Roy M. Robbins, Our Landed Heritage: The Public Domain, 1776-1936 (1942).
The introduction of the homestead measure into Congress coincided closely with the rise of the Land Reform movement. On January 4, 1844, Robert Smith of Illinois introduced into the House a resolution providing for a grant of eighty acres of land to any settler who was "the head of a family, and living with the same, and not the owner of land, and who, through misfortune or otherwise," was "unable to purchase said land." The selection was to be made, however, "from any lands belonging to the government which" had been "on the market and subject to entry not less than ten years."1 On March 9, 1846, McConnell of Alabama presented a homestead measure.2 Three days later, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee asked leave to introduce his bill, but was refused.3 Mr. Richard P. Herrick of New York who attempted at the same time to introduce a memorial embracing the principles of the Land Reformers, was also refused. In commenting on these events, the New York Tribune declared that "Messrs. McConnell of Alabama and Johnson of Tennessee evidently" supposed they were "acting in accordance with the purpose of the National Reformers. . . . But they could not [have been] more utterly mistaken. . . . To offer each [poor man] a quarter section of public land as a free gift with liberty to sell the fee simple to anyone, would be simply aiding the speculator to obtain . . . second hand for a few dollars what now costs him hundreds."4
CHAPTER VII
FREE LAND AND FREE SOILIn the following month, Representative Orlando Ficklin of Illinois introduced a homestead bill providing that the land was to be inalienable for debt for the space of ten years.5 Hearing of this action, Greeley observed that Ficklin had the National Reformer's platform, but had not gone far enough; in ten years' time, Greeley averred, the eighty acre tracts would become the "football of speculation."6 Here the matter rested until after the Mexican War.
Attention now began to center around the campaign and election of 1848. In 1847, the second session of the Industrial Congress agreed to support the Liberty Party if it selected a candidate favoring Land Reform.7 Horace Greeley later that year expressed hope that the Whig Party would adopt measures for the improvement of social relations, especially for Land Reform.8 But he continued his flirtations with the Liberty Party headed by Gerrit Smith, which was already displaying Land Reform on its banners. At the same time he urged the Free-Soilers to "secure to each and all . . . a really Free Soil! -- especially free from the hated speculators."9
At the beginning of 1848 Greeley again denounced Congress for its failure to take up Land Reform. "Wages in many sections are falling while rents and food grow dearer, and employment becomes more and more scanty and precarious."10 He hailed with delight the convention of National Reformers at Cleveland on May 17, declaring that these were "among the first mutterings of a gathering tempest."11 The Industrial Congress in its third annual meeting at Philadelphia nominated Gerrit Smith of New York for President and William S. Wait of Illinois for Vice-President, endorsing "Land Reform" as their main plank.12 The Land Reform movement was rapidly spreading westward to the region where it would naturally find ready support.
The slavery and the expansionist issues, however, kept Land Reform in the background. Greeley caused much disruption in the Whig ranks by his refusal to support General Taylor, the Whig nominee; at the same time he bitterly attacked General Cass, the Democratic candidate, for his extensive speculation in western lands. Cass had just repudiated free soil;13 Taylor was an expansionist, and the Mexican War had resulted in the addition of territory which Greeley hoped would remain open to free institutions.
Probably Greeley would have supported in 1848 any party which openly favored Land Reform. When the Free-Soil Party met in convention at Buffalo in July, the Land Reformers hoped that it would adopt the principle of free land as well as free soil. But, while it nominated Martin Van Buren for president, it hedged on the issue of free land.14 Greeley did not at first feel that the Free-Soil platform was ambiguous. He wrote to Schuyler Coifax: "If I could make Van Buren president tomorrow, I would. . . . I do like the principles he now embodies -- Free Soil and Land Reform. . . . The Free-Soil party is the only live party around us."15 But the Free-Soilers "missed a great opportunity of drawing in a large western vote by not featuring the homestead issue."16
In the East, the free-soil principle had the open support not only of Greeley's Tribune, but also of the New York Globe and the Philadelphia Daily Sun. With only Gerrit Smith's party embracing Land Reform, the campaign was not too far gone to win Greeley back to the Whig fold. The Whigs sorely needed his support. Thurlow Weed therefore placed Greeley's name on the New York ticket as a candidate for Congress to fill an unexpired term, and the Tribune returned to the support of Taylor and the Whigs.
