34 J- B. Sanborn a strict construction of the Constitution it was held that Congress could not give away the public lands or use them to further any objects which could not be aided by a direct appropriation. The provision of the Constitution that "The Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belong to the United States,"' was considered as limited by the enumerated powers granted to Con- gress so that nothing could be done with the lands which was not specified in those enumerated powers. This had been one of the grounds taken by Pierce in his veto of the act granting lands for support of hospitals for the insane, passed by Congress in 1854.- The same objection was made to grants in aid of colleges^ and was only obviated in the grants for railroads by the alternate-section principle, whereby the lands remaining to the government within the limits of the grant were doubled in price so that there was in theory no loss to the government.' Some of the homestead bills, but not all, also contained this alternate-section principle, in the form of a restriction of the entries to the odd-numbered sections, but the remaining sections were of course not doubled in price. The bill which passed Congress in i860 and which was vetoed by Buchanan bore this form.*" Little attention seems to have been paid to this provision and it did not overcome, as in the case of the railroad grants, the objections of the strict constructionists. At the next Congress the homestead bill passed the House after but little discussion. Sectionally and politically the vote was divided almost as before. Of the 1 1 5 voting for the bill 90 were Republicans and 25 Democrats, and the 66 opposed to it were 49 Democrats and 17 Americans. Pennsylvania was the only free state from which a vote was cast against the bill and Missouri the 'Art. IV., Sec. III. 2 " I respectfully submit that in a constitutional point of view it is wholly immaterial whether the appropriation be in money or in land. "The public domain is the common property of the Union just as much as the sm- plus proceeds of that and of duties on imports remaining unexpended in the Treasury. As such it has been pledged, is now pledged, and may need to be so pledged again for public indebtedness. " As property it is distinguished from actual money chiefly in this respect, that its profitable management sometimes requires that portions of it be appropriated to local objects in the States wherein it may happen to lie, as would be done by any prudent proprietor to enhance the sale value of his private domain. All such grants are in fact a disposal of it for value received, but they afford no precedent or constitutional reason for giving away the public lands." Messages and Papers of the Presidents, V. 253-254. 3 See Knight, Land Grants for Education in the Northwest Territory, Papers of the American Historical Association, I. 97. ■• See my Grants in Aid of Railways, 86. 5 Donaldson, Public Domain, 340.
