Sir, we of the West and Southwest desire nothing by way of charity at the hands of the Government. We desire to purchase your public lands, but we want them at reasonable prices. Grant us this, and by our industry we will become independent, self-sustaining freeholders, and enrich the National Treasury. THE HOMESTEAD BILL. SPEECH OF HON. A. C. DODGE, IN THE SENATE, February 24, 1853, Mr. DODGE, of Iowa, said: Mr. President, that Sir, let me tell you that the bill which has today met the taunts and jeers of the Senator from Georgia, [Mr. CHARLTON,] who has ridiculed it in both poetry and prose, is a measure long held dear to the hearts of western people-to the tenant and poor man of every State in the Union, who is struggling to make a living by the sweat of his face. These, and such as these it is, who call for this measure. More than twenty-five years ago the Senate passed the bill of the late eminently distinguished Senator from Missouri, (Mr. Benton,) graduating the price of the public lands and making donations to actual settlers, and for that measure the Randolphs and Tazewells of Virginia, and the Macons of North Carolina voted. But, sir, by a resort to that system of legislative tactics and opposition, such as the enemies of this measure seem ever willing to have recourse to, it was defeated. The persons for whose benefit this bill is intended are not here. They have no The Homestead Bill-Mr. Dodge, of Iowa. lobby or special delegates to meet Senators and Let me tell my friends, the Senators from Geor- Senators, when they speak of the gift made by the homestead bill, should be reminded that it is no gift at all. You, who claim the ownership of one billion four hundred millions of acres, stretching with slight exceptions from the Balize to the fortyninth parallel of north latitude, and to the Pacific ocean, are called upon-to do what? To settle those great forests and desert prairies in the West, by saying to the man who may be wearing out his body upon the poor hills of North Carolina, East Tennessee, or elsewhere, and who is obliged to give a large portion of his labor to some landlord, if you go to this distant domain, settle and improve it, you may, after five years' actual residence and cultivation, obtain a patent for the one hundred acres thus occupied and improved. Can that which is so well, so dearly earned, be called a gift? I think not. The homestead bill is not now before us, but if it were, I would beg my friend from Mississippi, [Mr. ADAMS,] in all sincerity and earnestness, and with that perfect respect which I entertain for him as a man and for his motives, not to interpose any obstacle to its passage. I would say to him, Your friends and my friends in the House of Representatives, after a long and severe struggle, have succeeded in passing a bill, not in all its features SENATE. such as we could wish-for it contains hateful restrictions coupled with onerous conditions-but yet much that is good, and above all, an acknowledgment of the homestead principle. Therefore I hope the honorable Senator will not interpose objection to the bill, but rather aid its passage through the Senate. Mr. President, there are few subjects-I think no other of more interest to our nation and people than that introduced incidentally by the amendment of the Senator from Wisconsin, [Mr. WALKER,] and discussed at length by the Senators from Mississippi and Georgia, [Messrs. ADAMS and CHARLTON]-the best disposition of the public lands. I had hoped, but it seems from the course of argument of the Senator from Georgia [Mr. CHARLTON] vainly hoped, that the day had passed by when it was necessary to enter into any formal argument to establish the generally-conceded fact, that the independence, comfort, and wealth of a nation depend more upon its success in agriculture than in any other branch of human industry. It is the farmer who feeds the manufacturer, the artisan, the ship-builder, the beggar, and the king; and yet how little of protection, much less aid, has he ever received from our Government! The despotisms of the Old World, in this respect, contrast most favorably with our Government, considering the day and generation for which they acted. From the discovery of the continent of America they adopted a policy of bountiful munificence in the bestowment of their domains by gratuitous donations of land to those who would settle upon and improve them. It was not on the strength of their armies or navies; not in the rigor or lenity of the administration of their governors-general, intendents, or military commandants; nor in their ability to overcome and subdue the aboriginal inhabitants of the New World, that the European potentates expected to establish their power on this continent. It was a wiser system which governed the policy of the statesmen of England, Spain, and France, beginning on the part of Great Britain, with her commission at the close of the fifteenth century to Cabot, the discoverer of North America, and prosecuted in spirit from that time until now as her provincial policy-pursued also in principle by the other two great Powers since the foundation of their respective land systems on this continent. What were those systems? They were certainly not, in many of their provisions, such as we would adopt at this day. But I think that they were eminently wise and judicious in this, that their tendency was to encourage the settlement of the country by every means which could induce emigration; by gratuitous concessions of immense bodies of the richest lands upon chosen spots, in anticipation that these would be future cities, great commercial points, villages, and the homes of thriving farmers, and of an active and busy population. These grants were not merely restricted to small parcels for individual accommodation, but frequently of immense extent, designed for the reception of hundreds of families, to whom it could be subdivided in small allodial allotments. It has become a fixed principle of the public law, conceded and established by the civilized Powers of the world, that the possessory claims of wandering tribes must yield to the natural and revealed rights of man, which confers on him the privilege of reducing the earth into possession, and of gaining from it his subsistence by the sweat of his brow. I have said that on the part of Great Britain this principle was recognized in the commission to Cabot, conferring the right of discovery and possession, notwithstanding the occupancy of the Indians, and asserting the superiority and priority of absolute right over them of every Christian people. The British charter, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, affirmed the same right; and the first permanent English settlement was under a charter at the beginning of the seventeenth century from the British King to Sir Thomas Gates and his associates, of the sea-coast lands, from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degrees of north latitude, which was shortly afterward followed by an enlarged charter to the adventurers of the city of London for colonizing in Virginia, giving them an absolute proprietary right of several hundred miles of sea-coast, and from sea to sea. The title to these 1853.] 