Economic forces were now rapidly moulding a situation that would bring to fruition the Land Reform movement. The influx of immigrants from Ireland and Germany afforded a supply of labor which could not be drained off by the West. An ocean transport system was being developed which would aid in the maintenance of the labor reserve in the East. The growth of the factory system called for wide markets. Farms carved from the forests and prairies would supply this need. The development of canals and railroads was creating an East and West economic alliance. Never before were prospects brighter for the realization of Clay's American System which Greeley was advocating almost daily in the columns of the Tribune. But if the Whigs were to sponsor this new economic order, they must discard their old scruples on western agrarianism and admit the principle of free land. This gradual shifting of the economic center of gravity was soon to cause many manufacturers and employers to align themselves with the Land Reformers.
Greeley, the foremost proponent of Land Reform, was not slow in sensing these economic tendencies. In the 1840'5 he had emphasized the advantages of free land to the working classes; in the 1850's his philosophy of the soil broadened, and included a direct appeal to the manufacturers and employers of the East. This new turn in the crusade for free land was clearly evident in the columns of the Daily Tribune, which circulated mainly in the population centers of the East."17
"Every smoke that rises in [the] Great West marks a new customer to the counting rooms and warehouses of New York," wrote Greeley.18 Fewer paupers and fewer tenants would mean more produce, more markets, and consequently more wealth.19 "Every thousand hardy, efficient workers who float West on free lands would leave places open for as many others; and these taking a step upward, would leave room for advancement of as many more and so on. Even to those workers who will never migrate, free land at the West would be a great and lasting benefit." Moreover, he avowed, "It [free land] will enable us to appeal forcibly to the settler of the new states for protection to the exposed industry of their Atlantic brethren by whom they have been dealt with generously."20
Greeley's appeal also became broader in its humanitarian aspects. The soil, he declared, was God's gift to man. Frequent references were made to the laws promulgated by Moses.21 At one time he quoted Leviticus XXV:23, "The land shall not be sold forever; for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me."22 From this quotation he deduced the principle that to sell land as "mere merchandise, like molasses or mackerel" was a sin.23 Later he asserted that "every bird, every beast has a home, which he inhabits and enjoys without apprehension of ejection or deprivation, at least by his own species. Man alone erects houses for others to inhabit and enjoy. And is the time not at hand when every free citizen shall have his own home if he will?"24
The first two editions of his book, Hints Toward Reforms, appearing in 1851 and 1853, respectively, included important essays on "The Right to Labor," and "Land Reform," and "Coming to the City." His deep agrarian sympathy is evident in his statement that "The defeasance or confiscation of man's natural right to use any portion of the earth's surface not actually in use by another is an important fact, to be kept in view in every consideration of the duty of the affluent and comfortable to the poor and unfortunate. . . . What nature indicates and justice requires is equal opportunities to all. . . . National reform is the broad and sure basis whereon all other reforms may be safely erected. . . . It would hardly be possible to exaggerate the ultimate benefits of the proposed reform, and the day of its triumph should be hailed by the poor and lowly as the birthday of their independence, as the Fourth of July is celebrated as that of the nation."25
Slowly, the northern Whig leaders were attracted to the ideals of the Land Reformers. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, was confused on the land question. Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri had inaugurated the fight for free land in the early 1820's, and by 1852 the West was almost completely won over to homesteading.26 Conspicuous in the organization of the movement in the Northwest was the National Reform Association of Chicago.27 The Germans of this region also were becoming an important influence in favor of homesteading. In fact, Representative Sutherland of New York, discussing Johnson's bill in 1852 dubbed it -- absurdly enough -- the "offspring of the German school of socialism [Marx] and 'higher law' transcendentalism."28
By 1850, such progressive Democratic leaders as Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, and Sam Houston of Texas, had taken up the cause and were embarrassing the conservative slavery interests of the Old South, who already realized that free land meant free soil.29 More dissension was added to the ranks of the party in 1852 when a leading representative of northern democracy, Galusha A. Grow, from David Wilmot's district in Pennsylvania, considering himself the true inheritor of Benton's views, entered the crusade for Land Reform in the interests of the laboring classes.30
