit is so short that the class of people who usually begin settlements will be nearly altogether excluded. The provision which fixes the price at two dollars at least will exclude, to a certain degree, the speculators. And the sales will probably fall short of the actual yearly demand for settlers and be confined to the very best tracts.

About ten thousand families migrate every year to the westward of the Alleghany Mountains. Although all of them cannot purchase lands, all of them increase the demand for land, as they enable those who can purchase to cultivate more and therefore to purchase more. Of those ten thousand families, three-fourths at least will be fixed in the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and in those parts of the North-West Territory already ceded by the United States and by Virginia. The yearly migration to the lands of the United States will be probably about 2600 families; the yearly actual demand for lands may vary from 500,000 to one million of acres. Although various circumstances render it impossible to form any tolerably correct conjecture on the amount of sales, it is not probable that, on the plan which has been adopted, they will upon an average exceed 250,000 acres, yielding a revenue of 500,000 dollars. The first year, on account of the great demand for the valuable low lands on the Ohio and other rivers, will perhaps be more productive than the succeeding

ones.

The lands may be applied in two ways to the payment of the debt, either indirectly or immediately: indirectly, by selling the lands for the best price that can be obtained, and applying the moneys to the redemption of the debt; immediately, by inducing the holders of some species of debt to exchange it for

lands, by making the price of lands payable in certificates of debt of that species. By the first mode it is probable that a higher price will be obtained for the lands, as they will only be sold from time to time as they rise in value, and as some advantages must be given to the holders of the debt to induce them to make the exchange. But, on the other hand, the second mode will secure a proper application of the proceeds of the land; the land itself will pay the debt without coming into the Treasury in the shape of money, which, upon the first emergency, might be applied to some other purposes. Another peculiar advantage would arise if the land was immediately applied to the extinguishment of the debt bearing an interest of three per cent. Was a redemption of this debt to be attempted by purchases, it would necessarily raise its price beyond its usual market price and beyond what it is supposed to be really worth. It would, therefore, require so much larger a sum for its redemption. Supposing that stock to be worth sixty per cent. upon its nominal value when six per cent. stock is at par, the 19,300,000 dollars now existing are worth only something more than eleven millions and a half of dollars. But although the lands should bring that money, it would undoubtedly require a greater sum to purchase the whole of the stock. A variety of plans might be formed for a commutation of that stock into lands. The following sketch is offered merely to show in what manner the operation might be effected.

Let the lands, after they shall have been surveyed, be divided into ten large lots of 960,000 acres each, as equal in quality and value as the nature of the case will admit; and each of the said large lots be subdivided into townships, and these into tracts of 640 acres. Let then a subscription be opened for the sale of the large lots successively, beginning with the most valuable; each purchaser to subscribe for at least a tract of 640 acres; the price of the subscription to be two dollars per acre, with interest at the rate of three per cent. a year from the time of the sale, payable in any species of stock of the United States at its nominal value; with liberty to the purchaser to discharge the debt in specie at the rate of one dollar and a half per acre; one-tenth part of the purchase-money to be paid at the time of the sub

scription, and the remainder part in nine yearly instalments, or sooner, at the option of the purchaser: possession of the land to be given immediately, but the land to remain mortgaged in security for the purchase-money. As soon as the subscription to one of the large lots is filled, let the subscribers draw lot for their respective shares, under such modifications as will secure to subscribers for one township, or quarter of a township, the whole in one tract.

The most weighty objection against this plan is, perhaps, the lottery and speculation to which it will give rise; yet it will be found difficult to devise any plan for the sale of lands and for the redemption of the public debt which will not, in some degree, be liable to the same objection. The number of acres, price, interest, time of payment, &c., in the above have been inserted merely for the sake of conveying clearer ideas; but they should be considered as blanks that can be filled only upon an investigation of all the details of the subject.

