To , Egbert S. Manning, James Maxwell, Lewis Masq[u]erier. Daniel Witter, George H. Evans, and Ellis Smalley, Esqrs.

Gentlemen.— Your communication of April 20th, soliciting my views relative to the public lands is before me; and I answer, that, as soon as the greater national evils could be remedied by the consolidated efforts of a virtuous people, and the judicious legislation of wise men, so that slavery could not occupy one half of the , for speculation. competition, prodigality, and fleshly capital, and so that enormous salaries, stipends fees, perquisites. patronage and the wages of spiritual wickedness in “ermine and lace,” could not swallow up forty or fifty millions of public revenue, I would use all honorable means to bring the wages of mechanics and farmers up, and the salaries of public servants down; increase labor and money by a judicious tariff, and advise the people, who are the only sovereigns of the soil, to petition Congress to pass a uniform land law! that the air, the water, and the land of the “Asylum of the oppressed,” might be free, to freemen!