As for the politics of the years 1849 to 1854, one finds the columns of the Tribune alive with editorials, letters, and comments relating to the progress of Land Reform. Greeley was highly pleased when such Whig leaders as Seward and Webster took up the issue. However, in 1852, in thanking Webster for his continual support of Free Land, Greeley frankly told him that if he had pushed Land Reform as hard as he had ridden the "Union" hobby, he would have been "nearer to the Presidency than he is now."31
The Tribune carefully reported the details of the Sixth Industrial Congress. Seward and Greeley had been seriously considered by these Industrialists as possible candidates for the Presidency of the United States, but they were passed over at the last moment in favor of Isaac Walker of Wisconsin.32 Greeley's decision to support Walker was due to the fact that Tammany, in May 1851, had begun to bid for the support of the Land Reformers. A huge mass meeting was held in Tammany Hall "of all those in favor of land and other industrial reform, to be made elements in the Presidential contest of 1852." Their platform included the principles of the Land Reformers, and urged that the Democratic Party adopt the homestead principle. Senator Walker of Wisconsin was nominated as their candidate for President.33
There was considerable doubt in Greeley's mind whether Land Reform could be made an issue in the campaign and election of 1852. The old parties were "exceedingly shy of the new questions which come up to divide the country. . . . For the moment at least, compact and thorough-going parties" existed "only with reference to a few questions of long standing."34 He apparently agreed with the stand taken by the Albany State Register that "the Whig Party needs purification."35 He was more than lukewarm in support of Webster for President, but he felt that his connection with the Fugitive Slave Law did not make him a desirable candidate.36
General Winfield Scott, in accepting the Whig nomination, stated that he favored settlement of the public domain by actual occupants only." But this was really a "hedge" on the issue. The Democrats did no better, and Greeley bitterly took both parties to task for dodging Land Reform.88 The remnants of the Free-Soil Party of 1848 organized themselves into the Free Democrats, with John P. Hale of New Hampshire as their candidate. Though they adopted free-labor and free-homesteads as planks in their platform, it was obvious from the beginning that they were more interested in repudiating the Compromise of 1850 than in furthering the cause of homesteading. Greeley thus remained with the Whigs, though his support was not enthusiastic.
The overwhelming Democratic victory meant a setback for the homestead cause. However, the Democratic Party was daily becoming more and more embarrassed by the Land Reform movement. With the election of Pierce, Greeley's hopes seemed shattered. Several times he declared that he was through with politics. He became more and more dissatisfied with the Whig Party and talked earnestly in favor of a "Northern" party. Because he was in this frame of mind, the rise of the Kansas-Nebraska question easily started his thoughts along a new course.
In 1848, as has been stated, the prospect that the Free-Soilers would adopt free land as one of their planks brought the land issue more prominently before the country. Altogether it was a big year for the Land Reformers. In the United States Senate, John P. Hale, a convert of the movement introduced on July 10 a joint resolution providing that every male citizen owning no other land, might enter one hundred acres and reserve patent after five years' residence thereon. The editor of the Emancipator believed the "Land Reform measure" was "destined to prevail." It was "just and democratic . . . a check to the speculation in the public lands, by capitalists heretofore, and at this time, so prejudicial to the honest, laboring masses of the country. The tendency of the measure, if passed" would be "adverse to the prevalence of slavery, and its extension into the territories of the Union -- as the lands" would be "taken up and settled by a laboring and nonslaveholding population."39 At the same time the opinion of the South was reflected by the editor of De Bow's Commercial Review, who "urged against the too free a use of the public lands," proposing that such lands be retained for national emergencies.40
Here the matter rested in Congress until after the election of 1848. With the Whig victory, Horace Greeley became a member of the short session of Congress convening in December. On the second day of the session he swung into action by giving notice that he would introduce a homestead bill. This he did on December 13, but the bill was not again referred to until February 27 when the committee asked to be released from further consideration of the subject.41 A western member of the House wanted to know why a New Yorker should busy himself with the disposition of the public domain. Greeley replied that "he represented more landless men than any other member" on the floor of Congress.42 The bill was tabled, only twenty members seeming to favor it, and thus ended Greeley's personal attempt to convert Congress to Land Reform.43 Neither party, for the time being, wanted to sponsor a measure so close to the dangerous slavery issue. With the conservatives of both parties in control, there was little immediate hope for Land Reform.
