The importance of graduating and reducing the price of such of the
public lands as have been long offered in the market at the minimum rate
authorized by existing laws, and remain unsold, induces me again to
recommend the subject to your favorable consideration. Many millions of
acres of these lands have been offered in the market for more than
thirty years and larger quantities for more than ten or twenty years,
and, being of an inferior quality, they must remain unsalable for an
indefinite period unless the price at which they may be purchased shall
be reduced. To place a price upon them above their real value is not
only to prevent their sale, and thereby deprive the Treasury of any
income from that source, but is unjust to the States in which they lie,
because it retards their growth and increase of population, and because
they have no power to levy a tax upon them as upon other lands within
their limits, held by other proprietors than the United States, for the
support of their local governments.
The beneficial effects of the graduation principle have been realized by
some of the States owning the lands within their limits in which it has
been adopted.
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