"I think," he said, "the reduction of the revenue is in itself subordinate in importance to the stability of the industry of the country. The inconvenience of having too full a treasury is only a consequence of the greater public inconvenience of importing from other countries many things which ought to be produced at home. I, therefore, want a measure which, while it effects a reduction of the revenue, will be sure also to reduce imports.

Principally as a result of the financial crisis of 1857, the tariff law enacted that year had not yielded a sufficient revenue. The Morrill tariff of 1861 was designed to supply the deficit. Under the tariffs of 1846 and 1857 there was a liberal warehouse system, so that imported goods might lie in bond a considerable time before the payment of duty. The House bill proposed to reduce this period to so short a time as practically to do away with the credit feature. The Senate committee desired to increase the time from thirty to ninety days. Seward wished to make it three years. The inland protectionists, like Simon Cameron, naturally looked upon such a plan as protection for importers and foreign manufacturers and as the withholding from the United States treasury of many millions.' Seward's constituency in New York city and his experience on the committee on commerce had kept him free from the common prejudices against international exchanges where they did not directly conflict with important domestic interests. This was the only point in the debate that he defended with persistency and special skill. He and his colleague, Preston King, and Sumner voted against their Republican associates, and the Senate approved Seward's amendment. He also made an effort-but an unsuccessful one-to reduce the tariff on books and printed literature from fifteen to ten per cent., urging

1 Globe, 1856-57, Apdx., 345.

3 Globe, 1860–61, 930.

2 Globe, 1860-61, 948.

that that would be "quite enough to levy on knowledge and literature." 1

Nearly three-fourths of the four million square miles of national area had been in the possession of the Federal government, subject to the control and disposal of Congress. The public lands were so vast that for more than half a century our legislators seemed to believe that the supply could never be exhausted. They were sold at nominal prices, distributed as bounties for military service, and donated to the new states by the hundred thousand acres for purposes of internal improvement, education, and charity. The westward flow of the population was greatly accelerated by the discovery of gold in California and by the acquisitions from Mexico. The schemes for obtaining public land soon became countless. West of the Ohio river many persons believed that every one that wanted land should be given it for the asking, and the new states set up a clamor against the Federal government retaining control over lands within their borders. The revenue from the sale of the public lands was not needed by the United States treasury, but a majority in Congress could not be obtained for its distribution among the states. However, many of the Democrats agreed with the Whigs that the Constitution gave Congress absolute control over the public domain. The popular demand for a spendthrift policy of distribution, and the political advantages to be gained by the advocates of such a policy, soon became too great to be resisted. As late as 1850 Seward estimated that there still remained seventeen hundred million acres of the public domain. No wonder that the most sober legislators and the most clever politicians were overflowing with opinions on the great land question.*

1 Globe, 1860-61, 987. 2 Globe, 1850-51, 742. 3 1 Works, 293. 4 In 1851, Dawson, of Georgia, told the Senate, that the public lands

Seward's theories about the functions of the Federal government indicated that he would be hampered by no constitutional objections. Months before the Hungarian revolution had failed, thousands of the spirited Magyars had come to the United States to seek a home. On January 9, 1850, Seward presented to the Senate a resolution denouncing the "injustice, barbarity, and oppression" which Austria and Russia had practised toward Hungary, and requesting the committee on public lands "to inquire and report on the propriety of setting apart a portion of the public domain, to be granted, free from all charges, to the exiles of Hungary already arrived, and hereafter to arrive, in the United States, as well as to the exiles fleeing from oppression in other European countries." Subsequently Foote, of Mississippi, characterized the different propositions before the Senate for the disposition of public land as "bids" for popularity; and the way in which Senators laughed and joked about the remark indicated that others held similar opinions. Douglas charged Seward with giving the foreign-born resident an advantage over the native American; and Dawson, of Georgia, called Seward's plan "constituting our public domain into a great national charity fund." Seward practically admitted Dawson's charge, and replied to Douglas by saying that he would gladly vote for any other proposition placing the immigrant and the native on an equal footing. He suggested that if the foreigner was given a preference it was because his "liberties had been cloven

were "made a mere battledoor for political purposes; and any man who has any aspirations to the highest office in the gift of the people of this country makes it his business to form his platforms upon the public lands, and the rights and interests of the states are made subservient to the personal aspirations of individuals." "This is true, and should be known; and I am prepared to tell it boldly."— Globe, 1850-51, 743. 1 Globe, 1849-50, 128. • Globe, 1849-50, 264.

2 Globe, 1849-50, 262, 263.

down," because he had been deprived of his home, and had sought this land of liberty as an asylum.' Moreover, he was so friendly toward immigrants that he was in favor of receiving all classes, and would support "an amelioration of the laws of naturalization, so as to give a vote to any man of any country on his becoming permanently domiciled among us."*

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In September, 1850, he favored a bill for surveying Oregon and making donations of the public lands to settlers. He desired that immigrants that had declared their intentions to become citizens should have the same privileges as native Americans. A few days later, when the Senate was considering a measure to grant citizens certain mining privileges on the public lands in California, he moved to amend it so as to include immigrants, as in the bill relating to Oregon. Dawson protested that this would throw open the gold mines to the whole world; and both of the California Senators, Frémont and Gwin, feared that the passage of such an amendment would cause their state to be overrun by the half-civilized Mexicans, while Gwin believed that many Mexicans would bring their peons with them." Seward considered that "distinctions between races and castes are vices in any constitution of government," and he ventured the prophecy "that if we now refuse to discriminate in California in favor of those who are already citizens and those who are in the process of becoming so, we shall happily crush in the bud that principle of Native-Americanism which, if allowed to ripen, would

1 Globe, 1849-50, 264.

2 Ibid., 267. This phrase was changed so that in his Works it reads: "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 raises a barrier between ourselves and those who cast their lot amongst us."-1 Works, 295.

1

there, as elsewhere, produce only bitter fruits." He could see no difference between the giving of farming privileges and the granting of mining concessions to immigrants. "The policy is the same in both cases; it is to cover the earth with population as fast as possible, and to distribute the wealth acquired as broadly as possible." He advocated the measure because he "regarded the interests of the whole American family as demanding the practice of not only the largest civil liberty, but also the opening of the door to the privileges of citizenship widely and freely to all who may desire to enter." Foote, in another of his personal outbursts, charged that Seward could have advocated such doctrines only "for the purpose of bolstering up the tottering pretensions to presidential advancement.""

The objection to Spanish-Americans was so strong that Senator Dodge, of Iowa, offered a further amendment conferring the proposed privileges on immigrants from Europe only. This, it should be noticed, excluded those from Canada and all other parts of this continent, from Australia and other sections of the globe inhabited by European races. But few save Europeans had become citizens and voters. Seward supported Dodge's amend ment, without making any explanations.*

In February, 1851, a bill proposing to release to Louisiana all the public lands within her borders, to enable her to improve the navigation of the Mississippi, was under consideration. Seward favored it, and in a carefully prepared speech explained his theories as to the best way to deal with the public domain in general. The strongest objections to the gratuitous distribution of the lands or their relinquishment to the states in which they lay, were that they had cost the nation millions of

1 1 Works, 324.

3 Ibid., 1367..

2 Globe, 1849-50, Apdx., 1366.
*1 Works, 156–71.

4 Ibid.