The homestead measure gained its first prominent attention in the Senate on December 27, 1849, when Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois introduced a bill providing for free land.44 Early in 1850 another well known Democrat, Sam Houston of Texas, presented a resolution requiring that the Committee on Public Lands be "instructed to inquire into the expediency of granting to each family (not land holders or owners of property worth the sum of $1500), citizens of the United States, or emigrants who are now here or may arrive previous to March next, 160 acres of land."45 Houston argued that actual settlement was more valuable than the small amount of revenue which the government might derive from the sale of the lands. And many poor people living in the cities and dependent on charity would be benefited by this measure. But his bill went to the Committee on Public Lands which refused to report it out. Not to be outdone by these western Democrats, William H. Seward, Whig magnate of New York State, and close friend of Greeley, introduced his own bill providing for free land.46 This was followed, on January 22,1850, by a resolution of Daniel Webster, Whig leader from Massachusetts, conforming quite closely to the demands of the Land Reformers and eliciting favorable comment from Greeley's Tribune."47
On January 28, Isaac P. Walker of Wisconsin introduced an interesting bill providing for the cession of the public lands to the states in which they were located on condition that the states convey such lands to actual occupants only in limited quantities for cost of survey and transfer.48 Walker's bill gained considerable attention, though when it came up for vote, only Dodge and Walker of Wisconsin, and Seward of New York voted for it. In the course of debate some fear was expressed, particularly by Senator William C. Dawson of Georgia that free land would lead to an increase in the tariff; however, Houston of Texas, who was opposed to a higher tariff, stated that he had no such fear. Speaking of the provisions of Walker's bill, the Whig Almanac commented: "they embody the first principle of Land Reform, which is destined to exert a powerful influence on the future action and welfare of our people."49
In the House of Representatives, Andrew Johnson, having failed heretofore to obtain favorable action from the Committee on Public Lands, adopted the strategy of making a report from the Committee on Public Expenditures embracing his cherished homestead bill. The House, however, refused to take it up, ruling that the bill had nothing to do with public expenditures.50 On February 25 he reintroduced his bill and insisted that it be referred to the Committee on Public Lands, where its fate was sealed."51 Again on June 4, Johnson introduced his bill, this time succeeding in getting it referred to the Committee on Agriculture which reported favorably on it. Considerable debate ensued.52 Johnson declared that five years before when the homestead idea was first introduced in Congress it was regarded as "wild and visionary"; now, he averred, "there seems to be quite a struggle going on among the most prominent men of the country as to who should take the lead in this important measure."53 Albert G. Brown of Mississippi supported Johnson's bill, but he favored a provision which would allow the settler to sell his holding by paying the government the minimum price per acre.54 This is the first mention of the commutation principle which later becomes so important in homesteading history.
