referred to certain individual settlers in particular Territories, while others referred to the Territories or States themselves. Pre-emption was often a relief-measure for occupiers of the public lands. Such was the case with settlers or "squatters" in some of the Southern States; for example, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. Immigrants came to those States with the expectation of securing public lands immediately after their arrival; but to their disappointment they found that public lands were not offered for sale in the sections where they wished to settle. The poor immigrants had no alternative but to venture a settlement upon unoffered lands, in the hope that the United States would not deal with bona-fide settlers so harshly as with mercenary speculators and land-jobbers. The settlers petitioned the Territorial or State Legislature for the right of purchasing land-holdings, and the Legislature memorialized the Congress in their behalf. The result was the grant of pre-emption. The first general pre-emption act was passed May 29, 1830. By this act every settler or occupant of the public lands, after giving due satisfaction and proof of settlement or improvement, was allowed to enter in the register of the Land Office any number of acres, up to a quarter section, at the established minimum price of $1.25 per acre. This act was to be in force only one year. It was not, therefore, a permanent system, but only a temporary measure. This act, like any other of a similar character, was continued from year to year. The settlers petitioned Congress for its continuance on the ground of the incompleteness of survey, indistinctness of boundary-lines of settlement, or inaccessibility to district land offices. The act of June 22, 1838, like previous acts, extended the right of pre-emption for two years, but it specified in detail the kinds of land to 'Statutes-at-Large, IV. 420-421. Ibid. V. 251-252. which pre-emption could not be extended. The lands to which the Indian title was not yet extinguished; lands in any incorporated town; alternate sections of railroad and canal grants; lands for town-sites; reservations for educational purposes; and lands which had salt springs, were all exempted from the right of pre-emption. An act supplementary to this was passed on June 1, 1840, and extended the preemption right for another two years.1 It must be kept in mind that pre-emption was not yet a system. It still retained its temporary character. Successive legislative enactments kept it in force. Every act of preemption contemplated a relief to those settlers who occupied the lands before the passage of the act in question, but not to those who should settle after its passage. The ultimate effect of the measure was, however, the encouragement of unlawful occupation of the public lands. A measure to stop this became an indirect means of promoting it; for, in wild countries, pretext could easily be found and the title could easily be secured under the provisions of the pre-emption act. The law of pre-emption explicitly stipulates that its benefit is meant to be confined to actual settlers who were found on the public lands at the time of the passage of the act; and yet adventurous and unscrupulous men emigrated to the West and settled on unsurveyed public lands with the view of procuring another enactment and of extending preemption right. Where population was scant and lands were plenty, but where there was a prospect of the future increase in value of landed property, the settlers could not be expected to await patiently the completion of a survey and the offering of land for sale, especially in case these settlers were foreign emigrants who went to the West with little knowledge of the topography of the country, and with little capital beyond their own labor and industry. It was very natural that such men 'Statutes-at-Large, V. 382. should settle on the first piece of land which they found suited to agricultural purposes. Thus, the administration of land laws was made difficult, and some measures were found necessary to justify the title of the adventurous settlers. A remedy was found in the right of pre-emption. This was destined to become a permanent as well as a general system. But was pre-emption an economic loss to the United States? So far as auction sales were concerned it was, but ultimately pre-emption proved a gain to the nation. What a new country needs is the actual improvement of its landed property, and when accomplished, such improvement redounds to the general prosperity of a State or nation. The development of Western resources was the ultimate object of disposing of the public lands. Where settlers gathered together, and where improvements were made, there sprang up a new source of wealth. To scatter such a community because settlers trespassed on unoffered lands, would have been highly impolitic, especially at a time when the great West was still a wilderness or a desert. Pre-emption was by no means a free grant. The preemptors had to pay the established price for their lands. To the United States the pre-emption grant amounted practically to the private sale of lands. The only sacrifice which the Government had to make was that of public sale, because the right of pre-emption closed the market to all other purchasers save actual settlers. The sacrifice of the public sale, however, was more than compensated by the improvement and settlement of the public lands. Webster was always friendly to the measure. In this view he sometimes differed from Clay.' The latter advocated that the law should be suffered to take its course, and that the unlawful improvements of settlers should be sold at public auction. But the two statesmen united in an effort to pass the general and permanent Pre-emption Act of 1841.2 Webster's Works, IV. 398. CALHOUN'S OPPOSITION TO PRE-EMPTION. From September 4, 1841, dates the permanent pre-emption right as a system of disposing of the public lands. The act was comprehensive, and the benefit of pre-emption extended to both native and foreign-born citizens. Mr. Calhoun figured as the stoutest opponent of pre-emption as well as of distribution measures, and advocated the cession of the public lands to the new States. He considered that the land laws of the United States could no longer be applied with advantage to the altered condition of the country, and, consequently, nothing but cession to the States could remedy the evils resulting from the public-land administration. A brief quotation from one of his speeches will show his view of the public lands at this period. Calhoun said: "I regard the question of the public lands, next to that of the currency, the most dangerous and difficult of all which demand the attention of the country and the Government at this important juncture of our affairs. . . . . In offering the amendment I propose, I do not intend to controvert the justice of the eulogium which has been so often pronounced on our land system in the course of this discussion. On the contrary, I believe that it was admirably adjusted to effect its object when first adopted; but it must be borne in mind that a measure, to be perfect, must be adapted to circumstances, and that great changes have taken place in the lapse of fifty years since the adoption of the land system. At that time, the vast region now covered by the new States which have grown up on the public domain belonged to foreign powers, or was occupied by numerous Indian tribes, with the exception of a few sparse settlements on inconsiderable tracts, the Indian title to which was already at that time extinguished. Since then a mighty change has taken place. Nine States have sprung up as if by magic, with a population not less, probably, than two-fifths of the old States, and destined to surpass them in a few years in numbers, power and influence. That a change so mighty should so derange a system intended for an entirely different condition of things as to render important changes necessary to adapt it to present circumstances, is no more than might have been anticipated. Neither pre-emption nor distribution of the revenue received from the public lands can have any possible effect in correcting the disordered action of the system. . . . . I have given to this question the most deliberate and careful examination, and have come to the conclusion that there is, and can be, no remedy short of cession-cession to the States respectively within which the lands are situated. The disease lies in ownership and administration, and nothing short of parting with both can reach it." This was a dangerous and caustic remedy. Its failure saved the public lands, and has preserved the best features in the present administration of the public domain. The Pre-emption Act of 1841 gave right of preference to settlements on surveyed lands only, but later it was extended to unsurveyed lands in California, Oregon, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, and New Mexico. The right of preference was also extended to the alternate, even-numbered sections of the railroad grants, where the settlements were made prior to the withdrawal of these lands from the market. PRESENT LAW OF PRE-EMPTION. The present law of pre-emption may be stated briefly as follows: Any person above the age of twenty-one years who is not the owner of 320 acres can enter the public lands, surveyed or unsurveyed, offered or unoffered. The essential requisites are actual residence and improvement. The maximum quantity of land allowed to any pre-emptor is 160 For the final proof and payment, the period from acres. 'Calhoun's Speeches, 403-404. Public Domain, 214. 3 Revised Statutes, 414-419. |