Against the policy of holding up refuse lands until they should rise to the price of good land, and against the reservation of saline and mineral lands, and making money by boiling salt water, and digging lead ore, or holding a body of tenantry to boil and dig, I delivered these sentiments:
"I do trust and believe, Mr. President, that the Executive of this free government will not be second to George the Third in patriotism, nor an American Congress prove itself inferior to a British Parliament in political wisdom. I do trust and believe that this whole system of holding up land for the rise, endeavoring to make revenue out of the soil of the country, leasing and renting lead mines, salt springs, and iron banks, with all its train of penal laws and civil and military agents, will be condemned and abolished. I trust that the President himself will give the subject a place in his next message, and lend the aid of his recommendation to the success of so great an object. The mining operations, especially, should fix the attention of the Congress. They are a reproach to the age in which we live. National mining is condemned by every dictate of prudence, by every maxim of political economy, and by the voice of experience in every age and country. And yet we are engaged in that business. This splendid federal government, created for great _national_ purposes, has gone to work among the lead mines of Upper Louisiana, to give us a second edition, no doubt, of the celebrated "_Mississippi Scheme_" of John Law. For that scheme was nothing more nor less than a project of making money out of the same identical mines. Yes, Mr. President, upon the same identical theatre, among the same holes and pits, dug by _John Law's_ men in 1720; among the cinders, ashes, broken picks, and mouldering furnaces, of that celebrated projector, is our federal government now at work; and, that no circumstance should be wanting to complete the folly of such an undertaking, the task of extracting "_revenue_" from these operations, is confided, not to the _Treasury_, but to the War Department.
"Salines and salt springs are subjected to the same system--reserved from sale, and leased for the purpose of raising revenue. But I flatter myself that I see the end of this branch of the system. The debate which took place a few weeks ago on the bill to repeal the existing duty upon salt, is every word of it applicable to the bill which I have introduced for the sale of the reserved salt springs. I claim the benefit of it accordingly, and shall expect the support of all the advocates for the repeal of that tax, whenever the bill for the sale of the salines shall be put to the vote."