The first section directs--
That from and after the 31st day of December, 1832, there shall be
allowed and paid to each of the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, and Louisiana, over and above what each
of the said States is entitled to by the terms of the compacts entered
into between them respectively upon their admission into the Union and
the United States, the sum of 12-1/2 per cent upon the net amount of the
sales of the public lands which subsequent to the day aforesaid shall be
made within the several limits of the said States, which said sum of
12-1/2 per cent shall be applied to some object or objects of internal
improvement or education within the said States under the direction of
their several legislatures.
This 12-1/2 per cent is to be taken out of the net proceeds of the land
sales before any apportionment is made, and the same seven States which
are first to receive this proportion are also to receive their due
proportion of the residue according to the ratio of general
distribution.
Now, waiving all considerations of equity or policy in regard to this
provision, what more need be said to demonstrate its objectionable
character than that it is in direct and undisguised violation of the
pledge given by Congress to the States before a single cession was made,
that it abrogates the condition upon which some of the States came into
the Union, and that it sets at naught the terms of cession spread upon
the face of every grant under which the title to that portion of the
public land is held by the Federal Government?
In the apportionment of the remaining seven-eighths of the proceeds this
bill, in a manner equally undisguised, violates the conditions upon
which the United States acquired title to the ceded lands.
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