land was guaranteed. There was to be no more primogeniture nor entail on the public domain. Certainly land, the most essential element in the production of economic goods, everywhere deserves the most enlightened and liberal policy which statesmen can conceive. It should subserve the cause of the greatest production and the best interests of the whole people. The liberal land policy devised by the government of the United States has been followed by other nations. France, in the Revolution of 1789; Prussia, in the legislation of 1811; Russia, in the Emancipation Act of 1861, and, finally, Japan in the abolition of feudalism in 1871,-all these nations took a great step forward. They removed slavish and cumbrous restrictions which had rested upon landed property. Free alienation, testamentary disposition, and just inheritance should characterize liberal agrarian laws. These were secured not only for the public domain of the United States, but also for the older individual States themselves.

Speaking of the ownership of the land in America, Mr. Cunningham, an English writer,' some years ago, in his "Social Well-Being," says: "In the United States there are no land laws established by which the soil is made to fall gradually into the hands of a few great families, as in Great Britain. There are generally no restrictions upon its sale, its inheritance, or its application. The system of occupation is generally that of small proprietors. The idea which pervades the whole American people is that of the advisability of universal proprietorship, and the feeling against anything approaching to landlordism is pronounced." More recent investigators say that the tenant farms are increasing in an alarming ratio in the United States, especially in the Northwestern States. A fear is also expressed that the growth of American latifundia will bring ominous effects upon the na

'Conditions of Social Well-Being, 173.

"For the controversy on the size of farms in the United States between General Walker and Mr. George, see Henry George's Social Problems, pp. 333-356.

tional economy of the American people. Whether these views are substantiated by facts or not, is now an open question.1

It was the Revolution that created the public domain of the United States, and it was the public domain that made necessary a liberal agrarian system. Not only did the public domain call forth land laws that were subversive of feudal incidents, but it became instrumental in establishing the Union upon the basis of a common economic interest. In the possession of public lands the old States found a common tie which bound them permanently together. However widely political ideas might differ, however much economic interests might antagonize sections, however greatly social institutions and customs might vary, there remained, back of the Alleghany mountains, a vast tract of focland, in the settlement and disposition of which all the States found a common interest. That interest bound together the sovereign States into a territorial commonwealth. The public lands were the backbone of the United States. The history of their constitutional development cannot be understood without a study of the land question.

Congress under the Articles of Confederation was an impotent organ. It never discharged the purpose for which it was created. That body, however, did one thing of great merit. It legislated on the government of the Northwestern Territory. It passed the Ordinance of 1787. This was a masterly work of genuine statesmanship. It was the Bill of Rights for the future settler of the Public Domain. It was the American Magna Charta. Under this ordinance territories prospered and commonwealths arose.

RELATIONS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN TO NATIONAL LIFE.

We have seen that the institution of the public domain gave a fatal stroke to feudal land tenures; it bound the Union

1See a series of articles in the North American Review, January, 1886, and succeeding numbers.

*See H. B. Adams. University Studies. Third Series, I.

together by an economic bond, and called forth the Ordinance of 1787. We shall now briefly consider what important ends the public domain has served in the politico-economic history of the United States.

1. Public lands were used as bounties to veteran soldiers and sailors, from the time of the Revolution down to the late Civil War.

2. Public lands were once an important source of public revenue, and formed a basis for national finance.

3. Public lands and diplomacy have often been related in the affairs of the nation. The purchase of territories from the foreign powers and the negotiation about boundary disputes called forth the diplomacy of Livingston, Pinckney, Monroe, and other statesmen.

4. The survey and administration of public lands were initiated by the two most eminent statesmen, Jefferson and Hamilton. Mr. Jefferson, as chairman of a committee in the Congress of 1784, furnished the basis of the present system of survey known as the "rectangular system," and Hamilton, as Secretary of Treasury, furnished the basis of the present method of administration in 1790.

5. Public lands have been the means of effecting internal improvements. Canals, highways, and levees have been constructed under the stimulus of public land grants.

6. The promotion of education in the United States is closely connected with public lands. The Ordinance of 1787 recognized the importance of education. Public land grants for mechanical and agricultural institutions, as well as for State universities and public schools, have aided in their foundation and maintenance.

7. Public lands have had great influence upon the problem of transportation. If it were not for public lands, the railroads which now form the great highways of the nation-for example, the Central Pacific and Union Pacific-could not have been built so soon. Grave abuses there may have been, but the benefits resulting from the facility of transportation cannot be gainsaid.

8. The mineral resources of the public lands form an important part of America's national wealth. The discovery of gold in California marks an epoch in the world's economy. Mining laws are, therefore, of a great consequence to the nation. 9. Foreign landlordism, private claims, and land litigations are all connected more or less with the public lands.

10. Lastly, the relation of public lands to immigration suggests an important economic problem. "No State without people" should be the political maxim of statesmen in encouraging foreign immigration. Free homes and free institutions, free labor and free soil, are the best capital for the development of the resources of the Great West.

Such is the scope of the land question in the general economy of the United States. The origin of the public domain, its subsequent expansion, the history of its administration, the various land grants, and the chief features of settlement laws, will be the subjects of special investigation in the following chapters.

I.

FORMATION OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN.

The public domain of the United States was acquired through cession, purchase, and conquest. Its acquisition had been precipitated by a combination of varied political and economical considerations. The desire of firm union and the safety of the whole confederacy peacefully terminated the disputed claims of the larger States to the western lands. The prospect of fishery and the development of natural resources must have prompted the action of President Johnson's administration in the purchase of Alaska. The first acquisition of public land took place on March 1, 1781, and the last acquisition on March 30, 1867. Between these two periods there were several acquisitions of territory, whose history will be treated in its proper place. The first subject that should engage our attention is the

CESSIONS BY THE STATES.'

From a territorial point of view, the State cessions may be divided into two classes: the first embraces the territory northwest of the Ohio river, and the second covers the territory southeast of the Ohio. Twenty-one years intervened between the first and last State cession. New York was the first State that surrendered her claim to the northwestern territory, while Georgia was the last one that parted with her claim, by which the State cessions were made complete.

CLAIMANTS TO THE "CROWN LANDS."

It was the northwestern territory, or the "Crown Lands," that occasioned the greatest discussion in Congress. The territory was claimed by several States. The claimants were Massachusetts, Virginia, Connecticut, and New York.

Massachusetts based her claims upon the charter granted to her by William and Mary in 1691. She claimed that portion of the northwestern territory which was bounded on the west by the Mississippi river, on the south by about fortytwo degrees of north latitude, and on the north and east by Lakes Superior and Huron, respectively. The territory now lies in the States of Wisconsin and Michigan, partly in the eastern part of Minnesota, and partly in the northern part of Illinois. It embraces an area of 54,000 square miles. This territory was also disputed and claimed by Virginia.

The claim of Virginia was a most extended one. Under the charter granted by James I. in 1609, she claimed the entire territory west of Pennsylvania, and northwest of the

'See for the State cessions, Dr. H. B. Adams' Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the United States, in J. H. U. Studies, 3d Series, No. 1.

2 Laws of the United States (Duane Edition), Vol. I, 462.

3 Laws of the United States (Duane Edition), Vol. I, 465. Hening's Statutes, Vol. IX, 118.