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Brown, Albert Gallatin : Remarks of Hon. A. G. Brown, of Mississippi, on the Bounty Land Bill, and on the Distribution of Printed Documents. Delivered in the House of Representatives, May 8, 1848

Printed at the Congressional Globe Office, Washington, D.C., 1848

Original publisher's beige paper wrappers. Text printed in black ink. 5 3/4" x 9." Seven pages, complete. Pages are clean and intact except for light age toning, small occasional spots of foxing or discoloration, a few small dampstains limited to margins along spine, a chip in lower corner of fore-edge on front (measures 1" x 1"), and moderate chipping and splitting along spine. A Very Good copy. A speech that was originally delivered before the United States House of Representatives on May 8, 1848 by Albert Gallatin Brown (1813-1880), an American politician. He served as a U.S. Representative from Mississippi from 1839-1841 and 1847-1853, the 14th Governor of Mississippi from 1844-1848, and a U.S. Senator from Mississippi from 1854-1861. He was a Democrat and secessionist. Brown withdrew from the U.S. Senate upon the onset of the Civil War and was a Confederate States Senator from 1861-1865. In this speech, Brown speaks favorably of a Bounty Land Bill that would grant land to U.S. military veterans for their service. Brown does not support an increase of soldiers' current monthly pay of $7, but he says, "Land to the soldier is often equivalent to, sometimes better than, money--it gives him a home." Brown proceeds to address his colleagues who had spoken against the bill. Among his opponents' arguments is that American Revolutionary War veterans were neither paid well nor rewarded with bounty lands. Brown counters that the context of the Revolutionary War was different from the present. For example, Brown contends that practically every citizen at the time of the Revolution was a soldier in the Thirteen Colonies' fight for freedom from Britain, so monetary compensation for soldiers was not due. He says, "They did their own fighting; we do ours by proxy." He also states that the government at the time of the American Revolution did not have the means to compensate its soldiers as is currently being proposed. Brown also claims that there is enough land to give to the veterans and that profits from public lands are not endangered by giving land to veterans. Brown states the principal object of his speech is to introduce amendments to the Bounty Land Bill. One of the amendments is to include veterans who served for twelve months in the "Northwestern army" before the treaty of 1795 and those who served for six to twelve months in the War of 1812. Another amendment Brown proposes is to include the "unmarried sisters" and "infant brothers" of fallen U.S. soldiers as beneficiaries. Brown proposes a third amendment which would compensate soldiers an additional forty acres of land for every three months of service after the initial twelve months. His reasoning for this is that soldiers should be duly compensated to a degree that is proportional to their service and sacrifices they have made and that some soldiers might have to serve for years during longer wars. On Pages 6-7, Brown defends his resolution to send copies of Congressional documents to the county courts for public use. His resolution was also a response to malpractice committed by some Congressmen in which they used public funds to print and send bound Congressional documents to their personal acquaintances. This part of Brown's speech reads, in part, "If [Congressional] books are printed, they ought to be preserved; and if they are intended for public use, they ought to be place where the public can consult them. ... In some instances, they are found in the shops and book stores; and as happened with myself the other day, are purchased at some ten or twenty times the original cost of printing. ... My sole view in introducing the resolution was, to place the documents published by order of Congress, and paid for out of the public treasury, in the reach of every man who desired to consult them. I did not then, and do not now, believe that this House ought to print books solely for private uses and pay for them with the people's money.". Book. Book Condition: Very Good. Binding: Soft cover

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