![]() The second, the Morrill Act, donated more than one million acres of Federal land to endow at least one university in every State of the Union. The first of these, the Homestead Act, provided, in Carl Sandburg's words, "a farm free to any man who wanted to put a plow into unbroken sod." IN JULY 1862, in the darkest days of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed two acts which were to help to mold the future of the Nation which he was then struggling to preserve. The application today: a new set of Federal actions, such as sensible price supports, the Soil Bank, stepped-up Federal research, and development of markets. That's what they did a hundred years ago. Now, one application of this principle a hundred years ago: A Federal Homestead Act, passed under Lincoln, providing free quarter sections of land to settlers. Because of the unique exposure of the farmer to economic forces over which he has no control, and the dependency of the nation upon our agricultural economy, the Federal government must concern itself in practical ways to assist in assuring a sound farm economy and income. Let us look at several examples in government.Īgriculture. My friends, it comes down to this simple statement: It is the problems that change the principles do not. In the 1860's and '70's: the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments the purchase of Alaska and the Midway Islands the First Homestead Act They begin with the Emancipation Proclamation. The ascendancy of the Party through the great part of this great century is the clearest answer to the feeble but persistent myth that the Republican Party is simply a conspiracy against change. With America and with the times, it restlessly changed sometimes growing, sometimes faltering, sometimes partially divided-in short, behaving like a normal, healthy political party in a vital, thriving Republic. It helped mold each age and was itself molded by each age-the extremist Party in one day, the champion of something called "normalcy" in another. A fact easily forgotten is that through all those years-from the first year of War Between the States in 1861 to the first year of the New Deal in 1933-the Republican Party was in office three-fourths of the time. Its propitious results are undoubted, and will be more signally manifested when time shall have given to it a wider development.Īnd the Republican Party was-and is-very much alive. This liberal policy invites emigration from the Old and from the more crowded portions of the New World. The homestead enactments relieve the settler from the payment of purchase money, and secure him a permanent home upon the condition of residence for a term of years. The preemption laws confer upon the pioneer who complies with the terms they impose the privilege of purchasing a limited portion of "unoffered lands" at the minimum price. Long experience and earnest discussion have resulted in the conviction that the early development of our agricultural resources and the diffusion of an energetic population over our vast territory are objects of far greater importance to the national growth and prosperity than the proceeds of the sale of the land to the highest bidder in open market. ![]() Immediate revenue, and not their rapid settlement, was the cardinal feature of our land system. The policy originally adopted relative to the public lands has undergone essential modifications. During the last fiscal year 4,629,312 acres of public land were disposed of, 1,892,516 acres of which were entered under the homestead act. ![]() The report of the Secretary of the Interior exhibits the condition of thoseīranches of the public service which are committed to his supervision. The lands in the hands of industrious settlers, whose labor creates wealth and contributes to the public resources, are worth more to the United States than if they had been reserved as a solitude for future purchasers. The homestead policy was established only after long and earnest resistance experience proves its wisdom.
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