169
WRITINGS OF SAl\I HOUSTON, 1837
been so regarded by me. The regulation of the land system, however, I have considered as already settled, in certain features, by the Constitution itself. The framers of that instrument, after giving to the subject all the consideration which its admitted importance required, have thought proper, as the best means of protecting the people and Government from litigation and fraud, to require the terri- tory of the Republic to be sectionized in such manner as should enable the Government, or the citizen, to ascertain with certainty, the lands that are vacant and those which may be covered with valid titles, until which time the whole land system should be suspended. My construction of this provision of the Constitution I have heretofore had occasion to communicate to a former Congress; subsequent reflections have only served to confirm the opinions then advanced. By sectionizing the territory of the Republic, in the language of the Constitution, I understand its survey and division into parcels of one mile square, commonly denominated sections. The term section as applied to the land system of the United States, and as used in common parlance there, has become almost a term of art of notorious and definite signification. Looking to the character and origin of the framers of the Constitution, the terms and language to which they were ac- customed, the institutions with which they 'we11e familiar, I cannot bring myself to entertain a doubt as to the mode of sectionizing they intended to prescribe. The provisions in the fourteenth section, that each county in the Republic should be considered a section, would have struck them with some surprise. Such being my view of the Constitution, it admits of no com- promise. If a provision found inconvenient in a given case is made to yield, under the power of construction, to a more convenient form, another, and another, may be subjected to the like process in turn, until the whole instrument, and with it the elements of the Government are changed. There is nothing insurmountable or very inconvenient in ob- serving the requisitions of the Constitution to have the country sectionized. Had the first Congress directed it in the land law passed at their annual session, the work would have been com- pleted, and the country ready for the location of claims. With the means now at the disposal of the Government the work might probably be finished in six months. The great safeguard that
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