32D CONG.....2D SESS. APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE. lands having been subsequently re-vested in the Crown, a new and more enlarged charter was granted in the year 1620 to the Plymouth company, giving them an absolute right in all the lands between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude. The New England States in a great measure have been settled under this charter, and in like manner might be traced the progress of British policy, by which other English colonies, now integral parts of our Union, were traced out and established-the Crown exercising the granting power in all cases where the proprietary interest had not been conceded. And so, if we glance at the administration of the authorities of France and Spain in Louisiananotwithstanding that Province was settled by emigration from Canada, where the feudal principles and the ancient French noblesse existed, yet the settlers there held their lands, both under the French and Spanish regime, by allodial tenures, or, in our parlance, by absolute fee-simple right. The spirit of the royal authorities was a liberal and magnanimous one to the feeble colonist seeking a home upon a far-distant territory, and excluded from the comforts and luxuries of the parent land. Hence we find that Louis XIV., in whose reign the Province of Louisiana was first settled, exhibited the utmost liberality to those engaged in colonizing the country; and, departing from the feudal exactions and restraints, he fully recognized, first in his charter to Crozat, in 1712, and afterwards in his grant to the Indian Company of the West, in 1717, the principles of allodium, or absolute proprietary rights in the grantees. It might be both interesting and instructive, did the occasion permit, to give the details, and to trace out the practice and progress of the great European colonizing powers on this continent; but suffice it to say, that the history of the past fully establishes the fact, that their policy was conceived and administered in an enlarged and magnanimous spirit. A review, however, of the history of our own system will be more to the point, and will furnish, it seems to me, a strong argument in favor of what is sometimes sneeringly called in this body It is curious to look back at the "progress." earliest law passed by Congress for the sale of the lands of the United States. It provided for their sale in tracts of four thousand acres each; and did not allow the selling of a smaller quantity, except in cases of fractions created by the angles and sinuosities of the rivers. This law, in effect, was a prohibition to the poor man from even purchasing a freehold, and enabled capitalists to become the exclusive proprietors, and to sell the land to the cultivator at exorbitant prices, or else force the latter to be tenants under the former. The views and opinions of many of our statesmen, derived from Great Britain, and which, at that day, were impressed upon them with all the force of education and association, make it not surprising that they should have deemed it advantageous to create a landed aristocracy; but their error may have arisen from accident, or circumstances of which we have not now a just appreciation. It is not, however, uninteresting to take a retrospect of the first awkward attempts at Republican legislation, and to observe how gradually we have shaken off the habits of thought in which we were trained, and how slowly the shackles of prejudice have fallen from around us. The first progressive movement from the original system of selling large tracts, and on credit, was the passage of the act of the 10th of May, 1800, which provided for sales in sections and half sections. This law was certainly one of a most beneficial tendency, and its passage forms an era in the history of this Republic of perhaps greater magnitude and interest than any other in our annals. No other act of the Government has ever borne so immediately upon the settlement, the rapid improvement, and permanent prosperity of the western States. Previous to the year 1820, the United States required two dollars per acreone fourth of which was paid at the time of purchase, and the remainder in three equal annual installments. This mode of selling did not, however, work well, and was abandoned in the year last named for the present system and price of Since then, Congress has, from $1 25 per acre. time to time, modified the system, and reduced, The Homestead Bill-Mr. Dodge, of lowa. with conditions and restrictions, the salable quan- Almost every one within the sound of my Now, what is the attitude in which our own This magnificent estate is parsimoniously The whole cost of the public lands to the 1st The aggregate receipts from their sale to the year and month named, was $135,339,093 17. This estimate does not embrace California, Ore- Twenty millions of dollars were paid for Loui- Our prosperity and growth as a nation will, in SENATE. Wisconsin, and numerous other instances of The settler, only when his necessities demand mense tracts, nay whole counties, and almost Excluding the years 1835 and 1836, the aver- GENERAL LAND OFFICE, February 12, 1853. SIR: In answer to your inquiry, I have the honor to The whole number of entries during said period was... Or a yearly average of. 155,130 This makes an average of 54 4-100 acres to each entry, showing that a large majority of the entries were in 80 and 40-acre tracts. In the year 1846, there were sold in the Fairfield district, Total. 