security against those continued agitations of the subject which it
should be the principal object of any measure for the disposition of
the public lands to avert.

Neither the merits of the bill under consideration nor the validity of
the objections which I have felt it to be my duty to make to its passage
can be correctly appreciated without a full understanding of the manner
in which the public lands upon which it is intended to operate were
acquired and the conditions upon which they are now held by the United
States. I will therefore precede the statement of those objections by a
brief but distinct exposition of these points.

The waste lands within the United States constituted one of the early
obstacles to the organization of any government for the protection of
their common interests. In October, 1777, while Congress were framing
the Articles of Confederation, a proposition was made to amend them to
the following effect, viz:


That the United States in Congress assembled shall have the sole and
exclusive right and power to ascertain and fix the western boundary of
such States as claim to the Mississippi or South Sea, and lay out the
land beyond the boundary so ascertained into separate and independent
States from time to time as the numbers and circumstances of the people
thereof may require.


It was, however, rejected, Maryland only voting for it, and so difficult
did the subject appear that the patriots of that body agreed to waive it
in the Articles of Confederation and leave it for future settlement.