Lynchburg Virginian

PUBLIC LANDS.

Extract of a letter from Mississippi.

'But for the Public Lands there would be few Van Buren men indeed in this part of the world. The old settled counties are strongly against him, and the independent new settlers from the South, independent I mean in circumstances. But in the parts of the State just reclaimed from the Indians, Van Buren is strong, not in his own strength, but in that of the Government and its patronage: All the officers are not only Government men, but active electioneerers. To have been an active electioneerer is almost the only road to office in this country, for in the whole range of my observation, and I have been a resident a number of years, I have not known one appointment of any other description, and when appointed, the officer must not let his zeal cool, or he will soon be informed against, and lose his place. It is reduced to a system, and Gen. Jackson's office holders in the west, and they who wish to be, are the most furious and clamorous partisans in the world. When to be successful in services of this nature is the best mile to reward from the Government, you may judge what unceasing and violent exertions the office holders make for President Jackson's man, Mr. Van Buren. And there are great numbers whom they can influence; many through their interests, many more through their fears for their interests. This man they can help in his speculations if he prove conformable; that, they can thwart and harass if he prove refractory.

You may be sure they leave none of their power unexercised, for they know well from Washington is upon them, and that they are expected to labor assiduously for being put and kept in offices (connected with land sales) which if they keep a few years they are sure to make the master-grown fortunes. By this means the President has a host of adherents in this country, in whose eyes, do what he may, he can never do wrong. If he had espoused Reuben Whitney instead of Mr. Van Buren as his successor in office, I am confident these men and their followers would have been as much for Whitney as they are for Van Buren. No King ever had more absolute power over the will of his hired mercenaries than Gen. Jackson has over the office holders in the South West. If one happens to be indifferently honest, you will always find him more neglected and less in favor at Washington than any other, and he is soon kicked out or gets a broad hint to walk out, to save his feelings, from being dismissed.

The Public Lands are a source of great and increasing wealth, but I am convinced in my own mind, that they are and will more and more be a curse to the country. I believe they have fully doubled the President's power by doubling his patronage, and when I think how much alarmed our fathers were in '98, at the increasing power of the Executive, I can but smile at their terrors, and ask myself what the old patriots of that age would say could they lift their heads from the grave, and witness the almost unbounded power that one man has attained, I will not say throughout the U. States, but here, and elsewhere! Compared with old John Adams, Gen. Jackson's power is like a steamboat compared with a skiff. But bad as this is, it is not the worst. The public lands are giving birth to the most extensive and mad speculations, gambling of the highest degree, which must produce wide ruin and convulsion. But the worst is not told yet. They are giving birth to the most foul corruption and fraud which this country or any other ever saw. Give your imagination the reins and you can hardly conceive the truth. I admit it is hard for the Government to check these villainies, but all will say it ought to try. Instead of that, its agents are the worst of the set. If he will but be a thorough going full-blooded partisan for the Government and Van Buren, he may cheat and defraud to any extent he pleases. The crimes that are acted here against the nation and the Indians, are enough to call down the judgment of Heaven on the land that suffers it. I trust that the old States will do something at the ballot boxes to restrain these great and growing evils. Mr. Van Buren will certainly continue in office and power the present office-holders who are doing so much for him. That you know is the New York creed of "rewards and punishments," and dividing the spoils. The only way and hope is to break up the present execrable system and its abuses, by putting into the Presidency a man who will sweep the blood-suckers out. Old Hugh is the boy for that. A firmer and honester man never breathed, and he knows these Jackson Van Buren office-holding partisans since he broke with Jackson, if he did not know them before. Give us old Hugh if possible; but if you can't give him, give us anybody who will put fire to the nest of scorpions.'

[Richmond Whig.]