2,175 66 Making an average for each sale of 68 8-10 acres. This shows the average of sales for the four That Now, if the Government of the United States really consulted its own interests in a pecuniary point of view, would it not, instead of making the public lands a source of direct annual profit by the sales producing a revenue now of some two or three millions a year, discard that system and throw open this estate to an industrious and energetic population, which would give back in exchange a rich and perpetual stream of wealth, fed by all the elements of a nation's prosperity? But not only in this respect should we consider our duties and obligations. This Government stands in the position of a political parent, whose duty it is to watch over, guard, and protect the interests of every citizen. duty requires that we should enable every one within the limits washed by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, to secure a farm or homestead for himself and family. That is a generous, nay, just and noble system, which would repudiate this selfish policy of shillings, and look to one which is more in accordance with the genius of our institutions. Let this Congress of the United States come of what is due to our people and our country, and up to the important subject under a proper sense from a state wholly unproductive, thousands of square miles; will convert them to the great purby adopting a measure like this they will rescue poses of life-thus subserving the ends of our being; and will add new stars of equal brilliancy to 32D CONG.....2D SESS. those now constituting the galaxy of the American Union. Mr. President, the homestead bill, so called, comes to us with a strong indorsement from the people's Representatives. It passed the House, after having been before that body for nearly seven years, during which time it was considered and discussed in nearly all its aspects and bearings. It is emphatically a measure of progress, and one which I think, if enacted into a law, is destined to produce benefits to our whole country. In examining the objections which have been urged against this measure, I am astonished to perceive that they are but a repetition of those which were made against every preemption and graduation bill that has ever been brought before Congress since the commencement of our land system; and yet, at this day, so great has been the triumph of correct principles, that few, if any, can be found who will raise their voices against preemption or graduation. Try this measure in its practical workings for but a few years, and like results, I venture to predict, will be produced: This homestead bill is but a just tribute to agriculture-that first, noblest, and God-favored calling of man. It is the only measure at all likely to come before Congress for the benefit of those who till the earth for a support; and this consideration, of itself, is sufficient to commend it to my support. It will not only be an evidence of the favor with which Congress views the cultivation of the soil, but it will tend greatly to increase the number of those engaged in that pursuit, thus augmenting the productions of our country, and the comfort, independence, and happiness of our people. Some think that it will destroy the receipt of all revenues from the public domain. In this opinion I do not concur. Indeed, I may say, I fear they are mistaken; for I have long been of the opinion that the best interest of the Republic demand an abolition of the auction or private sales of the public domain, and that it should be conveyed only to those who design to settle upon and improve it. The gigantic and ruinous speculations in the public lands in 1835-236, to which I have before alluded, can never be forgotten in the history of this country. It was in the year last named that the late distinguished Secretary of the Treasury, R. J. Walker-then a Senator from Mississippi-brought forward a bill in this body to put an end to all speculation in the public domain, and to restrict its sale to actual settlers and cultivators. It was the measure of a statesman, and, if it had been adopted, would, I humbly conceive, have wrought great benefits to our whole country. The fact, so often mentioned, that a poor man can now buy one hundred and sixty acres of land for $200, is, according to the conceptions of my mind, no objection to this bill. There are many thousands of families in this country-good and deserving people-who never saw the day, and never will see it, when they will have that sum, or the half, or the fourth of it, ready to pay down for a quarter section, an eighty acre, or a forty acre tract. I further give it as my earnest belief, that no one hundred and sixty acres, in a state of nature, on the extreme verge of civilization, is worth $200 to him who buys for no other purpose than settlement and improvement. I think the policy of holding on to the public domain, with a view to extorting the last dollar from the cultivator, unwise and impolitic. I can quote eminent authority to show that it is so. Hear the great Edmund Burke, who said, in the British Parlia ment: * "A landed estate is certainly the very worst which the Crown can possess." "All minute and dispersed possessions-possessions that are often of indeterminate value, and which require a continued personal at tendance-are of a nature more proper for private management than for public administration. They are fitter for the care of a frugal land steward than of an office in the State." "If it be objected that these lands, at present, will sell at a low market, this is answered by showing that money is at a high price. The one balances the other. Lands sell at the current rate, and nothing can sell for more. But be the price what it may, a great object is always answered, whenever any property is transferred from hands which are not fit for that property to those that are. The buyer and the seller must mutually profit by such a bargain; and, what rarely happens in matters of revenue, the relief of the subject will go hand in hand with the profit of the Exchequer." * **"The revenue to be derived from the sale of the forest lands will not be considerable as many have imagined; and I conceive it would be un The Homestead Bill-Mr. Dodge, of Iowa. wise to screw it up to the utmost, or even to suffer bidders to enhance, according to their eagerness, the purchase of objects wherein the expense of that purchase may weaken the capital to be employed in their cultivation. The principal revenue which I propose to draw from these uncultivated wastes, is to spring from the improvement and population of the kingdom; events infinitely more advantageous to the revenues of the Crown than the rents of the best landed estate which it can hold." * ** "It is thus I would dispose of the unprofitable landed estates of the Crown: throw them into the mass of private property; by which they will come, through the course of circulation, and through the political secretions of the State, into well regulated revenue." * "Thus would fall an expensive agency, with all the influence which attends it." But I have higher authority than even that of England's great statesman. We are commanded in that book which should be the rule of life for all, not to glean either the "sheaf," the "grape,' the "olive," or the "corners of the land." The soil of a country is the gift of the Creator to his creatures, and in a government of the people, that gift should not become the object of speculation and monopoly. I am strongly of the belief that these donations will work great good both to the Government and the people. All other Governments have made them. The