Annotated and Abridged Artifact

Abridged Text

On motion by Mr. FOOT, [1 »] the Senate proceeded to consider the bill making a grant of public lands to the several States and Territories of the Union, for the benefit of indigent insane persons.

Mr. FOOT. Mr. President, the Committee of Public Lands reported an amendment to this bill, in the form of a substitute for the original bill, which was introduced by myself, and referred to that committee; and to that amendment or substitute there is now pending an amendment offered by the Senator from Indiana, -Mr. PETTIT- who is not now in his seat.

Mr. President, this bill, with but a light modification, has been pending before Congress for the last five or six years, [2 »] and has passed each House by decisive majorities at different terms, though unfortunately not at the same term in concurrence. The object of the bill and its provisions are doubtless well understood by most, if not all the members of the Senate. It has been very fully and carefully considered by your Committee on Public Lands, and we think it well guarded in all its provisions. It can hardly be deemed necessary, therefore, to enter upon any extended discussion at this time, with a view to enforce its claim upon the favorable consideration of the Senate.

By the last census, [3 »] it appears there are over thirty thousand persons in the United States laboring under the most fearful and terrible of all inflictions, mental alienation or insanity; a very large proportion of whom are in circumstances of indigence and want, destitute alike of the ordinary physical comforts of life, and of that remedial care and treatment which are afforded only at well endowed hospitals, devoted exclusively to that purpose, and which all observation and experience show to be indispensable to their restoration. [4 »]

The amelioration of the condition of this large and increasing [5 »] class of our citizens, suffering under the most direful calamity which can befall a human being; to restore them, so far as it may be done, to reason, to usefulness, and to happiness, is no secondary object of public interest, or of national concern. The subject is one which appeals not to our sympathies only, but it addresses itself emphatically to our regard as legislators for the public weal. [6 »] It seems hardly possible to conceive of any other, or more practicable mode, than the measure proposed by this bill, by which the Federal Government, not transcending its constitutional powers, can more effectually contribute to the accomplishment of this most beneficent, and most desirable object.

In 1819 Congress granted a township of land [7 »] for the support of an asylum for the deaf and dumb in Hartford, Connecticut. [8 »] In 1826 they granted another township of land for the support of a similar Institution at Danville, Kentucky; and in 1812 Congress appropriated $50,000, to be expended in the purchase of provisions to be sent to the people of Venezuela, who had suffered from the great earthquake; and in 1815 they granted a tract of land in the Territory of Missouri, called the "New Madrid grants," for the benefit of such persons as had suffered by earthquakes. In 1827 Congress voted $20,000 to the city of Alexandria, for the relief of persons who had suffered by the fire which had consumed a considerable portion of the town; and in 1847 Congress authorized the employment of the United States ships Macedonian and Jamestown to transport provisions for the famishing poor of Ireland and Scotland. These were all objects of charity, of benevolence, and humanity. They were objects local and temporary in their character, and, in two instances, among a foreign people. Yet the Congress of the United States answered to the calls of human suffering, and in bestowing these gratuities, while you inflicted no blow upon the Constitution, you struck a responsive chord in the American heart. [9 »]

In 1831 Congress granted a tract of land to the trustees of Shawneetown, Illinois, for the purpose of graduating and paving the river bank within the limits of that town; and at another time a similar grant was made to Tuscarawas county, Ohio, for the improvement of streets amid alleys. But I need not multiply instances of this sort. Special grants, in almost unlimited numbers, have been made for purposes of local improvement; for educational purposes; for sites for court-houses; for churches and cemeteries, and the like.

Of a similar character was the large grant in 1841 of half a million acres to each of the States in which the public lands are situated, for purposes of internal improvement. [10 »] Your whole system of annuities, your pension and bounty land system, is but a system of beneficent and charitable gratuities, and founded upon no consideration springing from any contract for service. Your statute-books abound with acts making grants of lands and money for particular and local objects; for local and specific improvements; for local institutions within the States; for the support of schools, academies, colleges, and universities, to say nothing of your annual appropriations for your numerous marine and military hospitals.