In the second session of the thirty-first Congress, Johnson endeavored to get his bill read, and finally was permitted to present it and state his arguments. He spoke of the great land grab which at that very moment was being executed in Congress. Sixty-five bills in the last few years, he charged, had been presented in Congress -- all aimed at dividing the public lands for purposes of canals, railroads, asylums, public schools, etc. Most of these beneficiaries had but one common objective: to realize profits out of those who would settle the lands. Was it not preferable, he asked, to give the land to the homeless, who would make worthy citizens?55 But however meritorious his bill, it was opposed especially by representatives from Virginia and Pennsylvania, who claimed the free-land measure was not fair to the old states who had equal rights in the public domain.56
With the opening of the thirty-second Congress it was obvious that the homestead principle could make no greater headway in the Senate than before. The bill introduced by Isaac Walker of Wisconsin was voted down in January 1852, which action brought forth a tirade in the New York Tribune: "Land Reform was slapped in the face Wednesday," it read, "by that illustrious body, the United States Senate, among whom only seven members could be found to sustain Mr. Walker's proposition to give a quarter section to each landless improver and occupier. . . . Of course, after voting that the settlers shouldn't have land free, the Senate proceeded to vote that the speculators in Bounty Warrants should go at it with a perfect looseness henceforward."57
While the Senate persistently refused to take up the homestead bill, the House gave it a free course, listened to the arguments pro and con, and ultimately passed it by an overwhelming majority. Senator Johnson on December 3,1851, again gave notice that he would present his bill to "encourage agriculture." It was read on December 10 and referred to the Committee on Agriculture, which later reported favorably. In the discussion which began in March 1852, Mr. Skelton of New Jersey favored the bill because "these lands" were the "balance wheel" that regulated "the labor of our country."58 Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania, like the Land Reformers, insisted that every man had the right to sufficient land on which to rear a habitation, for this was indispensable for the enjoyment of his inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.59
Mr. Sutherland of New York was opposed to the homestead principle. He believed that this Homestead Bill would "take labor from the manufacturing states to the land states -- from the manufactories of the East to the farms of the West -- and thereby increase the cost of labor and the cost of manufacturing." He thought the bill "an attack on the right of property," and "as agrarian, as the first only of measures brought forward to more equalize the distribution of property."60 But Johnson, the apostle of the poor-white class of the South, in defense of his bill appealed "in behalf of the poor North Carolinian, my own brother." It was contended that the bill would "take away the laboring man from the old states. Look at his condition." Where was the "man, abstractionist, North Carolinian, Virginian, or citizen of any other state, who has a heart that beats with love for his kind, and patriotism for his country, that would say to him, . . . do not go and settle upon the new, rich, and fertile lands of the West, but stay here, linger, wither, and die in your poverty."61
Elijah Chastaine of Georgia opposed the principle; he charged that the House was attempting to squander the public domain.62 Fayette McMullen of Virginia summed up the debates on the bill. "These gentlemen representing manufacturing interests," he said, "dislike the idea of seeing this bill pass. Why ? They fear that the laborers -- the manufacturing hands -- will leave the manufacturing districts and go to the West, and that, in consequence of the diminution of laborers, the wages of labor will advance among them. This, they fear, will be the effect of immigration of the laborer from the North and the East to the West. Sir, I say let these men go to the West, and emigration invited from abroad to fill their places -- the foreigners will take their positions in the manufacturing districts of the North."63 Besides the fears on the part of the vested interests of the old states, there was some concern among Southerners that free land might diminish the receipts in the treasury, and hence lead to demands for a higher tariff. It was asserted that with the passage of the homestead bill, at least one twenty-fifth of the revenue of the government would be taken away.64
The homestead bill passed the House on May 12 by a vote of 107 to 56. Obviously it was not a party division, but a sectional one. The cleavage between the old and new states was clearly portrayed, but it is impossible to estimate the effect of the slavery issue -- if any -- since the South Atlantic States would be opposed to free land on either basis. Greeley observed that more "Southern" members had voted for the bill than against it, but the question arises: should Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi be classified at this time as "Southern" or were they still "Western"? It is indeed remarkable that there were so many favorable votes from the North Atlantic States. The South Atlantic States could hardly have failed to sense the rising alliance between the upper Mississippi Valley and the North Atlantic States.
The bill came before the Senate on August 6, was adversely reported by the Committee on Public Lands,65 and thus did not come up for discussion. Perhaps the remarks of Senator Mason of Virginia to the effect that the bill came from "suspicious quarters" is of significance in interpreting the Senate action.
In the second session of the thirty-second Congress the Senate still persistently refused to take up the House bill. The same was true in the first session of the thirty-third Congress, though Dawson of Georgia, chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, reported favorably on the bill. Unfortunately, each time the bill came up for discussion, the debates inadvertently drifted into the Kansas-Nebraska question; consequently there was less hope than ever that the bill would receive favorable action.