PUBLIC LANDS. 



tensive territory west of it, which it has already 

 lx--a proposed in congress to organize under a se- 

 parate territorial government. Connecticut, in 

 making her cession, retained a considerable district 

 in Ohio, known by the name of the " Western (or 

 Connecticut) Reserve," which was finally ceded to 

 the L'niteil States in 1800. and by the United States 

 tc Ohio. The foundation of the ample school-fund 

 of Connecticut was laid in the proceeds of this re- 

 MTvt-d tract. North Carolina made a cession of 

 the tract of country now forming the state of Ten- 

 iu-t-e, in 1789. It was subject to a great variety 

 of claims, described in the act of cession. In 1806, 

 congress ceded to Tennessee a considerable part of 

 the public land in tlmt state. The title to the resi- 

 due is still vested in the United States, but no land- 

 office lias ever been opened by the general govern- 

 ment in this state, nor have the public lands been 

 surveyed and brought into market. It has been 

 represented to congress that all the valuable por- 

 tions of them have been long settled, and attempts 

 (hitherto unsuccessful) have been made, of late 

 years, to obtain a donation of them, or a sale of 

 them on very easy terms, to the actual settlers. 

 South Carolina ceded her claims to western lands 

 by an act of her state government of 1787. The 

 cession of Georgia alone was needed for the ami- 

 cable adjustment of this great controversy. This 

 took place, after a series of highly embarrassing 

 transactions, in 1802, when a compact was entered 

 into between the United States and Georgia, by 

 which the latter ceded to the United States all her 

 claim to the lands west of the present western 

 boundary of Georgia, and the United States con- 

 tracted to extinguish the Indian title east of that 

 line, as soon as it could be done " peaceably and on 

 reasonable terms." On the tract of land to which 

 Georgia thus ceded her claim, the states of Alabama 

 and Mississippi have been formed. The expendi- 

 ture directly incident to the acquisition of the public 

 lands may be stated as follows : but it must be re- 

 collected that other public objects, of the highest 

 moment, have been affected by those treaties with 

 Indian tribes and foreign powers by which the var- 

 ious cessions of land have been attained. The 

 Indian treaties have been frequently treaties of pac- 

 ification as well as territorial acquisition ; and the 

 political advantages of the Louisiana and Florida 

 treaties vastly outweigh, in importance, the mere 

 value of the land acquired. 



Dollan. 



Expenses of Indian treaties, from 177? to 



18*5, 3,863,379 



Payment to Georgia, under the compact 



of 1802 1,250,000 



Do. on iiccount of Yazoo Scrip, . . 4,9 0,000 



Purchase of Louisiana, . . . 15,000,000 



Do. Florida, 5,000,000 



Expenses of surveying 140 millions of acres, 2,104,000 

 Do. incidental to tn<> sales of public lauds, 



up to June 30, 1828 1,435,197 



33,667,576 



Since the date to which these computations are 

 brought large expenditures have been made, and 

 much lareer ones may be expected to be incurred 

 in extinguishing the Indian title to lands in Georgia, 

 Alabama, and Mississippi. 



The public lands were very early looked to as a 

 source of revenue to the country. As early as 

 1770, Silas Deane, then a political and commercial 

 agent of the United States in France, communicated 

 to congress & plan for the sale and settlement of the 

 territory north-west of the Ohio;* and, as has been 

 already observed, the calculations of the future 



* Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution, vol. i., p. 



value of this region formed the first great subject of 

 collision between the several states of the confeder- 

 acy. It was, however, a long time before an effec- 

 tive system was devised, by which the lands could 

 be thrown open to settlement, or made available 

 for the purpose of revenue. Bounty-lands having 

 been promised, by the continental congress, to the 

 officers and soldiers of the continental army, it 

 became necessary to redeem that pledge as early as 

 possible. The controversies between the several 

 states, and between them and the United States, 

 retarded, for some time, the fulfilment of this pledge. 

 On the twentieth of May, 1785, an ordinance was 

 passed by the congress of the confederation, for 

 ascertaining the mode of -disposing of lands in the 

 Western Territory; and this was the first act of 

 general legislation on the subject. This act may 

 be found in the new edition of the Land Laws, p. 

 349. Under it very limited sales were made, not 

 amounting, in the whole, to more than 121,540 

 acres. In addition to these sales, there were three 

 considerable sales " by special contract," as it was 

 called. The first was of " the Triangle," a tract of 

 land on lake Erie. This tract was ceded to Penn- 

 sylvania, September 4, 1788. It consisted of 

 202,187 acres, and 157,640 dollars accrued from 

 the sale. The next sale was to the " Ohio Land 

 Company," of a tract of land on the Ohio and 

 Muskingum rivers, originally intended to include 

 two millions of acres, but afterwards reduced by 

 agreement to rather less than one million. The 

 price of these lands was two thirds of a dollar an 

 acre, receivable in evidences of the public debt. 

 The Ohio Company commenced the settlement of 

 the state of Ohio in 1788. The third of these sales 

 was also in Ohio, to John Cleves Symmes, of the 

 tract of land between the Great and Little Miami 

 rivers, eventually reduced to 248,540 acres. On 

 the tenth of May, 1800, an act of congress was 

 passed, laying the foundation of the land system as 

 it now exists. It has received several modifications 

 at subsequent periods, two of which are of great 

 importance, and will presently be stated. Under 

 this law, the substantial features of the land system 

 of the United States, are the following: All the 

 lands, before they are offered for sale, are surveyed 

 on a rigidly accurate plan, at the expense of the 

 government. The surveys of the public lands of 

 the United States are founded upon a series of true 

 meridians. The first principal meridian is in Ohio, 

 the second in Indiana, the third in Illinois, &c., 

 each forming the base of a series of surveys, of 

 which the lines are made to correspond, so that the 

 whole country is at last divided into squares of one 

 rnile each, and townships of six miles each ; and 

 these subdivisions are distributed with mathemati- 

 cal accuracy into parallel ranges. The greatest 

 division of land marked out by the survey is called 

 a township, and contains 23,040 acres, being six 

 English or American miles square. The township 

 is subdivided into thirty- six equal portions or square 

 miles, by lines crossing each other at right angles. 

 These portions are called sections. The section 

 contains 640 acres, and is subdivided into four 

 parts, called quarter sections, each of which, of 

 course, contains one hundred and sixty acres. The 

 quarter-sections are finally divided into two parts, 

 called half -quarter-sections, of eighty acres each, 

 and this is the smallest regular subdivision known 

 to the system. The sectional and quarter-sectional 

 divisions are designated by appropriate marks in the 

 field, which are of a character to be easily distin- 

 guished from each other. The half-quarter-se.ctions 

 are not marked in the field, but are designated on 

 the plot of the survey by the surveyor-general 