The advantages for the public, supposing the whole of the subscription to be filled, would be the certainty of the redemption of the whole debt bearing an interest of three per cent. and an immediate liberation of the annuity of 580,000 dollars necessary to pay the interest thereon, since the interest payable for the land would always be equal to the interest payable on the three per cent. stock in circulation.' This sum might, therefore, be applied in part of the additional revenue of 800,000 dollars wanted to extinguish the debt of sixteen millions; I say of the 800,000 dollars, for it could not be applied in part of the 1,100,000 dollars necessary to pay the annuity on the deferred stock, the faith of the Union being pledged to discharge that annuity out of the revenues of the Union, and to apply, in addition to it, the proceeds of the public lands towards the extinguishment of the public debt. Thus, if that subscription was to be filled, the lands would in twelve years extinguish both the debt bearing three per cent. interest and a great part of the

1 Ten lots of 960,000 acres each are 9,600,000 acres; which, if all sold at two dollars per acre, would bring dollars 19,200,000. The amount of three per cent. stock is about 19,300,000.

above-mentioned sixteen millions of dollars; it being necessary to add (for that purpose and exclusively of the 1,100,000 dollars requisite to pay the annuity on the deferred stock) only a yearly revenue of 220,000 dollars for those twelve years. Those advantages would more than counterbalance to the public the advantages offered to the subscribers by the low rate of the lands.

The advantages to subscribers would be obvious. The average price of lands equal in situation and quality, but either settled or capable of being immediately settled, is now four dollars per acre. In all probability ten years, and at farthest fifteen, will settle the whole of the ten millions of acres offered for sale, or at least will raise the whole of it to what may be called the settlement price, an average of four dollars per acre. A part might now be sold above that price; a great proportion of the lands will attain it within a shorter period than ten years; the most remote situation will be worth it at the expiration of that time. And this must take place, according to the natural course of events, by the natural increase of population, without giving any farther trouble of management to the purchasers than that of selling the lands again to actual settlers. Those amongst the purchasers who will become settlers will affix that price to the land as soon as they improve it; and at the price they give will be enabled to pay three-fourths of the purchase-money out of the proceeds of the land itself. The land may therefore be considered as being, upon an average, worth four dollars per acre within eight years after the time of purchase; which, discounted at the rate of six per cent. compound interest, is equal to about two dollars and a half at the time of purchase. For this the subscribers will give, at most, one dollar and a half, bearing, in fact, only four per cent. interest, payable in nine years, and not worth much more than one dollar and a quarter at the time of purchase.

Although the success of a plan something similar to this may not be complete, yet so far as it will succeed, so far the extinguishment of the debt bearing an interest of three per cent. will be promoted, and so far the amount of the additional revenue necessary for the payment of the annuity on the deferred stock,

and for the extinguishment of the above-mentioned debt of sixteen millions of dollars, may be diminished. The sources from which that additional revenue, whatever its amount may be, can be derived remain to be examined; still recollecting that at least 1,100,000 dollars must necessarily be raised, and that the ability of the United States to raise the highest required sum, viz., 1,900,000 dollars, cannot be denied.

This revenue may be raised either by indirect or direct taxes. A difficulty, inherent in the Constitution, will always render a recurrence to direct taxation the last resort of the general government. For, it being provided that such taxes shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective population, those States who have a less extent of territory in proportion to their numbers will think themselves aggrieved by a species of tax which must reach their lands, not in the ratio of their value, but in that of the whole number of inhabitants.

Labor being the only source of wealth, the annual quantity and produce of labor was the best general rule which could be established for fixing the respective ability of paying taxes in the several States. Nor does it appear that any better criterion could have been adopted, in order to ascertain that annual produce of labor, than the number of inhabitants, making the same allowance with the Constitution by estimating the net produce of the labor of five slaves (after deducting that part necessary for their sustenance) equal to the net produce of the labor of three freemen. Yet that general rule, like all others, is liable to some exceptions. The labor of the same number of men may, according to the differences in the nature of their employment, in their skill and industry, in the government under which they live, in the quantity of active capital existing in the country, and in several other circumstances, vary in different countries. The labor of the inhabitants of Great Britain is certainly far more productive than the labor of the inhabitants of Poland, who are at least equal in number. It does not, however, appear that the differences existing in the respective circumstances of the several States are so great as to render the operation of the rule more unequal than the operation of most indirect taxes. Their government is similar, and the most sen