domain of the United States is the only one, I believe, for which pay was ever demanded in gold and silver, before it could be settled and cultivated. Different was the conduct of other Governments, and even that of the States owning land: Kentucky, Tennessee, and one third of Ohio, and a considerable portion of Georgia-if my information be correct-were settled by free grants of land. Upper and Lower Louisiana, and the two Floridas, as I have before remarked, were settled by gratuitous donations from the Kings of Spain. Since those countries have become ours, the early settlers, to whom these grants were made, have been harassed and annoyed by having their titles contested by the United States officers in the courts, and in every other conceivable manner. Very different has been the policy of the conterminous and other Govern ments on this continent. Are not the British lands in Canada given at this day to all who will come and take them? In 1825, the British Parliament, with a view to the strengthening of a remote province, appropriated £30,000 sterling (nearly $135,000) to pay the expenses of emigrants moving to Canada. Look at what Mexico and Texas have done. They have given land in immense quantities to any one who would go and take it within their limits. It is a well-known historical fact, that a large number of our citizens abandoned this, the land of their nativity, and the freest Government on earth, many years since, about the time that Austin went to Texas, and accepted the landed bounty of foreign, and at that time despotic Governments-their own offering none. In the West Indies, and all over South America, the same liberal system of disposing of the public domain has prevailed. I read from a decree of the Republic of Colombia, dated June, 1823: "The Senate and House of Representatives of the Republic of Colombia, united in Congress, considering: 1st. That a population, numerous and proportionate to the territory of a State is the basis of its prosperity and true greatness; 2nd. That the fertility of the soil, the salubrity of the climate, the extensive unappropriated lands, and the free institutions of the Republic, permit and require a numerous emigration of useful and laboring strangers, who, by improving their own fortunes, may augment the revenues of the nation, have decreed: "That foreigners emigrating to Colombia shall receive gratuitous donations of land, in parcels of two hundred fanegas (about four hundred acres) to each family. That it may be chosen in the middle or the mountainous districts, in the regions favorable to the production of sugar, coffee, cocoa, indigo, rice, cotton, wheat, barley, rye, and all the varieties of fruits, both of tropical and high latitudes. That five years' cultivation shall entitle a foreigner to naturalization. That $1,000,000 be appropriated in aid of agriculture, to be distributed in loans to industrious farmers." Such was the conduct of the free Republics of South America. All of them did the same;-but it is unnecessary to cite their numerous laws to that effect. Throughout the New World, from Hudson's Bay to Cape Horn, (with the single exception of these United States,) land, the gift of God to man, is also the gift of the Government to those who will improve it. This wise policy has not been circumscribed to the New World-it has even prevailed in Asia. The King of Persia published, in the London newspapers in 1823, a proclamation, from which I read: "Mirza Mahomed Saul, Embassador to England, in the SENATE. name, and by the authority of Abbys Mirza, King of Persia, offers to those who shall emigrate to Persia, gratuitous grants of land, good for the production of wheat, barley, rice, cotton, and fruits, free from taxes or contributions of any kind, and with the free enjoyment of their religion, the King's object being to improve his country.' The object here stated by the Persian King, to improve his country, is one worthy to be observed and imitated. Shall this Government, the creature of the people, and made for their benefit, be less wise in its policy, and less generous to its citizens than the despotisms of the Old World, or the Republics of the New? I trust not! Land was given, not sold, in that country which was the peculiar care of God. "God gave the earth to the inhabitants thereof." The promised land was a gift to the children of Israel; one dollar and twenty-five cents the acre was not demanded for it; nor the actual cultivator expelled from his home, if he possessed not the two hundred dollars to pay down for the one hundred and sixty acres, and his home sold, under the hammer, to the highest bidder; land was then the gift of God to man, and to woman also; for the daughters of Manasseh were permitted to inherit and partake of the bounty of the Giver of all good. Mr. President, to show the evils of the present land system, I call your attention to a letter from the Commissioner of the General Land Office respecting the State of Missouri. From this letter it is seen that that State contains a superficial area of about 65,037 square miles, or 41,623,680 acres; of this quantity 17,125,174 acres have been sold, and 188,901 acres absorbed by Spanish and French grants, leaving 24,309,605 acres unsold upon the 30th day of June last, according to the Commissioner's statement now before me. Under the present wretched system of disposing of the public lands, the first sales in Missouri took place in 1818. Thus, if it has taken thirty-four years for the Federal Government to sell 17,125,174 acres, by the same ratio, estimating by the rule of proportion, it will take forty-eight years to dispose of the remaining lands in that State. The 24,309,635 acres, divided by 160, the quantity given to each settler under this bill, would add to the population of the State 151,935 land-owning and tax-paying inhabitants. In Michigan the state of things is even worse, as is seen from the following letter of the Commissioner of the General Land Office: GENERAL LAND OFFICE, February 25, 1853. SIR In reply to your inquiries of this date, I have the honor to inform you that the first public sale of lands in Michigan was made in the year 1818. From that date to the 30th June last, a period of thirty-four years, there was sold and located by land warrants 9,858,670 acres. On the 30th June last there remained undisposed of the quantity of 19,679,811 acres. Estimating the future by the past, it will require, to dispose of this remaining land, a period of about sixty-eight years. With great respect, your obedient servant, JOHN WILSON, Commissioner. Hon. A. C. DoDGE, U. S. Senate. These are but fair samples of the injury inflicted upon the West by the present system. Is there any Senator so dead to the interests of Missouri and Michigan as to wish to prolong this state of