15

In addition to the lands which were held for sale, grants from the public domain were made from an early period. In 1776 the Congress provided for grants of land to soldiers in the Continental army. This principle was continued in regard to both the War of 1812 and the war with Mexico. The method by which these grants were made was that of land warrants, to be located on the vacant public lands.14 Besides these general grants to private persons various other grants of a private nature and of a very miscellaneous character have been made.1 The regular method of such grants was, however, to the different states. All of the public land states, except California, received two, three, or five per cent. on the net proceeds of the sales of their public lands.16 The states have quite generally received the swamp and overflowed lands within their limits on account of the expense which was necessary to reclaim these lands. The enhanced value of the adjoining public lands was also one of the reasons for these grants.17 For education, the states, prior to 1848, received the sixteenth sections and after that date the sixteenth and thirty-second sections of their public lands.18

The grants which were the predecessors of the land grants in aid of railroads were those made to the states in aid of various internal improvements. The right of the government to make money grants in aid of internal improvements was the subject of much controversy, but portions of the public domain were often donated in aid of river improvements, wagon roads, and canals. The last kind of grants was made in the form which was characteristic of the later grants in aid of railroads. By this method of grant the alternate sections were reserved to the government and by their rise in value a reimbursement for the grant was expected. One of the grants, that for the Illinois and Michigan canal, was in 1833 transferred to a railroad, thus making the first railroad grant, which however was never utilized by the

14Donaldson, Public Domain, 232-37.

15 Ibid., 209-13.

16 Ibid., 238.

17 Ibid., 219-21.

18 Ibid., 223.

state.19 After 1841 each new state was allowed to select 500,000 acres of public land for internal improvements.20

Nearly all of the states chafed under their inability to control the large tracts of public lands lying within their borders and appealed to Congress to cede to them these lands. This request was in 1832 referred to the Committee on Manufactures, of which Henry Clay was chairman. He reported against such a proposition as unjust to the old states, and against the reduction in price, but proposed a distribution of the proceeds of the land sales among the states in proportion to their federal population. The matter was then referred to the Committee on Public Lands which reported against Clay's plan as the equivalent of a distribution of money raised from general taxation, and favored a reduction in the price of the lands to $1.00 an acre.21 In spite of this report Clay introduced a bill on the lines laid down in his report. This passed Congress in 1837 but was vetoed by Jackson. In 1836, Calhoun made almost the same proposition, although clothed in different language. This was to deposit with the states a pro rata share of the surplus revenue then in the treasury. This proposition received the approval of Jackson and became a law.22

The money thus distributed was used by the states, at their pleasure. In a number of the western states it was employed, directly or indirectly, for internal improvements, but, like most of the state investments of this time, it was very generally wasted. However it had a very considerable effect on the internal improvement craze of that time, and if the money had been received later it would probably have been largely employed in railroad building, as was the case in South Carolina.23

While not mentioned in the previous platform, Clay's plan for the distribution of the proceeds of land sales was adopted as a part of the party platform by the Whigs after the

19 Ibid., 257-61.

20 Ibid., 255. Revised Statutes, section 2378.

Schurz, Henry Clay, I, 369-71.

22 Von Holst, Constitutional History of the United States, II, 186-88.

23 Bourne, History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837, New York, 1885, 122-24.

death of Harrison, and was enacted into law in 1841. Only one distribution was made under its provisions;24 but the issue was carried over into subsequent campaigns by the platforms of both parties, the Whigs declaring for the idea and the Democrats against it.25

This outline of the public land policy of the United States indicates how important a place it had as an independent question in politics. But its importance in relation to the other questions then before the people was even more marked. With regard to financial questions and the tariff the connection was particularly close. The land sales formed an important source of revenue and their increase would have allowed a nearer approximation to free trade, while their diminution or diversion in the manner proposed by Clay would have made necessary an increase in the tariff. Thus views on the tariff were apt to color views on the public land question.

