The distinguished Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. CLAY,] several years since, by his great influence in the councils of the nation, secured the distribution among the several states of this Union of a portion of these and other surplus revenues of this government. I was at a distance, an humble follower and approver of that policy. The result of it in other states I do not know. But you, Mr. President, [Mr. FILLMORE,] can testify with me the result, the beneficent result, in the state of New York, from which we come. The share which was allotted to us was $6,000,000; the amount we received was $4,500,000. Every dollar of that four and a half millions, sir, more than ten years ago, went to the foundation of public schools, academies, seminaries, and other higher institutions of learning, and of libraries for the common people. And, sir, I will now state to the Senate—and I am proud that, in behalf of the state of New York, I am here this day to state it to the praise and honor of the distinguished Senator from Kentucky— the condition of the state of New York, of the people, bond and free-I might say, if we had any of the former class-native and foreigner, to which they have been brought by this act of justice -I will not call it benevolence. Sir, the state of New York, having a population of three millions of people, has not in it one child of citizen or foreigner that is not educated, from the age of five years to the age of twenty years, at the public cost and expense. Again, sir at the distance of every mile and a half on every main road, railroad, canal, and cross-road-separated by only a mile and a half-is the school-house of New England. The schoolmaster is at home everywhere in New York, and all the time; and New York has made a trial of the blessed example of Massachusetts and Connecticut. This is what has been done in my day, since my and your experience began; and more than that: in every one of these school-houses is a public library of two hundred and fifty volumes, containing all that is interesting in ancient or modern history or science, literature, geography, and every other branch of human knowledge, open and accessible to every citizen -man, woman, and child-in the state of New York. Yes, sir, these four millions and a half have supplied us with libraries which, taken collectively, contain more than one million of vol

umes.

More than that, sir: there has not been left in the state of New York, the blind person who has not been taught to read his bible

there has not been left in the state the deaf and dumb, the mute, who has not been brought to be able to give expression of his gratitude and praise to God, and to the state which has brought him from ignorance and degradation below his race. More than that, sir: we have not neglected that other unfortunate class. I have been asked why not consider the free negroes? Sir, the free negroes have been considered. This fund has been appropriated to their advancement, also; to raise their condition; to cultivate them to exercise the rights of self-government, and to carry on the great work of the emancipation of their race wherever they are found in bondage. Yes, sir, five thousand children of the African race are educated out of this great fund of national benevolence. What becomes of the reproach, then, that this is a charity? What would have been the disposition of this fund if it had been left here, sir? It would have been expended as the revenues of this country, always too large, too liberal, have been expended, in improvidence. It is therefore that I have always claimed that it should be distributed among the states, that they might apply it to works of advancement-progress—humanity.

Now, sir, there has been no diminution of the fund all this time. While we have been enjoying this four and a half millions, there is not one dollar of it gone. Every dollar is there yet. It is still in the treasury of the state of New York; and all that has been done has been done only by the use of the money. Tell me, sir, is it not wiser to make such a distribution of this fund than it would be to employ it in encouraging prodigality in the government; than to encourage that lust of conquest in which the Mexican war had its origin, by which were brought into this Union seven hundred and sixty-three millions of acres of public domain, to be added to the one thousand millions we had before? What has it wrought? It has proved, in the words of an honorable senator here, but a Pandora's box of evils; and we are entertained here, day after day, with the intelligence that the Union must be dissolved-that it is really now dissolved-even to-day. We employed the revenues of the public domains in extending our dominions, that were too large unnecessarily large—already. Sir, I want no more Mexican wars, no more lust of conquest, no more of seizing the unripened fruit, which, if left alone, would of itself fall into our hands. I claim that the federal government shall be brought at once to its responsibility to the people, and

that the people shall know what it costs them to indulge it in wars of conquest.

The Senator from Georgia and the Senator from Illinois are grieved that there is a peculiar character about my proposition, in considering the case of foreigners as distinguishable from the case of American citizens. My friend from Georgia supposes that he has found a peculiarly objectionable feature in this proposition, not found in that of the honorable Senator from Massachusetts and of the honorable Senator from Texas, because it provides distinctly for foreigners, without providing for others. Sir, these remarks and I am sorry to say, the reception, ungracious to me, which they received from the Senator from Illinois-oblige me to say what I would not have said—that the way to defeat any benevolent or charitable object is to bring into competition with it some other objects of charity which ought to be provided for first. Sir, the religion which inculcates the duty of charity gives us an admonition against such schemes for defeating the ends of charity.