things? To show how much the advantages of this bill are overrated, I call attention to the fact, that a few years since we passed a law granting to settlers in Oregon, free of cost, and on condition of settlement and five years' occupancy, much larger quantities of land than are proposed to be given by this bill; and yet you find the people, owing to the abundance of money, caused by the discovery of gold in California, asking a repeal of the restriction, and that they be permitted to pay for their lands. Such a law has been passed during the present session, and those settlers now have their option of purchase or conditional gift. I only refer to this circumstance to show that the conditions imposed by the homestead bill are rigorous, and are so regarded by its beneficiaries-those at least of them who are so fortunate as to accumulate the means necessary to pay for their claims before the expiration of the five years. The constitutional power to pass the homestead bill I regard as clearly conferred. Its language is: "Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting, the territory of other property belonging to the United States." What more needful rule and regulation could be established than settlement and cultivation? And 32D CONG.....2D SESS. considering the sources whence our governmental revenues are raised, what more beneficial one could be devised? Acting under this power, Congress has recently made donations to an enormous amount to the soldiers of the Mexican war; to those of the war of 1812, the war of the Revolution, Bonaparte's exiled marshals and soldiers, to General Lafayette -to say nothing of the sixteenth and alternatesection grants to States and companies. Of a population of over twenty-three millions of inhabitants in the United States, the head of the Census Bureau, in reply to a request of mine, has furnished me with an esimate approximating accuracy of the number of real-estate owners in the United States, which he fixes at two millions three hundred and thirty-two thousand nine hundred and nineteen; and this, I presume, is about the number. Mr. President, there never was a measure so abused, so misrepresented, so vilified, as has been the homestead bill. In the first place, a large portion of the country has been made erroneously to believe that its grants are made to foreigners, and we of the new States have been told that its enactment would bring hordes of foreign paupers upon us. Like every measure of progress and reform, it is fought with all sorts of rawhead and bloody-bones argument which can be invented. Is there any public man who has the courage to dare to propose a repeal of the naturalization laws of this country? I opine not. I take it that Native Americanism is so dead that it will never kick again. Then, if that be true, and these foreigners come to us in the numbers in which they do, I ask you, in the name of God, what will you do with them? Will you keep them in your cities?will you keep them where they are denied the opportunity of cultivating the soil of the country-or will you hold out to them a generous inducement, such as the homestead bill does, and such as all Governments on this continent have held out? The British on the north, and the Mexican and South American Republics on the south, have invited and attracted foreigners. Will you not rather choose to elevate their condition by inviting them to the magnificent and fertile plains of the West, upon which they can settle, and their daughters and sons grow up and be useful and respectable? It is within the range of human probability that under the spirit and genius of our institutions and the glorious provisions of our Constitution, some of the descendants of these muchabused and hated foreigners may attain even the Presidency of these United States. In your legislation touching the public lands, you seem to have forgotten that population as well as soil is necessary. You forget the lesson taught by a Greek, and elegantly paraphrased by a British, poet: "What constitutes a State? Not high-raised battlement nor labored moundThick wall nor moated gate; Nor cities fair, with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride! Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-bowed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No! men! high-minded men!- Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain, THE HOMESTEAD BILL. The Homestead Bill-Mr. Charlton. main guard; and I do this the more readily, as, doubtless, we shall have the homestead bill before us at the close of the session, when it will be too late to debate it. I cannot yield my assent to the principles involved in this bill. I do not think that sound policy, true political economy, or the great interests of our country are at all protected or preserved by it. Not questioning for a moment the motives of those who advocate it, I consider that its passage is well calculated to demoralize the very class whose benefit seems to be its main object. I believe that it will lend a helping hand to idleness, profligacy, and vice, and that it will throw a temptation in the way of honest industry, which may turn its feet aside from the path of usefulness and success in order that it may obtain a gift that will be worthless when it is procured. If I am right in these opinions, it is the duty of us all to defeat the measure before us. If I am wrong in my conclusions, I have the satisfaction of knowing that nothing that I can say can pervert the judgment of the "older and better" legislators around me. I propose to state, very briefly, the reasons for my convictions; and my first objection to it is, that whilst it seems to be founded upon the agrarian principle, that each man shall share equally in the public lands, and that this Government is but the trustee for its citizens, yet it does not carry out the very idea that is its basis; it is unequal in its operation; it gives the public domain only to those who have no land at all at the time of such application, and who will swear that they have not disposed of any land to obtain the benefits of this act. Why these provisions? Why exclude the honest laborer, who, by the sweat of his brow, had purchased his farm and erected his homestead? || Why, in the division of the spoil amongst the cestui que trusts, thrust aside the successful tiller of the ground-the experienced cultivator? Why give the common property only to him who, by his idleness had never obtained his tract of land, or by his extravagance, or folly, or inexperience had wasted it? Is this to encourage agriculture and other branches of industry, which the title of this act declares to be its object?