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CHAPTER II.

THE HOMESTEAD BILL.

THE great triumph of President Johnson's congressional career is his advocacy and ultimately successful championship of the famous Homestead Bill. Thoughtful men had for years seen the evil and condemned the policy of selling the public domain in large sections to speculators and monopolists, who merely held them for their private and selfish gains. This feeling eventuated in the formation of the Land Reform Association, whose headquarters were in the city of New York, with branches in various portions of the country. This society, whose organ was a very ably conducted weekly paper, called Young America, endeavored to enlighten the public mind, and arouse the popular sentiment in relation to the curse of land monopoly, and to point out an easy and beneficent cure for the great and growing evil. The plan recommended was to donate the public lands to actual settlers in limited quantities, upon condition of real residence, improvement, and cultivation. This system, argued its advocates, would promote the

growth of a landed democracy, founded upon the possession and improvement of a homestead, and forming the firmest support of a free government, and the surest base of republican institutions.

Documents and papers urging this great and patriotic policy upon public consideration were forwarded to all members of the Federal Congress, but upon no one did it make the impression produced upon the clear intellect, far-seeing statesmanship, and purely Democratic proclivities of Andrew Johnson. He immediately made himself its especial champion, and fighting its battle with characteristic courage, perseverance, and ability, against great and bitter opposition, he finally, after a struggle of twelve long years, carried it through in triumph, and it is to-day diffusing its blessings over the roofs and bearthstones of thousands of contented and happy families.

The speech of President Johnson upon the Homestead Bill, delivered in the Senate, May 20th, 1858, is so full of elevated statesmanship, and so clear and powerful an exposition of the entire merits of the question, that we give it to our readers entire, for no abstract or analysis can be made of its arguments and illustrations, without failing in justice to its compact and forcible arrangement.

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'MR. PRESIDENT-The immediate proposition before the Senate is an amendment offered by the hon

orable senator from North Carolina,* which provides that there shall be a land-warrant issued to each head of a family, by the Secretary of the Interior, and distributed among those who do not emigrate to the public domain, and take possession of and cultivate the land for the term of years specified in the bill. I have something to say in reference to that amendment, but I will not say it in this connection. I will take it up in its order. I propose, in the first place, to explain briefly the provisions of the bill.

"The first section provides for granting one hundred and sixty acres of land to every head of a family who will emigrate to any of the public domain and settle upon it, and cultivate it for a term of five years. Upon those facts being made known to the register of the land-office, the emigrant is to be entitled to obtain a patent. The second section provides that he shall make an affidavit, and show to the satisfaction of the officer that his entry is made in good faith, and that his intention is to cultivate the soil and become an actual settler. The sixth section of the bill provides that any person who is now an inhabitant of the United States, but not a citizen, if he makes application, and in the course of five years becomes a citizen of the United States, shall be placed on a footing of equality with the native-born citizens of the country in this respect. The third section provides that those entries shall be confined to land that has been in market, and subjected to private entry; and that the persons entering the land shall be confined to each alternate section.

* Mr. Clingman.

"These are substantially the leading provisions of this bill. It does not proceed upon the idea, as some suppose, of making a donation or gift of the public land to the settler. It proceeds upon the principle of consideration; and I conceive, and I think many others do, that the individual who emigrates to the West, and reclaims and reduces to cultivation one hundred and sixty acres of the public domain, subjecting himself to all the privations and hardships of such a life, pays the highest consideration for his land.

'But, before I say more on this portion of the subject, I desire to premise a little by giving the history of this homestead proposition. Some persons from my own region of the country, or, in other words, from the South, have thrown out the intimation that this is a proposition which partakes, to some extent, of the nature of the Emigrant Aid Society, and is to operate injuriously to the Southern States. For the purpose of making the starting-point right, I want to go back and show when this proposition was first introduced into the Congress of the United States. I am not sure but that the Presiding Officer* remembers well the history of this measure.

"In 1846, on the 27th day of March, long before we had any emigrant aid societies, long before we had the compromises of 1850 in reference to the slavery question, long before we had any agitation on the subject of slavery in 1854, long before we had any agitation upon it in 1858, this proposition made its advent into the House of Representatives. It met with considerable opposition. It scarcely received serious

*Mr. Foot, of Vermont, in the chair.

consideration for a length of time; but the measure was pressed until the public mind took hold of it; and it was still pressed until the 12th day of May, 1852, when it passed that body by a two-thirds vote. Thus we see that its origin and its consummation, so far as the House of Representatives was concerned, had nothing to do with North or South, but proceeded upon that great principle which interests every man in this country, and which, in the end, secures and provides for him a home. By putting these dates together, it will be perceived that it was just six years, five months, and fifteen days from the introduction of this bill until its passage by the House of Representatives.

"I shall not detain the Senate by any lengthy remarks on the general principles of the bill; for I do not intend to be prolix, or to consume much of the Senate's time. What is the origin of the great idea of a homestead of land? We find, on turning to the first law-writer-and I think one of the best, for we are informed that he wrote by inspiration-that he advances the first idea on this subject. Moses made use of the following language:

"The land shall not be sold forever; for the land is mine for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.'-Leviticus, xxv. 23.

"We begin, then, with Moses. The next writer to whom I will call the attention of the Senate is Vattel -one of the ablest, if not the ablest writer upon the laws of nations. He lays down this great principle :* "Of all the arts, tillage or agriculture is the most

* Vattel, Book I. ch. 7.

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