22 J- B. Sanborn quently not paid at all, to insure a fairly rapid settlement of the West. In 1820 the credit system was abolished and the price re- duced to $1.25 an acre. This reduction was a step in the right di- rection, according to the West, but it did not go far enough. If the settlers were to pay cash for their lands that price would, it was maintained, prevent them from coming to the West in any consid- erable numbers, and the lands would remain in the hands of the government. The cause of the West in the disposal of the lands was cham- pioned by one who came as the first senator from one of the states of the public domain, and who proved a ready advocate for a sub- ject on which he had strong convictions. From 1824 on, Benton was urging upon Congress the reduction and graduation of the price of the lands, and had even gone so far as to propose the donation of them to actual settlers. While he met with but slight success at first he continued his efforts in the belief that public opinion was being educated upon the question.* His plan, as pre- sented in a bill introduced in 1826, was for successive annual re- ductions in the price of lands until twenty-five cents an acre should be reached, after which the remaining lands were to be given to actual settlers. He made no attempt to secure a vote on the bill at this time." In 1828 Benton came forward with a new bill in which were combined the various western schemes for the disposition of the public lands. The graduation principle was to be applied to lands until they had been in the market for eight years, after which the settler could buy a quarter-section for eight dollars, and the lands which failed to be taken up then were to be ceded to the states.^ This, said Benton, would please everyone. It would accelerate the sale of the lands and thus the treasury would be benefited ; the new states would sooner secure the jurisdiction over the lands, while the donations would aid the poorer classes in securing homes.* But in spite of Benton's plea the Senate, by a vote of 21 to 25, refused to order the bill engrossed. Something of the position of the North on emigration and land-distribution can be learned from the fact that the bill did not receive a vote from a state north of Delaware."' The outlook for the homestead plan was not bright, for it was in the Senate, with its proportionally large Southern and Western representation, that the greatest support for such a plan would 1 Benton, Tliirty Years' View, I. 102-103. ^ Register of Debates, II. pt. I, 567, 719-724. ^ Ibid., IV. pt. I, 497.
- Ibiii., 609, 624-626.
^ Senate Journal, 20th Cong., first session, 323.