-or is it not to waste the country's treasures upon those who had hitherto been too idle to acquire property, or too unskillful to make it useful? It seems to me that the proper course, if any such distribution must take place, (which I exceedingly deprecate,) would be to give equally to all. The indigent man may have become so without his own crime or folly; but what have these done the successful, the industrious, the honest, that they should be excluded? Why should you put a penalty on thrift, and reward only the man who has had neither the industry nor skill, in this favored land, to shelter his "landless head" from the storm? No successful answer can be given to these questions, unless we are advancing to the opinion that all property in land is a robbery, and that he who has already obtained a portion, though it may be by honest industry, shall have no more,-an opinion which I trust no one here entertains, and no one here will advance. But it will be said, he that has already an estate in land needs no more; we wish to supply him who has none; we wish the soil to be cultivated; we wish agriculture to be improved; we want to give a start to the poor man, and to throw around him the comforts of a home. We want to convert this barren domain into a beautiful garden SPEECH OF HON. R. M. CHARLTON, spot, and to change, by the magic power of the OF GEORGIA, IN THE SENATE, February 24, 2853, Against the principles of the Homestead bill. Mr. CHARLTON said: Mr. President, I had proposed to address the Senate upon what is often called the homestead bill; and as I understand that the amendment now pending before this body has been made to come as near to that as it is practicable, under the existing rules of the Senate; and as I understand that this is to be but the entering wedge, but the beginning of a system which will end in the homestead hill, I will take the liberty of attacking the true system, and not the false one that is apparently presented before us. I think it is a good rule, in civil as well as in military warfare, to attack the vedettes before you come to the spade, the hoe, and the plow, the noxious weed into the life-sustaining plant. We want to make the desert blossom like the rose, and to make the untrodden path of the prairie the highway for vast multitudes of freemen. All this sounds well; but if it is said that this act is going to accomplish all or any of these things, I am afraid that, like most such romantic and poetic sentiments, there is more beauty of diction than there will be truth in fulfillment. Let us take them up in their order, and hold them up to the candle of reason. You begin, as I have already said, by excluding the man, whatever his ability, whatever his industry, whatever his honesty and experience, who owns a single acre of land—a single acre will exclude him. No matter how poor he may be, if he has either the misfortune or crime to own a rood SENATE. of land, his unhallowed foot shall never tread this sacred soil. His land may be barren, it matters not; his children may be starving, it is of no consequence; he may, by his experience and knowledge of agriculture, be the very person for the cultivation of this rich soil-all this cannot be listened to. He may be a native born, whose father's blood helped to purchase the freedom of our country; he may be a naturalized citizen, who has proved his devotion to our free institutions by daring valor or indomitable energy; still the answer that will meet his ear will be, You have already land; you can have no more. He offers to sell his parental homestead, even which, to advance his childen's interests, he may be willing to abandon; this act still declares he shall not participate in its benefits, while it gives no other reason for the exclusion than the single and unmeaning one that he has land already. Now, if the true motive of this bill were to cultivate the soil, and to promote agriculture, one would think that these objects would be obtained by allowing this class of men, who had shown their energy and success, to participate in the benefits, and to extend the circle of their usefulness. Certainly some limit might be made, so as not to thrust aside the mere nominal holder of a few feet of soil. But let us proceed. This act is intended, say some of its advocates, for the aid of the poor man-to give him a start, and to throw around him the comforts of a home. But how does this appear? This act includes only those who have no land. There are hundreds of thousands in this Republic who, while they own no soil, have their gold and silver and jewels, their bank stock, their notes of hand, and other personal estate. They are wealthy and prosperous; they may nevertheless come and take their quarter section. How is this act, then, only meant for the poor man? It will be said, that no man of wealth will come; but that is no answer. He may if he will-the law does not exclude him; but the law does exclude the poor man who has no personal property, but a little soil of his own-it matters not how little. Poverty is not the testownership of land is. But, sir, if this objection were out of the way, it would not change my views. I do not like this bait that is thrown out. I do not like this beginning of a system that seeks to array one class of our country against the other-that suggests to the poor man that he alone is the owner of the soil. I do not like the under current that steals under the apparent tide of sympathy. Let me not be misunderstood, sir. I am not one of those who look upon penury as a crime. In many cases it is the decree of Providence: "The poor ye have with you always," was as well the assertion of a truth as the announcement of a prophecy. So it has ever been, and so will it ever be; and he is but a traitor to the best interests of humanity and his country who does not do what he reasonably can to alleviate the sufferings of those less fortunate than himself; and poverty and suffering are appeals that this Republic of ours has always answered to. Witness its hospitals, its asylums, its charitable institutions. Witness its succor to Greece and to Ireland. Witness its outstretched arms to receive every one upon whose neck the iron heel had pressed. But there are lawful ways of showing sympathy, and there are unlawful ones-and this system is an instance of the latter. Besides, sir, you encourage poverty by this plan. You reward it, in the first instance, though it may have been the result of vice or sloth; you protect it, you perpetuate it, by making the property you thus bestow, not liable for any debt which may be incurred for five years; and whilst you leave the fruits of the ground subject to legal process, you take away the inducement to produce more than is barely sufficient for sustenance. You encourage recklessness and idleness; you stereotype the indolence and want of foresight which you found in a more imperfect state. Mr. President, I know that