created for the purpose of distribution. Viewing this bill as in effect
assuming the right not only to create a surplus for that purpose, but to
divide the contents of the Treasury among the States without limitation,
from whatever source they may be derived, and asserting the power to
raise and appropriate money for the support of every State government
and institution, as well as for making every local improvement, however
trivial, I can not give it my assent.

It is difficult to perceive what advantages would accrue to the old
States or the new from the system of distribution which this bill
proposes if it were otherwise unobjectionable. It requires no argument
to prove that if $3,000,000 a year, or any other sum, shall be taken out
of the Treasury by this bill for distribution it must be replaced by the
same sum collected from the people through some other means. The old
States will receive annually a sum of money from the Treasury, but they
will pay in a larger sum, together with the expenses of collection and
distribution. It is only their proportion of _seven-eighths_ of the
proceeds of land sales which they are _to receive_, but they must _pay_
their due proportion of the _whole_. Disguise it as we may, the bill
proposes to them a dead loss in the ratio of _eight_ to _seven_,
in addition to expenses and other incidental losses. This assertion
is not the less true because it may not at first be palpable. Their
receipts will be in large sums, but their payments in small ones. The
_governments_ of the States will receive _seven_ dollars, for which the
_people_ of the States will pay _eight_. The large sums received will
be palpable to the senses; the small sums paid it requires thought to
identify. But a little consideration will satisfy the people that the
effect is the same as if _seven hundred dollars_ were given them from
the public Treasury, for which they were at the same time required to
pay in taxes, direct or indirect, _eight hundred_.