Besides being a source of revenue, the public lands furnished a fund by which internal improvements could be carried on. The right to make such improvements by money grants had by the Beginning of Jackson's administration come to be quite generally admitted. But in 1830 the veto of the Maysville road bill checked the system of money grants. The public lands had before this time been used for internal improvements and after the denial of the right of Congress to appropriate money for the purpose they were given to the states and to corporations in large quantities for this purpose, their most extensive use being for railroads. It seems quite possible that if this substitute for appropriations had not been at hand, the pressure on Congress would have been strong enough to secure money instead of the land grants which were actually made.

The question of the power of Congress over the public domain was also affected by the doctrines of state sovereignty held by the opposing schools. The members of the states' rights party were

"Schurz, Henry Clay, II, 204, 210-212.

25 Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, 4th ed., 149, 155, 169.

inclined to restrict the power to narrow limits and to make much of the reservations in the deeds of cession from the states in regard to the purposes to which the land was to be applied. On the other hand those favoring the exercise of wide powers on the part of the United States could not but welcome the most extreme construction of the powers of the government over the public lands. The bearing of this will be seen in the debates on the railroad grants, where the Democrats were forced to find the power to grant in the position of the government as land-owner rather than as sovereign. And it must be remembered that the most famous debate on state sovereignty grew out of Foot's resolution regarding the policy of the government in the sale of its lands.

What was the connection between the Public Lands and that most vital of ante-bellum controversies, slavery? It is conceded that this was almost entirely a territorial question, and that if there had been no domain into which its extension was to be allowed or prohibited, the history of the United States would have been very different. But aside from the territorial aspects of the case the influence of the administration of the public lands upon slavery was very marked. Had the government, instead of adopting a policy which favored the northern settler who desired and could cultivate only a small tract of land, favored the creation of large estates, the preponderance of the free states in the western territory would not have been so quickly secured. It may be doubted whether any system of settlement would have spread slavery north of the old Missouri Compromise line, but the spread of free settlers could have been very easily checked by a different system of the land administration. Those Southerners who endeavored to hasten the settlement and sale of the public lands were unwittingly assisting in the downfall of their cherished institution.

The industrial development of the country between 1800 and 1850 helps us to understand the form taken by our land policy at the beginning of the second half of the century. In 1800, two hundred years after the first settlement, the

population of the United States was confined to the immediate vicinity of the Atlantic coast. In 1850 the line of settlement had crossed the Mississippi and its extension to the shores of the Pacific was not a remote possibility. Early in the century enough settlers had crossed the mountains to secure for Ohio in 1802 admission as a state. The increase of western population by 1810 was quite strongly marked, but the full force of the movement began to make itself felt during the next decade. The stream of immigration was such as to cause fears among the Eastern states that they would become depopulated. By 1830 Indiana, Illinois and Missouri had each passed the 100,000 mark. Practi-. cally all of the western population was, however, confined to the vicinity of the large rivers. By 1840 a large increase had taken place in the states which were settled earliest, while considerable numbers of settlers had entered the newer states.2 26 The spaces between the rivers were filling up and considerable settlements had appeared west of the Mississippi. In 1850 only six states exceeded Indiana in the number of their inhabitants, while Illinois was eleventh among the states. The greatest proportional increase was in Wisconsin, but all of the states of the Mississippi valley were growing with great rapidity. While all portions of these states were receiving settlers, the lines of densest populations were still among the watercourses.27

To enable these settlers to reach the West, and to furnish trade communications with them, improved methods of transportation were demanded. At first this demand was met by turnpike roads and the improvement of the waterways. Around these centered the plans for internal improvements proposed up to 1830. In 1806 work was begun on the Cumberland road and in 1808 Gallatin proposed a great system of internal improve

26Illinois had increased from 157,445 to 476,183, Michigan from 31,639 to 212,267, Indiana from 343,031 to 685,866, standing tenth among all the states; Missouri from 140,455 to 383,702, Arkansas from 30,388 to 97,574, while Wisconsin and Iowa appear with 30,945 and 43,112, respectively. 10th Census, Population, 4.

27 See McMaster, History of the United States, IV, ch. 33; and 10th Census, Population, xi, ff.