poverty is no crime, not always; but I know that idleness is, and ever has been; and I know that poverty which is the result of idleness, is something worse than a misfortune. "He that will not work, neither should he eat," is the language of inspiration. In this free country, where honest effort and brawny arms always meet encouragement and 32D CONG.....2D SESS. reward, there are few healthy "heads of families" who cannot earn the support of themselves and children; and if they are not healthy, believe me, sir, the great interests of agriculture will not be promoted by giving them in charge to the puny strength of the diseased frame. Human nature is sufficiently prone to inertness. You do not do your duty to your country by encouraging it. Industry has its own reward; stimulate it, do not retard it. Let the young man feel and know that with it the highest honors of his country are within the range of his effort, and let him feel and know that it is his duty to himself and to his country to march forward with untiring energy to the attainment of honor and of usefulness. The walls of this Chamber have often echoed to the eloquent words of those who have worked their way up from honest poverty by their energy and industry, who might this day have been the miserable tillers of a "quarter section, if such a bait had been held out to them; if such a miserable cheat had deluded their minds. But still, it may be said that this bill, although highly objectionable in many other respects, has a good principle within it, which should silence all cavils. It is intended to encourage agriculture that great measure so important to the best interests of our country; and not only that, but it is to encourage commerce, next in importance to this our land; the grain, the fruit, the cotton, the tobacco, the whisky, (last not least,) will be borne beneath our country's flag to all parts of the world, through the means of this bill. Nor these alone: manufactures will be improved by it. The skillful artisan will become more skillful by its influence-how, nobody knows. We must take that on trust; but still, in some way, this will be the result, and the benign blessings of this act will be the medium. These are certainly great objects; no one can deny that. But, say the advocates of this measure, none of your faint praise, none of your garbled laudation; look again at the title of the bill; it does not confine itself to the encouragement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, but also to "all other branches of industry.' That is true; true so far as the title is concerned. Wonderful act! a kind of physical vice versa Pandora's box, that is to let loose upon this regenerated earth such a multitude of blessings! Do not be skeptical, Mr. President. Do not fall back upon the incredulous query of old-How can these things be? Do not talk about the exploded maxims of political economy. Do not ask how the encouragement of agriculture necessarily includes the encouragement of "all other branches of industry." These things can be done-so they are done by this bill. I beg pardon-by the title of this bill; for there is nothing in the body of it that either declares or promotes any such universal benefit. And how, do you ask? Why by the simplest method in the world. And what is it? The title describes the process, viz: "by granting to every man who is the head of a family a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres of land out of the public domain." This is the short, the sure, the glorious way "to encourage agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and all other branches of industry." It is true, as I have said, the body of the act does not state, much less prove, how these benefits, great and gigantic as they are, will accrue; but then we know that the body of the act is never intended to express the intention of the lawgiver; it is the title, and the title alone, to which you are to refer to ascertain all the objects, and benefits, and "the ways and means" of accomplishing them. When Mathews, the celebrated wag, was here, he told a story of a Yankee, whom, on his first landing, he encountered, and who, with characteristic frankness, informed him that he was about compiling an American jest-book. Mathews met with him some two years afterwards, and asked him how he progressed with his great work, and he answered, "Gloriously; it is almost done. I have got the index and the title-page, and only want the body of the work." And Mathews tells this as a joke. A joke indeed! Look at the title of this act; magnificent in its views, overwhelming with its prophecies, and then tell me if the title be not the best, the greatest part of it: whether, when we once have given our high legislative sanction to it, we have not done all that our country can should give to all branches of industry by my require of us; whether the title, glorious as it is -liberal in its promises, beautiful in its hopes-engine would be exceedingly brief. The story of will not be better without the incumbrance of the body that is tacked to it, and whether we had not better strike out all that comes after its enacting clause, leaving that and its title to stand, monumentum perenius ære, of human wisdom and human genius? But now, seriously, let us look this title in the face. Apart from its dogmatical assertion, where is the proof that by passing this act you will encourage agriculture alone, much less all other branches of industry? The idea is, that by making every man a farmer, you improve the condition of your whole country; and by improving the condition of the whole country, you necessarily will improve all branches of industry, as the welfare of the whole embraces the welfare of all its parts. Now, I deny both the premises and the conclusions. I deny that it will improve agriculture; and I deny that by improving agriculture, you must necessarily, or even naturally, improve all other branches of industry. 