In addition to all this, there are now bills upon your table by which it is proposed to invite the landless of our own country, and of other countries, to go and take possession, each man, of a hundred and sixty acres of your public domain, without money and without price. [11 »] In the fullness of your liberality to all other claims, you are now asked to bestow this comparatively small pittance for the relief of those who are not only destitute, but are mentally and physically unable to avail themselves of your proffered boon upon that condition -- who have not the ability to go and personally occupy your lands. The only mode in which they can be benefited by the bounty of the Government through its public lands, is in the manner proposed by this bill. Why shall we hesitate to pass it? Humanity, public policy, and impartial justice alike demand the adoption of the measure. Pass the bill, and the sentiment of the country will respond to it as one of the most just and beneficent acts of your legislation. Pass this bill, and it will accomplish more substantial and lasting good -- it will alleviate more suffering and sorrow; yes, sir, it will illumine, with the rays of hope, more dark and desolate places of anguish and despair, than an equal appropriation of your public lands in any other manner, or for any other purpose.

It is no argument against this proposition to tell us that it is the duty and the proper business of the States to provide for and to take care of their indigent insane. We do not propose to take from them that duty, but the rather to encourage and aid them in the discharge of it. [12 »] And with the multiplied examples and precedents before us, it is quite too late to make a serious question of the power of Congress to grant such aid, if Congress may give lands to the States to aid them in building roads, and canals, and railways; to support schools, and academies, and colleges; to improve streets, and alleys, and river banks, in particular localities; if it may give Sites for court-houses, and churches, and cemeteries to particular towns, or counties, or parishes; if it may grant annuities, and pensions, and bounty lands to particular individuals, or classes of individuals -- the very terms of which imply a gift, or bounty, and independent of any contract obligations; if it may give money and employ its ships to furnish provisions the sufferers from earthquake, or from fire or famine, in foreign lands, as well as in our own; if it may give lands for the benefit of local asylums in Connecticut or Kentucky; if it may give lands, as you propose to do, to all the destitute among those who are vigorous and robust enough to go and take possession of and occupy them -- if we may do all this, why, in the name of common justice, and of common humanity, may we not grant lands, in equitable proportions, to all the States, embracing the new as well as the old, to aid them in making suitable provisions for the proper care and treatment of the thirty thousand of our fellow-beings, who are in a more helpless and deplorable condition than any other class upon whom your bounty has ever been bestowed?

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Mr. President, if it were needful, or if it were possible, to invest the proposition before us with any additional interest aside from its intrinsic merit, it is found in the consideration of its origin. It comes commended to our attention and our regard in the memorial of an accomplished and gifted lady, [13 »] the prime and energy of whose years have been devoted to the study and amelioration of the condition of this most unfortunate and neglected class of people. She has visited in person nearly every State in this Union, and made herself acquainted with the condition and personal history of more than twenty-five thousand of this class of persons, most of whom were found in a lamentable state of destitution and neglect. Fitted by rare endowments to have attained popular eminence and applause in the higher and more inviting departments of life; to have moved among the more attractive and admired scenes of its proudest and gayest circles, her days and years, and an ample private fortune have been expended in seeking out and alleviating the condition of those whom the world beside had forsaken. With the vigilance and devotion of a patron saint, she has sought out the stricken maniac in jail, and in poor-houses; in private cells, in garrets, and in dark dens; often in rags and in chains, and administered to their physical wants, and poured the accents of inspiring hope and consolation into their dark and troubled spirits. Like an angel of mercy, her visitation by day and by night have been among the abodes where poverty and wretchedness and wild delirium dwell. This, sir, is but a feeble tribute to the purity and disinterestedness of motive, to the excellence and energy of purpose, to the moral heroism and true nobility of character of her whose prayer is before you in her memorial for the aid of the Government in behalf of suffering humanity. Look at the picture which that memorial presents; look at your abundant means; look at what you have done, and are daily doing, for others; then let those who can, reject the prayer of that petition.