During the next Congress various bills were introduced looking toward the homestead principle, either attempting to prevent speculation in the public lands[1] or making grants to actual settlers;[2] but hone of these received any consideration. But the issue of homesteads, if not considered in Congress, was presented in very definite form to the people by the new Free-Soil party in its Buffalo convention of 1848.[3] While this party did not represent any considerable number of voters, yet on this particular question it was in harmony with many members of the old parties, neither of which antagonized the position which the Free-Soilers had taken.
In 1850 an important step in land policy was taken in the enact- ment of the first railroad-land-grant law, which donated lands to Illinois, Mississippi and Alabama for a railroad from Chicago to Mobile. While the plan for this grant had originated in the West and was strongly supported there it also received some opposition from that section because it was felt that the possession of large tracts of lands by corporations and the increase (to $2.50 an acre) in the price of the remaining public lands within six miles of the pro- posed road would operate to the disadvantage of the settler. An unsuccessful effort was made to strike out this increase of price,[4] but no further opposition to railroad land-grants from the home- stead standpoint was now developed.
At this time two propositions for homestead grants were made in the Senate. The one, by Walker of Wisconsin, was for a cession of the lands to the states, on condition that they be granted in limited quantities to actual settlers for the cost of administration.[5] The other, from Douglas, was for grants of 160 acres to actual settlers after a residence and cultivation of four years.[6] The committee on public lands reported against both bills. In general, they considered that the public lands should be administered for the benefit of the treasury and that that system of disposal which would bring the greatest financial return should be adopted. The public lands were pledged for the payment of the public debt and so could
- ↑ Globe, 30th Cong., first session, 916, 181, 583.
- ↑ Ibid., 25, 605.
- ↑ "Resolved, That the free grant to actual settlers, in consideration of the expenses they incur in making settlements in the wilderness, which are usually fully equal to their actual cost, and of the public benefits resulting therefrom, of reasonable portions of the public lands, under suitable limitations, is a wise and just measure of public policy which will promote, in various ways, the interests of all the States of the Union." Stanwood, History of the Presidency, 241.
- ↑ See my Congressional Grants of Land in Aid of Railways, Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Economics, Political Science and History Series, II., no. 3, pp. 31-32.
- ↑ Senate Journal, 31st Cong., first session, 116.
- ↑ Ibid., 36.
