Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/29

SOME POLITICAL ASPECTS OF HOMESTEAD LEGISLATION The policy of disposing of the public lands of the United States under the principles of the homestead law, first adopted in 1862, was the outgrowth of a long period of discussion and experiment in which nearly all possible plans for the administration of the public domain were advocated and many different schemes tried. Of all the diverse methods of disposal, that which was based upon the homestead principle — free grants to settlers who should live upon and cultivate the lands for a certain time — was the last to secure the approval of Congress. Today it is the generally accepted principle of our land legislation, although the rapid decrease in the arable public domain has much lessened its application. It is this feature of our policy which has secured the almost universal approval of im- partial students of this part of American history, the only wonder expressed being that such a policy was not sooner adopted. But this wonder vanishes when we find how closely the public domain has been connected with general political questions and in how many ways the homestead policy was in opposition to the political views of different sections of the country. It is my intention to trace the growth of the sentiment favoring the donation of lands on condition of actual settlement, and to show how and why this plan became involved with other seemingly distinct issues of national policy. At first the public lands were regarded as the basis of a very large revenue, and the plans for their administration were formed with the intention of making that revenue as great as possible. It was perhaps only natural that such should have been the thought at the time when the new government was inaugurated. The country was deeply in debt, the levying of taxes by the national government was not looked at with favor by the states and the public domain seemed to furnish an easy means whereby the debt could be paid and at the same time heavy taxation avoided. And, while it was felt that the sale of the lands would be advantageous because of the money that it would bring, yet the rapid settlement of the western country was considered neither probable nor desirable. A slow and compact settlement was advocated as best both for the old states ( 19)