Mr. DOUGLAS. Will the Senator from New York allow me to call his attention to the fact that my bill was brought in first, and, therefore, that it is his which is in competition with mine?

Mr. SEWARD. I do not allude to the senator's bill. The first time that I have heard of it from a source to which I could acknowledge myself indebted for the information, was this morning; and upon that occasion I rendered to him the deserved homage of my gratitude. I claim, however, that for the senator to join with the Senator from Georgia [Mr. DawSON] in censuring me because I discriminated between foreigners and native born, was an unkind and an unnecessary return for that homage. I was going on to say, that the religion which inculcates charity at all events, and which will never exculpate him who neglects it, admonishes us also to pour oil upon and anoint with ointmentwith precious ointment-the Savior while he is with us, though the Pharisee may cavil, and say that this precious ointment might have been sold, and the value of it given to the poor. It is no excuse to me for not paying this creditor, that there is another creditor there to whom I am equally indebted; because we have poor in our own country, I am not discharged from the claim of charity upon me in behalf of the exiles, whose liberties have been stricken down, and who have been driven amongst us from

their own land. Let them all come on; let them present themselves in whatever order, and to the extent of my ability I will discharge and cancel my obligations to the whole. If my friend from Georgia [Mr. DAWSON] supposes that this is a measure I am going to require him to support, as a relief of aliens, or of the alien and the foreigner, I will tell him, and I will tell the Senator from Illinois, [Mr. DOUGLAS,] that they much mistake the nature and character of my sentiments and principles with regard to aliens and foreigners. I am in favor of the equality of men-of ALL men, whether they be born in one land or born in another. I am in favor of receiving the whole. I acknowledge them all to constitute one great family, for whom it is the business of statesmen and the business of man to labor and to live. And, sir, when I do have occasion to ask the votes of those distinguished senators and friends in behalf of the alien and the foreigner, it will not be the exile, merely, who is commended to our sympathies for the sufferings he has sustained in the cause of liberty in Europe; but it will be for the melioration of the laws of naturalization, which put a period of five years and an oath in the way of any man of any country in becoming a citizen, which raise a barrier between ourselves and those who cast their lot amongst us. There is where they will find me; and they will find that to the extent that humanity bears the semblance which is impressed upon us by the hand of our Maker, it is my design and my purpose to labor to bring about that equality in the land in which I live, and as far as may be, in all other lands.

And, going upon this broad principle, I have no hesitation in saying that there is no distinction in my respect or affection between men of one land and of another; between men of one clime and another; between men of one race and another; or between men of one color and another; no distinction but what. is based, not upon institutions of government, not upon the consent of society, but upon their individual and personal merit. If the Senator from Georgia [Mr. DAWSON] will test this, if he has this sympathy for free negroes which I am rejoiced to hear him proclaim, let him bring in his bill, and the first aye that shall respond to it will be mine-if none should so respond to it before my name should be alphabetically reached, shall be mine. More than that; if his sympathies embrace a class that deserve them still more the slave-let him bring in his bill for the slave, and

my voice for emancipating the slave in any district or territory shall go for it. Nay, more; let him show me a way in which I can give a vote, an effectual vote, for the emancipation of the slave, in his own state, or any state, and I shall feel honored to participate in the movement; and my vote shall be given to sustain it, with more gladness, more gratitude, and more joy, than it was ever given upon any occasion in my life.

Sir, neither here nor elsewhere will I admit, as a rule for the government of my own conduct, that there is a distinction between men. But, on the contrary, I will walk up to the mark, assigned in the Declaration of Independence, that "ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL." Sir, the first vote given by me to keep any man, or any class of men, in a condition below my own, is yet to be given. It never will be given in this place.

Mr. President, I have submitted the remarks I thought necessary to vindicate my proposition from the censure it received when it has so indirectly made its appearance before the Senate. When that proposition shall be brought before the Senate in its proper order and manner, after the Senate shall have considered the resolution of the honorable Senator from Michigan, [Mr. CASS,] I shall be pleased to state the reasons why I have submitted that proposition in detail, and the grounds upon which I have given it its present form.

ON THE CENSUS.

APRIL 10, 1850.

NOTE. MR. KING, of Alabama, moved to strike out of the interrogatories prescribed by the Bill, the following:

"If a female, the number of children she has had known to be alive,-known to be dead."

Ir appears to me that the information sought to be obtained by this clause is essential, and that it will be found to be so. It is interesting to us all, as a question of political science, to know the actual condition of every class of population in this country; and certainly it concerns the public, as well as the government, to know the actual relative condition of the different