66 I suppose I must not say that agriculture is a science, although in a subordinate sense it is certainly so. No one can be a successful tiller of the ground without a thorough training, and an enlarged experience. He must know the climate, the seasons, the nature of the soil, the influence of the weather, the seed, the plow, and the sickle; and this knowledge cannot be obtained intuitively, nor got by becoming the owner of a "quarter section" gratuitously. In my part of the country there is a large class of men who earn an ample livelihood by becoming superintendents of large planting interests. They devote their whole lives to acquiring and increasing their knowledge on this subject. No one is rash enough to believe that by buying, or owning, or inheriting a tract of land, he acquires an appendant knowledge of the mode of cultivating it. But this act proceeds upon an assumption that the land and the science of agriculture go together; that as soon as you make your 66 entry" you are equipped "as the law directs," with all the necessary qualifications "to encourage agriculture;" and so you are, so far as the law directs, but not as common sense directs. By some mental, electrical, governmental power, the moment "the head of a family" enters free of cost one quarter section of vacant and unappropriated public lands," the whole science of agriculture is flashed into his brain, and he becomes a fit and proper person "to encourage agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and all other branches of industry. What though such person be an aged widow, with maiden daughters; a rheumatic man, with neither children, friends, or money; a blacksmith, who has never seen a field of corn; a seaman, who could not tell cotton from tobacco, (I mean in the growth;) a politician, whose only knowledge of rye is derived from the whisky distilled from it;-it is all the same-the whole science, with its concomitant blessings and benefits, is conferred upon him instanter; and the only condition imposed is, that he must not hire or sell the land to any other person, who has acquired the science by the slow and regular way, but he must reside on it and cultivate it himself, for the "encouragement of agriculture." Truly, (to speak sarcastically,) this is a wonderful law; truly, (to speak seriously,) it is a ridiculous one. Test it by another way: As this law, by the benefits it is said to promote, encourages all species of industry, suppose we try the same experiment with one of these branches of industry; suppose we enact a law with a magnificent title, declaring it to be an act to encourage the successful and safe working of steam-engines, "agriculture, manufactures, and all other branches of industry," by granting to every head of a family a forty-horse steam-engine at the public expense, upon condition of personally working and managing the same for a certain period. We claim to be intelligent men here-doubtless most here are; how long do you think, Mr. President, your lengine would be in successful operation? How ong do you think that mine would encourage manufactures and all other branches of industry? How would you like to trust yourself on a voyage with any one of the learned Senators around you? You can answer that question at your leisure. For myself, I answer that the encouragement I 66 the wise men of Gotham, who went to sea in a bowl, would be reenacted in its brevity and its catastrophe-the difference being, that whilst they went down, myself and crew would go up-a distinction without any very solid difference. And I think, so far as moral effect is concerned, a similar fate would await me in the management of my quarter section;" my doom would be more protracted and more painful, but just as certain. For I believe myself, and the rest of mankind who are professional men, know about as much of the management of steam-engines as of quarter sections, and that we are about as fit in the one as in the other to encourage agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and all other branches of industry. I do not think, therefore, that you encourage agriculture by this bill; but if you do, you certainly do not encourage all other branches of industry. It is true; to a certain degree, that agriculture, when kept within its legitimate limits, has a tendency to improve the commerce of a nation; whether it improves its manufactures is a more disputed point. So far is it from being necessarily so, that we find the agricultural and the manufacturing interests constantly arrayed against each other in this country,-one asks for free trade and the other for a protective tariff. But be that as it may, you certainly do not increase or encourage all other branches of industry, if you lure away from their successful pursuit the skillful and energetic men who have hitherto adopted them. Our country needs the practical and competent mechanic, as well as the agriculturist. What will we do, without the shoemaker, the carpenter, the tailor, the blacksmith, &c.? Will it improve all these branches of industry to take away from them those who follow them for a livelihood, and send them to cultivate land? Plenty of these will remain, you answer. But it is not the policy of this law that they should remain. All that you could do to get them away, you have done, not only by your free gift of land, but by the argument you have addressed to them in the title of this act, by the assurance you have given to them, that by turning their attention to this new field of labor, they will encourage all other branches of industry. I ask you, therefore, if the policyif the bearing of the law is the true one? And the only way you can answer me is by the assurance that the law will not have the effect it professes to have; that though it invites all, it courts all to come without any exceptions-that although it holds out brilliant promises of wealth and usefulness to all who do come, yet that very few will come in point of fact, and only those who are skillful agriculturists. Well, why not give it, then, to skillful agriculturists? What kind of law is it that says one thing and means another? Mr. President, I do not know whether you have noticed it, but as I have no doubt you are a keen observer of human nature, I think you must have noticed, as I have, when walking the principal avenue of our metropolis, a man with a magnificent head upon his shoulders and a very decrepit body. If you have extended your researches as far as I have, you have noticed the reverse of this; you have seen a man with a magnificently-framed body and with a very ricketty head. Í do not know how it has struck you, but I have always been irresistibly inclined to take a sharp cimetar and clip both heads off, and put the good head on the good body, so as to make one perfect man of the two, and throw away the balance to be dealt with as the law directs. That, to be sure, would be murder, and I do not suppose that either you or I would be inclined to indulge in such an innocent amusement, considering the consequences which might result, although we might think we had benefited mankind by taking away two decrepit species of humanity, and in their places getting a perfect one. We cannot, however, indulge this propensity, because the law suspends a penalty over us; but without any bloodshed, 1 think we might do that in reference to the project before us-I mean the homestead bill. The honorable Senator from Alabama [Mr. CLEMENS] has submitted informally an amendment, which is to come in at the end of the homestead bill, which is a proposition for a graduation law. What I want to do is not to cut off this |