LESTER BURRELL SHIPPEE
356
McLoughlin before the fourth of March, 1849, was confirmed to the purchaser.
Not only was there a departure from precedent in the disposal of lands by donation rather than by sale but no provision whatever for sale of parts of the public lands was made. The British claimants under the treaty presented problems for the
Land Office
to solve, but local officials
were instructed 20 to
avoid sectional or other minute subdivisional lines in confirming the claims presented. In 1853 Congress amended the land act by extending the donation privileges two years, and by
allowing the settler, after an occupation of two years, to comthe remainder of the residence requirement by a payment
mute
of $1.25 per acre. Joseph Lane, then Delegate to Congress, attempted to have included in the amendment a provision whereby bounty lands (which were allowed to those who had participated in Indian wars anywhere since 1790) might be located in unsurveyed as well as in surveyed regions. This
was opposed
as a possible opening for speculation in lands.
Said one objector, Oregon had already been treated with more than ordinary liberality, what with land donations, bounty
$100,000 for the Cayuse War, university lands and double school lands, and there was no reason for allowing great tracts to come under the control of small groups of lands,
persons. The House was inclined to this view and Lane could not secure his amendment. He did, however, have added to
the general appropriation bill a sum of money for extinguishing the Indian title north of the Columbia where emigrants
were going
in constantly increasing
numbers. 21
The year
following these changes Lane came back to Confurther with requests. Especially did he desire the law gress amended so that a sale might be made of a part of a claim
persons, he said, had taken claims for one to three years before the original law had been enacted so that while the
many
law had been complied with no sale could take place because, No.
20 Report of Commissioner of i, 32d Cong., ist Ses. 21 Globe,
XXV,
Pt.
i,
Land
Office,
627, 1445; 890, 1852.
26 Nov.,
1851;
Sen. Ex. Doc.
